Suzanne wrote:

===>That is true about Colombus, and probably about
most educated people of his time who accepted the
scientific view of the spherical earth over the biblical,
actually Sumero-Babylonian, view of
a flat earth covered with a star-studded sky dome.

The biblical authors were men of their time, and they lived, quite
literally, in the world of their time. And it had a solid ceiling. (Did
you notice that even the English word “ceiling” is based on the root
word for heaven, as in “cel estial”?)

“For the Sumerians the universe was a tripartite structure – heaven (the
place of the high gods), earth (the realm of humans), and the
netherworld (the realm of deceased humans and the mortuary gods).
According to S.N. Kramer, since the Sumerian word for tin is ‘metal of
heaven,’ it may be that the Sumerians thought that the floor of heaven
was made of tin or some comparable metal. It also appears that the
Sumerians considered the sky to be a vault or dome because we read of
heaven having a zenith.” (J. Edward Wright, The Early History of Heaven.
NY: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 29.)

The Earth is likened to a clay tablet in the Book of Job by God himself:

"Have you ever in your life commanded the morning,
And caused the dawn to know its place,
That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,
And the wicked be shaken out of it?
It [the earth] is changed like clay under the seal:
And they stand forth like a garment
And from the wicked their light is withheld,
And the uplifted arm is broken." (Job 38:12-15, NASB)

A flat clay tablet is being spoken of, whose surface is "changed" or
"takes shape" by the pressing of a magistrate's (or businessman's) seal
upon the flat clay as was common practice back then. The seals
themselves could be flat or even cylinders rolled on the flat clay.
Today there are thousands of such ancient clay tablets known to
archeologists. And if the flat clay tablet is "changed" by the
impression of a seal pressed upon it, and the clay tablet is a metaphor
for "the earth" being changed by the light of dawn upon its surface,
then you can easily see that the Book of Job is speaking of a flat earth.

When the book of Genesis described a "flood" that covered the whole
world, and reduced the world to its pre-creation watery beginning, the
story states that the "flood gates of the sky" were "opened." Neither
did the author of that fable suppose that all the water above the
firmament fell to earth, but instead he assumed that the "flood gates"
had to be "shut" to stop more water from falling, and the creator had to
promise not to flood the earth again with such waters. So, the Bible
agrees with Luther that "the waters above the firmament" remained "up
there," held firmly in place by a firmament--and this agrees completely
with ancient tales of creation in which the world arose from a division
of waters that encompass creation still, and which the creator keeps at
bay via a firmament above the earth.

“He established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not
totter, forever and ever.”
(Psalm 104:5)

“The world is firmly established, it will not be moved.” (Psalm 93:1 & 1
Chronicles 16:30)

“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who hath
stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof
fastened? Or who laid the corner stone thereof?” (Job 38:4-6)

“For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he set the world on
them.” (1 Samuel 2:8)

“It is I who have firmly set its pillars.” (Psalm 75:3)

“Who stretched out the heavens...and established the world.” (Jeremiah
10:12)

SEE
http://www.infidelguy.com/heaven_sky.htm

There is nothing shameful about this, the HUMAN authors of those
books compiled in the Bible simply didn't know any better.
But to attribute their ignorant statements to an omniscient deity
by calling it "God's Word", is just asinine. -- L.