Editing Flat Earth (section)

====Near East====
{{further|Ancient near eastern cosmology|Egyptian mythology|Biblical cosmology}}
[[File:Baylonianmaps.JPG|right|thumb|''[[Babylonian Map of the World|Imago Mundi]]'' Babylonian map, the oldest known world map, 6th century BC [[Babylonia]].]]
In early [[Egyptian mythology|Egyptian]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Frankfort |first1=H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WoQIAQAAIAAJ |title=Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man; an Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East |last2=Wilson |first2=J. A. |last3=Jacobsen |first3=T. |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1951 |isbn=978-0-14-020198-7 |series=An Oriental Institute essay |page=54 |issue=v. 1}}</ref> and [[Mesopotamian myths|Mesopotamian thought]], the world was portrayed as a disk floating in the ocean. A similar model is found in the [[Homeric]] account from the 8th century BC in which "Okeanos, the personified body of water surrounding the circular surface of the Earth, is the begetter of all life and possibly of all gods."<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Dream of Reason|last=Gottlieb|first=Anthony|date=2000|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-0-393-04951-0|page=[https://archive.org/details/dreamofreasonhis00anth/page/6 6]|url=https://archive.org/details/dreamofreasonhis00anth/page/6}}</ref>

The [[Pyramid Texts]] and [[Coffin Texts]] of ancient Egypt show a similar cosmography; [[Nu (mythology)|Nun]] (the Ocean) encircled ''nbwt'' ("dry lands" or "Islands").<ref>''Pyramid Texts'', Utterance 366, 629a–29c: "Behold, thou art great and round like the Great Round; Behold, thou are bent around, and art round like the Circle which encircles the nbwt; Behold, thou art round and great like the Great Circle which sets." ''(Faulkner 1969, 120)''</ref><ref>''Ancient Near Eastern Texts'', Pritchard, 1969, p. 374.</ref><ref>''Coffin Texts'', Spell 714.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=October 2017}}

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.<ref name="Berlin 2011 189">{{cite book |last1=Berlin |first1=Adele |title=The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780199730049 |editor1-last=Berlin |editor1-first=Adele |chapter=Cosmology and Creation |editor2-last=Grossman |editor2-first=Maxine |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hKAaJXvUaUoC&pg=PA189}}</ref> The sky was a solid dome with the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars embedded in it.<ref>{{cite journal |journal= Westminster Theological Journal |volume= 53 |year= 1991 |pages= 227–40 |title= The Firmament and the Water Above |author= Seely, Paul H. |url= http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Seely-Firmament-WTJ.pdf |access-date= 2010-02-02 |archive-date= 2009-03-05 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090305132849/http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Seely-Firmament-WTJ.pdf |url-status= dead }}</ref>