Flat Earth Cosmogony:

Early Ideas about the Shape of the Earth.

The ancients had many novel ideas about the shape of the earth.

The Babylonians thought the earth was hollow, to provide space for their underworld.

The Egyptians thought the earth a square, (with four corners) with mountains at the edge
supporting the vault of the sky.

Aristotle argued for a spherical earth, for these reasons:

1. The gradual disappearance of ships over the horizon, the tops of the sails disappearing
last.

2. The shape of the curved shadow of the earth on the moon during eclipses.

3. The variation of the sun’s elevation with latitude. (This was the basis of Eratosthenes'
measurement.)

4. The variation of a star's elevation with latitude. The fact that one sees new stars as one
moves north or south on the earth's surface.

5. Matter tends to form into drops or globs, and the earth, in forming from chaotic
matter, did the same.

6. Proof by elephants: When one travels west from Greece, one finds elephants
(African). When one travels east one finds elephants (Asian). Not realizing that these
elephants are different kinds, he thought that one was traveling to the same lands by
going in opposite directions.

The early Christian Church accepted Aristotle’s spherical earth.

But a few malcontents within the Church pointed out that the Bible speaks of ‘the four
corners’ of the earth.

In the 5th century CE the monk Cosmas Indicopleustes, in his Christian Topography,
described a square earth with a heavenly vault, much like the Egyptian model. Tertulian also
was a flat-earther

Science writer Robert J. Schadewald summarizes the Biblical evidence which flat-earthers
use to justify their position..

The Bible is, from Genesis to Revelation, a flat-earth book.

While the Bible nowhere states categorically that the earth is flat, numerous Old Testament
verses clearly show that the ancient Hebrews were flat-earthers. 
The Genesis creation story says the earth is covered by a vault (firmament) and that the
celestial bodies move inside the vault. (See Genesis 1:6-8 and 1:17. Note that, even in KJV,
while there are waters “above” the firmament, the celestial bodies are "in" it.) This makes no
sense unless one assumes that the earth is essentially flat.

That the Hebrews considered the sun and moon to be small bodies near to the earth is clear
from Joshua 10:12, which gives specific localities [geographic] in which they stood still.
Isaiah 40:22 says that “God sits throned on the vaulted roof of earth, whose inhabitants are
like grasshoppers.” In the book of Job, Eliphaz the Temanite says God “walks to and fro on
the vault of heaven.” (Job 22:14. The KJV translators copped out on the last two verses, but
in both cases the implications are clear.)

That the earth was considered essentially flat is clear from Daniel, who said, “I saw a tree of
great height at the centre of the earth; the tree grew and became strong, reaching with its top
to the sky and visible to the earth’s farthest bounds.” (Daniel 4:10-11) Only on a flat earth
could one see a tree reaching the sky, from “the earth's farthest bounds.”

The New Testament also implies a flat earth. For instance, Matthew 4:8 says that “The devil
took him [Jesus] to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in
their glory.” From a sufficiently high mountain, one could see all of the kingdoms of the
world” but only if the earth were flat. The same applies to Revelation 1:7, which says that at
the second coming, “Every eye shall see him.” Finally, Revelation 7:1 refers to “the four
corners of the earth,” and corners are not generally associated with spheres.

The Biblical cosmos model derives from Egyptian sources, which had a flat earth covered by
a rounded sky vault supported at the four corners of the earth by high mountains. The ‘waters
above and the waters below’ in the book of Genesis refer to the Babylonian notion that the
waters were divided, and some remained above the sky vault. The vault was like a leaky roof
and some of that water falls down as rain.