Silmarillion - Akallabêth

[Galin]

Perhaps it might help (or not!) to add that while Elendil would arguably have been exposed to the Elvish point of view, I think he must have been born in a time after the Elves of Aman had ceased to sail to Numenor, and so would not have directly spoken to these Eldar from the West, at least. And given that DA relates: '... For in the youth of the world it was a hard saying to Men that the earth was not plain [flat] as it seemed to be, and few even of the Faithful of Anadune had believed in their hearts this teaching;...'

It may be that Elendil had met with 'mixed' notions as a child.

While an external observation, FN seems more explicit that the world was bent into a sphere. Can Elendil's AK be interpreted in a different light? That is, if one reads AK on its own -- without the addition of any other material which provides notions of a flat world made round -- is it necessarily flat-to-round? At least certainly? For instance, one might say the world was 'made round' and mean 'originally made round', or take the 'Gates' to be poetic. Although maybe I've forgotten something here.


Anyway, even if there's no getting around AK being a flat-to-round version, perhaps even Elendil agreed with those Faithful who found a round world hard to accept? And at the time, some might have considered that Sauron wouldn't necessarily be lying about everything, even if in general he was an enemy of the Faithful. The author of DA seems to be writing well enough after Elendil's day in any event.