“It is he [i.e. God] who sits above the circle of the earth.”
-Isaiah 40.22

"He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing."
-Job 26.7

"Another verse that indicates the spherical nature of our planet is Job 26:10. This verse teaches that God has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters at the boundary of light and darkness. This boundary between light and darkness (day and night) is called the “terminator” since the light stops or “terminates” there. Someone standing on the terminator would be experiencing either a sunrise or a sunset; they are going from day to night or from night to day. The terminator is always a circle, because the earth is round."
-The Universe Confirms the Bible Dr Jason Lisle


Flat Earth

“The Flat Earth Society is an active organization currently led by a Virginian man named Daniel Shenton. Though Shenton believes in evolution and global warming, he and his hundreds, if not thousands, of followers worldwide also believe that the Earth is a disc that you can fall off of.
-Wolchover, N., Ingenious ‘Flat Earth’ Theory Revealed In Old Map, Live Science, 23 June 2011


This article refutes the idea that early Christians believed the earth was flat.
http://creation.com/flat-earth-myth


“Neither Christopher Columbus nor his contemporaries thought the earth was flat. Yet this curious illusion persists today, firmly established with the help of the media, textbooks, teachers—even noted historians. Inventing the Flat Earth is Russell's attempt to set the record straight. He begins with a discussion of geographical knowledge in the Middle Ages, examining what Columbus and his contemporaries actually did believe, and then moves to a look at how the error was first propagated in the 1820s and 1830s and then snowballed to outrageous proportions by the late 19th century.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/027595904X
-Russell, J.B., Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus & Modern Historians, Praeger, 1991

Russell documents accounts supporting earth’s sphericity from numerous medieval church scholars such as friar Roger Bacon (1220–1292), inventor of spectacles; leading medieval scientists such as John Buridan (1301–1358) and Nicholas Oresme (1320–1382); the monk John of Sacrobosco (c. 1195–c. 1256) who wrote Treatise on the Sphere, and many more.One of the best-known proponents of a globe-shaped earth was the early English monk, theologian and historian, the Venerable Bede (673–735), who popularized the common BC/ AD dating system. Less well known was that he was also a leading astronomer of his day
-Henderson, T., World-famous astronomers celebrate the Venerable Bede, The Journal, journallive.co.uk, 13 February 2009

The famous evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002)
“There never was a period of ‘flat earth darkness’ among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth’s roundness as an established fact of cosmology.
-Gould, S.J., The Late Birth of a Flat Earth, in: Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History, 1st paperback ed., pp. 38–50, New York: Three Rivers Press, NY,1997


“We call the earth a globe, not as if the shape of a sphere were expressed in the diversity of plains and mountains, but because, if all things are included in the outline, the earth’s circumference will represent the figure of a perfect globe. … For truly it is an orb placed in the centre of the universe; in its width it is like a circle, and not circular like a shield but rather like a ball, and it extends from its centre with perfect roundness on all sides.”
And the leading church theologian of the middle ages, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), wrote in his greatest work Summa Theologica/Theologiae:

“The physicist proves the earth to be round by one means, the astronomer by another: for the latter proves this by means of mathematics, e.g. by the shapes of eclipses, or something of the sort; while the former proves it by means of physics, e.g. by the movement of heavy bodies towards the centre, and so forth.”
-Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Question 54: The distinction of habits, Article 2, Reply to objection 2


Orbs of medieval rulers


Figure 3: Richard II of England, coronation portrait, Westminster Abbey.
Credit: Wikipedia.org

Figure 2: Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor (1017–1056), being presented with the orb of kingship.
Credit: Wikipedia.org


Figure 3: Coin of the Byzantine emperor Leontius (d. 705)
Credit: CC-BY-SA Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com
As early as the 5th century, medieval European kings carried a symbol called the globus cruciger, Latin for ‘cross-bearing orb’, as a Christian symbol of royal power. The orb, usually a golden sphere, represented the earth—hang on, a sphere representing a flat earth—something’s wrong here … oh that’s right, it was a spherical earth. It was topped by a cross to symbolise Christ’s lordship over the earth, and held by the ruler to symbolise that he had been entrusted to rule his lands. In medieval portraits, the scale didn’t indicate physical size but importance, hence the large size of the cross.





Galileo

"shows that ‘Contrary to legend, Galileo and the Copernican system were well regarded by church officials. Galileo was the victim of his own arrogance, the envy of his colleagues, and the politics of Pope Urban VIII. He was not accused of criticising the Bible, but disobeying a papal decree.’
-http://creation.com/the-galileo-affair-history-or-heroic-hagiography

"it has been known for a long time that a major part of the churches intellectuals were on the side of Galileo, while the clearest opposition to him came from secular ideas"
-Giorgio de santillana 1902-1974 philosapher/historian of scince MIT the crime of galalio p 14 U chicago press 1955