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Common knowledge says that before Columbus, people thought the world was flat. I think that’s a bad generalization.

Consider what the Bible says in Psalm 103:12 “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

I have heard that explained a number of times as a good description of an infinite distance – no matter how far east you go, you’ll never be west. Unlike north and south – if you head north, eventually you end up going south, and vice-versa.

And that all makes sense, we can picture that on a globe.

Of course, like all analogies there is a weakness. If your sins go west and you go east, you’ll end up meeting when you circle around. But as far as your direction goes, if you go east you’ll always go east.

But that description and that explanation means that people in the Bible (that Psalm was probably written around 1000 BC, so 2500 years before Columbus) knew the earth was a globe and that north and south were the poles.

I think we need to give people of the past more credit. And the Bible too.