Back in January 2003, I read this intriguing article in World magazine, ”Scholarly legends” by Gene Edward Veith (access requires payment for non-subscribers), in which the author compares a few common errors about history to contemporary so-called “urban legends.”

I had the good sense to clip it from the magazine and file it, and just recently found it again. It deals with three specific legends that have circulated in the scholarly world and washed over into popular culture:

• Did Martin Luther base the hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” on drinking songs? (which is a topic I’ve dealt with before)
• Did medieval Christians debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin?
• Did those medieval Christians actually believe the Earth was flat?

According to the article, the answer to these questions is no, no, and no.

The last one is, of course, the consummate example often cited in support of ancient Christian superstition and ignorance. But, alas, it is baloney. Literature and art all the way back to Greek times represent the earth as round. And in the case of Columbus, the question was not whether he would sail off the edge of the world, but whether his ship could make it all the way to the other side. (Curiously, Columbus succeeded because he was wrong. No one in Europe dreamed that on the other side was a whole new world.)

It says something about the quality of critical scholarship when such nonsense continues to be peddled as fact, even today.

Without a doubt, thought leaders of the past have been wrong about many things in science and theology. But in many cases they were limited by technology and easy access to information. Today we do not have those excuses to anywhere near the same degree — and so our mangling of history is all the more shameful. It is high time we ditch these and other “scholarly legends,” or at least cease to pay attention to those who perpetuate them.