Two prominent scientific attacks on the Bible are allegations that:

• The Bible teaches that the earth is flat
• The Bible teaches that the sky is a glass dome, suspending water above it

Let's take a look at each of these, and their relevant verses, individually.

The Flat Earth

The verses that are most commonly alleged to be teaching a flat earth, along with a brief explanation, are as follows:

• Isaiah 40:22
  • This verse says "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers". This is consistent with a spherical-shaped earth, as a circle is a 2D geometric concept. From any given direction, a sphere looks like a circle.
• Isaiah 11:12, Revelation 7:1, 20:8
  • All of these passages use the phrase "four corners/quarters of the earth". This is an idiom, which we still use in precisely the same way today. It signifies the entirety of the planet, from all four principle directions - North, South, East, and West.
• Job 28:24, 37:3, 38:13, Psalm 48:10, 59:13, 65:5, 67:7, 72:8, 98:3, 135:7, Proverbs 17:24, 30:4, Isaiah 26:15, 40:28, 41:5, 41:9, 43:6, 45:22, 52:10, Jeremiah 10:13, 16:19, 25:31, 51:16, Micah 5:4, Zechariah 9:10, Acts 13:47, Romans 10:18
  • All of the passages use the phrase "the ends of the earth". It is impossible to read all of these passages, and not understand that this is a reference to the whole area of dry land, from sea to sea, or occasionally, the people living in that area. If a person can read all of these references, and not conclude that, they have an issue with reading comprehension, and wasting more ink here will not help that problem.
• 1 Samuel 2:8, Job 9:6, Psalm 75:3
  • All of these verses refer to the "pillars of the earth". All of these passages are in explicitly poetic sections of the Bible - Hannah's song in 1 Samuel, Job, and Psalms. This is poetic language referring to the earth's foundation (Psalm 104:5, Proverbs 8:29, Jonah 2:6). This is made clearer by the fact that the Bible talks about "the pillars of heaven" (Job 26:11) - obviously, symbolic.
  • Further, the Bible says that the Lord "hangs the earth upon nothing" (Job 26:7), which would refute the position that literal pillars are being referred to - a position that mandates egregiously bad reading comprehension, to the point of intellectual dishonesty.
• Job 38:12-14
  • This passage talks about earth being "turned as clay to the seal". The earth taking shape like clay under a seal could refer to a sphere just as well as a disk, as a general description of terraforming. This could also simply be referring to the fact that the earth spins, which actually affirms a spherical earth. Finally, note again that we are reading a poem, which is an explicit signal to avoid hyper-literal interpretations.
• Daniel 4:11, 4:20
  • These passages both are from Nebuchadnezzar describing a dream that he had, in which there was a tree "whose height reached unto the heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth". Here, "all the earth" is overstatement by a Pagan king describing a dream that he had.
• Matthew 4:8, Luke 4:5
  • These passages give the account of the Devil taking Christ up to a tall mountain, and showing Him "all of the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time". The Devil, in his one opportunity to tempt Christ, most likely took Him up to a mountain overlooking a single kingdom, and then supernaturally showed Him all the others, again, "in a moment of time". This was a supernatural event, so asserting that Christ saw all the kingdoms naturalistically makes as much sense as saying that He and Satan physically climbed the mountain together.

None of the above mandate a flat earth view, and in fact, some of them contain proofs for a spherical earth.

The Firmament

A distinct, yet related accusation to the flat earth is the assertion that the Bible teaches a clear dome "firmament", which is suspending water above the earth, giving the sky its blue color.

The primary verses on this issue are in Genesis chapter 1, in which we read:

Genesis 1:6-20

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

From the above, we see that:

• The firmament divides waters from waters (Genesis 1:6-7), and this is still the case (Psalm 148:4)
• The firmament is called "heaven" (Genesis 1:8)
• The moon, and the stars, including the sun, are in the firmament (Genesis 1:14-18)
• The birds fly in the open firmament of heaven (Genesis 1:20)

Putting this together, we can see that the "firmament" is used to refer to outer space, as it is where the stars are. It is also used to refer to the closest part of earth's atmosphere, in the which birds fly, with waters above (clouds, and the abundant invisible water vapor in the atmosphere), and waters below (lakes, oceans, etc.).

There is no hard-and-fast barrier that constitutes the "firmament". It is a term that can be used to refer to virtually all of the universe, past a few feet above sea level.

Conclusion

While this article is primarily aimed at defending the Bible from the scientific attacks of Atheists, it is just as much for Christians who foolishly believe that the earth is flat.

The Bible does not teach that the earth is flat, and if you are a Christian who holds this view, it is absolutely sinful (Proverbs 24:9), and willfully ignorant to the point of denying indisputable reality.