Who Said the Earth Was Flat?
From Creation Moments on Oneplace.com by Ian T. Taylor & Mark W. Cadwallader
April 22, 2026 · 2 min
About this episode
The episode debunks the myth that people historically believed the earth was flat and discusses biblical references to the earth's shape.
Many of us have heard the old legend about why Christopher Columbus was told he could not sail too far west. According to the legend, Columbus was repeatedly told that he could not sail west to India because the earth was flat. If he sailed too far, he would fall off the edge. That story was a piece of fiction cooked up by Washington Irving in the 1830s.Only one writer can be found in Western history who believed the earth was flat—that writer was Lactantius in the third century AD. All the others, for example, Pythagoras, still noted today for his mathematical proofs, simply assumed the earth was spherical. Two hundred years later the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes, also assuming that the earth was round, calculated that the earth was 25,000 miles in circumference. He was off by only 200 miles. A century later, using Eratosthenes’ figure for the earth’s diameter, Hipparchus calculated that the moon was 240,000 miles away from the earth. He was off by only 100 miles—less than half a percent!Nor does the Bible teach that the earth is flat. Isaiah 40:22 tells us how God looks down on the inhabitants of a round earth. Job 26:7 talks about the earth floating in space, hung on…
People in this episode
Hosts: Ian T. Taylor, Mark W. Cadwallader
Topics covered
- myths about the earth
- history of science
- biblical references
- spherical earth
- Columbus legend
Keywords
- earth flat myth
- Columbus
- Lactantius
- Eratosthenes
- Isaiah 40:22
- Job 26:7
- spherical earth
- history of science
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: Isaiah, Job
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