I am Torah observant and interested in your curriculum. I believe the Bible supports a flat earth and not a globe. I have a big problem with so many of the science books because of this. Can I please ask your opinion on this issue?
We completely understand your concerns. It is not easy to find a curriculum that will teach truth, one which we can trust when teaching our children.
We do not teach a flat earth. However, we have looked through our curriculum to see where this would affect you. To the best of our knowledge, the only subjects that would be affected would be geography and science.
For Geography, this would possibly affect our lessons on map making. You can download the following three lessons to get an idea of how we teach it:
We have 4 years of Science. In Year 1, we cover the days of creation. Year 2 covers the Flood. Year 3 covers science that appears in the rest of the Scriptures. Year 4 covers the lives of major scientists and compares what they believed with Scripture.
In Year 1, we cover astronomy during our section on what was created on the fourth day. We do not discuss flat earth at all. However, we do compare a sun-centered universe with an earth-centered (geocentric) universe. You may download the following lessons, so that you can see what is discussed:
In Year 2 of science, we use the following website as our “textbook,” so you may want to look through it, to see what they teach as well.
At this time, we are still in the process of writing Years 3 and 4 of science, but we are planning at least a short unit about flat earth during Year 3, and possibly again in Year 4. We plan to present arguments both for and against the theory, in a similar style to how we discuss heliocentricity and geocentricity in Week 15 of Science Year 1 (above).
Our goal throughout our curriculum is to use Scripture as our primary textbook and compare all things to it! We try to help the students research for themselves to find the answers, rather than just give them answers directly. I’m sure we don’t always succeed, since we all have blind spots and preconceived ideas — even us! 🙂 However, we also hope that those who are teaching will just use our curriculum as a suggestion, not as dogmatic truth which you MUST teach.
Thank you for your thoughts. I also believe the bible supports a geocentric, not heliocentric universe. I’m still learning a lot about the flat, fixed earth, mainly with more questions than answers…but I definitely don’t want to teach my children lies. 🙂 Thanks again for your suggestions here, and for being so respectful.
I’m right there with you Katie. I plan on teaching a geocentric , fixed , flat earth to my daughters, as their primary (since that is was scripture seems to support most; not just NASA) and will teach them what the primary idea among secular beliefs are as well (heliocentric, spinning globe). Both are truly just theories, when we get down to the nitty gritty as none of us (common man) can go up above the whole earth and prove this for ourselves and NASA has been proven unreliable in many ways. We truly, as with all things, have the Bible as our sole source of truth in the matter. I know it seems contrary to what some science books would tell us but we have chosen to trust the scripture’s description above that and pray for guidance on how best to teach it to our kids. Just pray and Yah will direct your path.
We also strongly see Scripture describing a geocentric and non-moving earth. The Scriptures clearly describe the sun as moving around the earth. We even felt led to incorporate this truth into our family business. Our company’s name is “Sunbeam” and our logo is “We revolve around you”. We are still researching the shape of the earth (globe or some sort of variation of flat/curved). It’s great to see people being open to testing tradition against Scripture!! May Yah lead us all into His Truth!!
I appreciate you addressing this. There are an increasing number of TO believers, it seems, rejecting the indoctrination of a heliocentric universe and examining much more closely what the scriptures say about the shape of the earth, just as they did about evolutionary theory. As you say, we are to encourage our children to RESEARCH and it is our responsibility as parents to teach them the truth as we understand it.
So grateful for your biblical approach to incorporate both models and experiments to test both models in your curriculum. I’m not going to teach my children things contrary to scripture, and would like them to be true to the definition of true science.
Just wondering why you did not teach flat earth if you believe that’s correct biblically? Just curious why because I also believe biblically the Bible supports flat earth not sphere. I have studied tons of scripture in regards to it and now have a hard time believing in the spinning ball. I teach my fathers world which is a Christian curriculum that only refers to the spinning ball. I’m having a hard time sitting down and teaching my kids the globe theory from that curriculum because i do not believe it to be true. How do you navigate this?
Nicole,
I can recommend a book that has been very helpful to me:
https://flatearthdeception.com
I can understand your frustrations. I absolutely do not think any parent should teach things that they feel violate Scripture. However, I hope I can encourage you to see a *third* view (other than sun-centered or flat earth), which fits Scripture very well. In our curriculum, especially in Science Year 1 (weeks 15, 16, 18, 19, 22), we teach a geocentric option that I have a feeling would answer a lot of your objections to a heliocentric earth.
https://homeschoolingtorah.com/category/member-home/science/science-lesson-plans/science-year-1/
I hope this helps! ~Anne
Thank you so much for your Scriptural and truthful approach to teaching the next generation. I see this post was originally written in 2016. Is there any update you can offer here for Years 3 and 4? And, how young do you or would you start teaching the geocentric model? Our son was just gifted a planets and solar system book that we don’t really want to read to him. Thank you!