Thought for the Day: The Earth is Shaped Like a Ball -- We and Most of the Educated World Always Knew That

The first mishna in the third chapter of masechta Avodah Zarah (daf 40b) discusses what sorts of statues are considered idols. One of flavor that the sages consider an idol is a statue holding a כדור. Now, as far as I know, כדור means a spherical object and nothing else. Yet, Rashi decided it needed extra explanation and gives the old French equivalent: פילוטא/pelota -- which, from my Spanish I know also means "ball". And in case you don't get it yet, Tosafos (41a, ד''ה כדור) weighs in: because the world is round, as recorded in the Yerushalmi that Alexander the Great went up until he saw the world like a ball () and the ocean (that is, the ocean that surrounds the whole world) like a basin.

First, of course, apparently the ancient world knew very well that the world was round like a ball. What's my proof? The reason a statue of a person holding a globe is considered an idol is that the globe represents the world and the statue is meant to show that he (person holding the globe) considers himself to be holding the whole world under his influence like holding a globe in his hands. That means it was so obvious that a globe represented the earth, that it put the statue immediately into the category of idol that is meant to be worshiped and needs to be destroyed.

Huh... what about the historical facts we all learned in school about how good ole Christopher Columbus became a hero by demonstrating that the world is round and not flat? Turns out, that is a mistake; to quote a Wikipedia article: The issue in the 1490s was not the shape of the Earth, but its size. I actually remember hearing rumors like that at the time, but... who believed rumors like that in those days? And no Google nor Snopes.

It appears, though, that some cultures did believe in a flat earth and may have been that the uneducated masses in the middle ages thought that. If so, perhaps that is why Rashi and Tosefos both felt compelled to add extra explanations here just to underscore that: No, not like you may have heard in the marketplace, the earth is really round and we always knew that.

I have so many qualifiers in that last paragraph because I found this goody on another Wikipedia page, quoted from The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion (2011):

The Israelites also imagined the Earth to be a disc floating on water with an arched firmament above it that separated the Earth from the heavens.

Well, well, well... isn't that a shock! Spreading mis-information (aka lies) about the Jewish people. Hard to imagine, no? Sadly, as recent events have underscored... no, not hard to imagine.