"Okay, but what about ... ?"
A few more tenacious defenders of the myth try even harder and come up with a passage from Isidore of Seville that they think is a clincher. Isidore's Etymologiae was an encyclopaedia (of sorts) compiled by the sixth century bishop of Seville (c. 560-636) and organised according to his often highly fanciful etymologies for key words. Given that the early medieval period had very few such works of general reference, it was a widely copied and read text. Therefore if Isidore said the earth was anything other than round, surely this indicates that there was some dispute or doubt on the matter, at least in the early part of the medieval era. And some feel this passage indicates just that:
Quote
"It is in virtue of its circular form that we speak of the orbis terrae (orb of the earth), because it is like a wheel; hence the name for a small wheel is orbiculus. The ocean flowing around the land encircles its limits on all sides. It is divided into three parts, the first is called Asia, the second Europe and the third Africa." (Isidore, "De orbe" in Etymologiae, XIV.2)
If here we have one of the most influential scholars of the early Middle Ages saying the earth is shaped "like a wheel" then surely this is clear evidence of at least some belief that it was something other than round, right? Well, actually, wrong. Sorry.
Elsewhere in the Etymologiae Isidore makes it clear that he understood the earth to be spherical. For example, here is how he defines and describes the heavens:
Obviously if the spherical heavens are enclosing the earth and are "equal on every side", the earth too must be spherical. And in another of his works, De natura rerum, he makes the same point:
The explicit references here to "the sphere" and "the globe" here are quite clear. Finally he makes the point again in Book XIV, just before the "like a wheel" passage quoted above:
So what was he saying when he goes on to write in the next section of Book XIV that the "orbis terrae" is "like a wheel"? The key to understanding this apparent contradiction lies in the quote from De natura rerum above. He notes that the ocean "bathes virtually the entire globe". This follows the Greeks, who thought that most of the earth was covered in ocean and that the three continents took up only a portion in the northern hemisphere, with the existence of any land masses in the southern hemisphere merely a conjecture, as discussed above. More specifically, following Aristotle, they held that the continents occupied the northern temperate zone, between the frigid arctic zone and the torrid and impassable equatorial one:
So how can the "orbis terrae" be "like wheel" while the "globus" is a sphere? Because when Isidore is referring to the "orbis terrae" he's referring to the inhabited northern temperate zone in which the three continents sit and he's imagining this zone as a three dimensional slice with the land masses on the outer rim of the "wheel". There is no contradiction here once we understand the cosmology Isidore inherited from Aristotle (via Macrobius).
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Isidore's
"orbis terrae" can be like a wheel when it's a spherical wheel, like a globe spinning on its axis.
You know, like popular rubber ball furniture casters:
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You missed another shortcoming of Isidore's book:
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When he said that there are three continents, Asia, Europe and Africa, he left out Australia, obviously. He also left out North and South America, but who's splitting hairs? The point is, Africa is joined to Asia by continuous land mass north of the Red Sea, which only was breached by the building of the Suez Canal in modern times. But there is no such isthmus connecting Europe to Asia.
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He says the ocean waters encircle the continents on all sides. But they DON'T. They don't encircle Africa through the Red Sea, or else we'd never have needed the Canal, and they obviously don't encircle Asia giving a waterfront facing Europe, even though Russians would be overjoyed at the prospect of a western seaport region! Ukraine would be absolutely in heaven.
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Even to our day, the distinction between Europe and Asia remains, rendering it two continents, even while it is most obviously one continuous land mass. The fact is, only a POLITICAL and/or CULTURAL separation keeps the two distinct from each other.
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Therefore, the popular concept of Europe being a continent and Asia being another continent, making two continents (instead of one) survives even to this day. This fact goes to show how old ideas die so very slowly. We're now in an age when the whole world wants to be indistinguishable, a one-world unity of government and culture, without national boundaries nor cultural discrimination (read: racism), so why should Europe be separated ideologically from Asia when it's obviously one continuous body of land?
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Because the word
Europe (derived from the pagan goddess
Europa) is a different word from "
Asia?"
Uhhh... not sure that's a good reason!!
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Russia occupies the majority of what we call Asia but I've never known any Russian who wants to be called "Asian," even one from Vladivostok, which is indubitably more closely attached to Korea than it is to Moscow! But I've known not a small number of Japanese and Singaporians who wouldn't mind for even a MINUTE if they could drop the moniker "Asian." Some even get surgery to make their eyes less, well, you know, "slanted." (They assure us with a SINGLE VOICE their eyes are NOT slanted! But then they go and have the operation anyway.)