Orthodox Galactic Taxi Driver
They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.
( Job 17:16 )
The pillars of the earth are incorporated into a 3D model of a Biblical spherical earth in which they are part of earth’s internal structure. They do not require us to believe that the earth is flat.
Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit, and her company is round about her grave: all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which caused terror in the land of the living.
( Ezekiel 32:23 )
If you are on a downward course and leave the lower mantle, once you enter the great gulf there is nothing to stop your fall into the core. This means that the pit refers to everything below the mantle.
The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.
( Ezekiel 32:21 )
If you are skeptical that there really is an underworld realm of the dead you should consider two things:
(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
( Ephesians 4:9-10 )
The lower/nether parts of the earth is the lower mantle which we have identified as the foundations of the world/mountains/hills and the belly of hell. The pit is the molten core of the earth.
Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.
( Psalms 18:15 )
We illustrate a clear difference between the Hebrew erets – earth, and tebel – world. The foundations of the world is the crust and mantle which was exposed as the ocean floor.
Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly,
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.
When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.( Jonah 2:1-7 )
Jonah gives us direct observation of the pillars of the earth. Something directly observed is called empirical. Thanks to Jonah the pillars of the earth are neither metaphorical nor theoretical, they are empirical.
Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.
( Jeremiah 31:37 )
Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
( 2 Chronicles 4:2 )
Evil people want you to believe that the Bible gets the value of Π wrong so that you will reject it and forfeit the gift of everlasting life through faith in Jesus Christ. However the Bible gets the value of Π exactly right.
Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
( Genesis 3:23 )
The Hebrews had a well developed idea of life after death. For them physical death, the grave, was a portal into a complex underworld realm. The grave is merely the beginning of what happens next.
God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven; To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.
( Job 28:23-25 )
If you want to believe in flat earth no one is going to stop you. However nothing in the Bible, either in the meaning of words or the context of passages, requires you to believe that earth is flat and has an edge.
