Also, a local earth meaning of 'earth' rather than planet named Earth would mean that a claim or right to Palestine as the local 'earth'/'land' would not necessarily include the Americas or the British Isles. I suspect that among group of islands called "the British Isles" locations were chosen for pre-Roman Catholic and pre-Augustine ecclesia for the key reason that they are not part of that local earth/land even if the contiguous land extended to all of modern continental Europe. On a similar note, how can any Muslim who believes he or she would have some Biblical right to Palestine seriously claim Biblical right to the entire planet called Earth? Earth vs earth syntax games.
The point is: maybe certain landmasses were selected to be intentionally away from the Middle East so that they could serve as safe havens. Perhaps to make people confuse the Planet Earth with the local earth meaning in the Bible (i.e. earth meaning land or earth local to Palestine or Sumeria) --so they simply called everything "Earth" in public schools and hope as many believers and others will be caught in the syntax games headlights rather than seeing the fine distinctions.
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