It's not enough to simply "read" the Bible. One must actually "study" it. Believe me when I tell you:
There's a Huge difference.
I do study it. Ofcourse, logically, studying it doesn't
include agreeing with you. You should learn to seperate the two, they are not the same thing at all.
You reference "planets" in the bible. You have done a good job of telling me what the earth means, but are you going to tell me what "planet" means? What is the Hebrew word for planets? Does it mean spherical mass? Does it mean the same as, "stars"? Can we conflate the two?
You see - I am not at all dumb, even if I do lack a knowledge of Hebrew.
If you are stating that the earth would be unique to those people,
then, then I am fine with that.
I study the bible, to know what it means. A knowledge of the original language is good, but I seek to know more than the syntax.
"Owph", for example, "flying thing", can put to bed silly claims about bats being one of our feathered friends. So I agree that studying words is good, but the words themselves don't give you the meaning, especially of the whole thing, if the whole thing is only relevant from a position of Christian belief. Therefore I study OUR bible. Sure - you might study scriptures, in a disjointed rational-fashion, which might give you some interesting syntax-insights.
That is why I say that it's just not right for this antiquated usage to be mucking up the Holy Scriptures. Modern scholars know better and say as much, if you are willing to hear what they have to say. Problem is, Bible producers get their paychecks from "good ol' boys" who want to leave well enough alone. It might be bad for business if several million "Bible Believing Christians" quit supporting those institutions which have kept them in ignorance. i.e. "The blind leading the blind."
Lot of claims in there, authority, epithets concerning ol' boys etc....I won't deal with those off-topic messy things that don't prove your case in the least. I'll deal with the things that you have earned merit with;
What I will say is that it is still irrelevant as to whether it meant a planet or not. If it did - fine. As you have indicated, it clearly didn't. Unfortunately for you, logically, even if you don't realise it, this is not particularly consequential. All it means is that a few ignorant Christians have now got bananas in their trumpets.
You seem to make a lot of allusions, it could just be my devious mikey-mind, but I suspect you attempt to undermine the Christians's understanding of the bible. All you can do is undermine an uninformed Christians lack of understanding, but this doesn't mean we are all the same or uninformed.
A lot of Christians, including me at times, are guilty of not digging into things, and taking them in context, but we do study the bible, we just don't agree with your conclusions.
You see, I study ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny, and I read about endogenous retro-viruses, and when I understand the topics, I don't agree with the evolutionary conclusions, even though I study it. I try to study the boring hypothetics of the cladistics etc...but it seems you conflate agreement with "studying". It strikes me as a little arrogant, that if I don't agree with you, then I haven't studied, or understood properly. This is a boring ad nauseum trait with some folk at EvC. Just because I believe my prayers are answered, doesn't mean I am not aware of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning and confirmation bias, and memory bias, and the problem of the modus ponen. Just because I am not in agreement with lining up craniates or looking into pseudogenes as something more relevant than what chance would show, doesn't mean I don't understand. Just because I don't accept that branchial folds are gill slits doesn't mean I didn't read properly. Just because I favour a sound syllogism rather than epithets and personal attacks, doesn't mean I am a poor deluded mikey. Just because you don't understand how I think or how I can possibly disagree with rational thought, doesn't mean I haven't studied epistemology, and the Gettier problem, JTBs, or the higgs boson.
(sorry for the tangeant

)
For me, Genesis is clear, God formed the land, the seas were gathered together in one place, which indicates a pangea. (Indicates atleast). There are many other biblical passages which might evidence that the earth meant the dry parts of the planet, sure - but that doesn't preclude the earth as being NOT planet earth. That's logic 101. Again, if you don't know it, it aint mikey's fault!
I must leave you now but before I do, here's one more glimpse of how ridiculous it can be to imagine the biblical term "earth" as if it meant the planet.
Sure - I know what you mean. It would be like saying, "now the flood started to cover the planet", rather than
earth.
I don't have any great problem with what you're saying though, I just don't think these type of arguments for or against Christians, ultimately mean much.
Okay - there are translations in favour of the planet. But they also don't change things such as Leviathan or Behemoth or flying serpants to "dinosaur", even though their monstrous descriptions would better suit it.
The atheist would likely say they were mythical creatures, the Christian, dinosaurs. It is fun to look into, but ultimately, I stay away from those arguments out of experience of them going nowhere.
I agree that it is not fair for the Christians to mis-use terms. I concede that planet is a mis-translation, but to me, it's not a big deal, because for me, there is only one bible, and it will be no less amazing or true, when I pick it up to meditate on it, as usual.
(My last post, as I intend to lurk at most).