The devil, leading him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
Every nation on Earth can be seen simultaneously from a single high point.
Show this passage in
The cited passage
What current science says
On a spherical Earth with a radius of about 6,371 km, the distance to the horizon from any height is limited by curvature. Even from the top of Mount Everest (8,849 m), you can only see about 336 km in any direction on a clear day. That's roughly the distance from New York to Boston — not exactly 'all the kingdoms of the world.' To see the entire surface of a sphere, you'd need to be infinitely far away (or the Earth would need to be flat). The math is simple geometry: you literally cannot see around a curve, no matter how tall your mountain is.
What the text says
This comes from Luke 4:5. The text describes being shown 'all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time' from a high vantage point — which is only possible if the Earth is flat.
Three honest ways to read this passage
-
As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
-
As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
-
As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.