Philosopher,
Learned people during the middle ages believed the world was round. A Greek scholar, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, came close to getting the circumfrence correct — and he lived during second temple times! Muslim scholars during the middle ages knew this Greek science and improved on this estimate. Christian scholars thought that the earth was round even before they discovered the much more advanced Muslim science in the later middle ages. The myth that people during the middle ages thought the earth was flat seems to have originated with the American writer Washington Irving in the 19th century.