Re: Flat Earth Chronology

[Gary Karshner <karshner@STMARYTX.EDU>]

> Can someone please give a chronology of the belief in a flat Earth.
> Egyptians? Babylonians? Hebrews? Chinese? Old Testament? Etc?
>
> When did belief in a spherical like Earth become common?

Jim,
        Common to whom and accepted by whom is a better question. I believe it was
the Archbishop of Marseilles (CA 1350AD), who in pointing out that
Aristotle and the Bible did not always agree. Whereas Aristotle said the
world was round, the Bible stated it was flat. Using, if memory serves, the
scattering of man to the ends of the earth after building to tower of
Babble -spheres have no ends and the Revelation 7 quote referring to its
four corners. Aristotle, who following Pythagoras, noted the shadow of the
Earth was round no matter where it was observed in the sky so it must be a
sphere. The Archbishop of course pointed out that in such questions the
Bible was a better authority than Aristotle and the observations of Nature.
        This view point, a kind of double think, was common in philosophy (Physics
is Natural philosophy) until at least Newton. Where most scholars felt for
example that Aristotle's view of the Universe was correct, but Ptolemy's
model was only necessary when you need the elements of an eclipse and not a
picture of what was really happening. This kind of thinking is present in
even astronomers up until Kepler. For both Copernicus and Brahe present
their models as simple circular motion ones, except when it came down to
doing positional calculations. To me this makes Kepler's demand for one
simple model to fit the data all the more impressive, as earlier
astronomers almost built into their assumptions that the simpler models
were the correct ones and demanding accuracy was somewhat secondary and
probably impossible.
        At the time of Columbus, most academic scholars probably believed
Aristotle's arguments, but many ecclesiastics would have followed the
Archbishops views, along with much of the common folk. Even those sailors
that might have started view the world was round could have been subject to
doubt.
        Columbus principle opposition came not from flat earthers but scholars
that accepted Eratosthenes circumference of the world and not Columbus's
that was about half that size. They realized that a nine thousand mile trip
over open ocean was foolhardy. They were also unaware of Columbus's
knowledge of the trade winds. It was this knowledge that let Columbus sail
continuously westward, frightening his crew that realized with the wind
perpetually sending them westward the trip home would be very difficult as
these small ships couldn't sail into the wind. Columbus knew that by
sailing north he could pickup the east winds that would take him home,
something unknown to his crew.
        How common a view point is tricky, there is a write up in a St. Louis, Mo.
paper in the 1840's that is an interview with a prospective teacher who was
ask if he thought the world was flat or round. He said he thought the
latter, but was prepared to teach it either way. The school board said then
for him to stick with the traditional view and teach it as flat!
        Intellectual history is not nearly as simple as military history battles
are often decisive, whereas wrong ideas die slowly as we are all aware.

Gary
Gary Karshner

St. Mary's University
San Antonio, Texas
KARSHNER@STMARYTX.EDU