I suppose, but the image of a compass, with N, E, S and W effectively pointing in directions that mark off four "corners," is of long standing. Hey, I spent the day with puzzle people, so I'm leaning towards abstraction.
jd On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 11:45 AM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 5:57 AM, Jon Delfin <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Not to defend the gasbag, but you might want to take your complaint to >> the American Bible Society. "The four corners of the earth" is a >> phrase that can be found in their book. From that to "of the globe" is >> a short step. > > I don't think we can blame the Bible for this. While there have been > educated people who understood our planet to be spheroid since before the > common era, the Bible is mostly written by communities that shared the > ancient cosmology of a flat earth capped by an overarching canopy of stars > and planets. The Hebrew word "kanaph" (see Isaiah 11:12) and the greek word > "gonia" (see Revelation 7:1) can mean something like "section" or "quadrant" > but are most often best translated as "corner" (this whole subject is the > center of pretty intense argument among the fundamentalists, many of whom > want to say that the Bible, since it can never be "wrong" in any way, never > implies that the earth is flat). > > I wouldn't blame the Bible for using the construction "four corners of the > earth" - but once the idea of a roundish earth is internalized (signaled by > the use of the word "globe") then I think we have entered the realm of the > self-contradictory. I would have to describe that trip, from a coherent (if > inaccurate) view presented in the Bible to the incoherent view implied in > the common phrase as more than one of a short step. > > -- > TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "TV or Not TV" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
