Is Heaven The Sky?

"One day, I was contemplating what the ancients thought when they looked up at the sky. I pondered, 'What did the early Hebrew people actually think about the sky?' My journey lead me to a most obvious realization, and it was that, Heaven IS the Sky! It seemed SO obvious. How was this overlooked? -- Reginald Finley Sr

Dr. Bob Price and I team up to look deeply into what the ancients thought about the sky above our heads.

Heaven and Its Wonders, and Earth:

The World the Biblical Writers Thought They Lived In

Dr. Robert M. Price and Dr. Reginald Finley Sr.
(2016)

INTRODUCTION

Biblical literalists find themselves in a strange double bind when it comes to the numerous Old Testament references to the common world-picture of the ancients. Such readers seek with all their hearts to believe whatever the Bible may say on any subject. But the challenge of believing Scripture where it speaks of unseen and unverifiable realities is one thing. The challenge of believing it when it says things contrary to massive amounts of irrefutable evidence is another. And in the case of biblical cosmological references, it is the second challenge they seem to be facing.

Put briefly, the Bible seems to any casual reader to describe the earth as a flat disk afloat upon a vast cosmic ocean. The sky it represents as a solid dome with windows and gates, and as resting upon great pillars thrust up from below. The sun, moon, and stars appear to be set into the heavenly vault, to be smallish, and at no great distance from the earth. Very much ancient evidence—both textual and archaeological—makes it clear that this is simply the common world-picture yielded by ancient natural philosophy (i.e., scientific speculation as yet unaided by observational technology such as we possess).

Indeed, we should think the same thing were we in their place, for the world surely appears to be flat, albeit of variable altitude. The sky appears to enclose the flat vista on all sides and to descend to meet its edges in whatever direction one looks. Rain falls from the sky and water wells up from beneath. Such a view of the world is not the product of stupidity but rather of shrewd and careful observation. The unaided eye and mind could not be blamed for thinking this is what the world was like. And of course it was the very same human ingenuity that worked on the challenge of observational technology until such wonders were created, and our views of cosmology were revolutionized.

So where does the literalist stand? He is in the impossible position of trying to make the Bible the norm and source of his beliefs, on the one hand, and yet to keep the Bible seeming believable by the standards of modern knowledge on the other. He cannot bring himself to deny what modern instruments have shown to be the truth of cosmology, so he cannot believe the world looks as described in Scripture. But neither can he bring himself to admit that the Bible is mistaken.

In order to defend the literal truth of the Bible—the proposition that it describes things the way they are, whether things on earth or things in heaven—he must resort to non-literal reinterpretation of the cosmic-descriptive passages of the Bible. It is an odd form of “literalism”! What a choice! To take the Bible literally in all its statements? Or to read it literally where its authors seem to have expected to be taken literally?

All biblical scholars face the same dilemma, though our choice is different: we are willing to read it literally but not to oblige ourselves to believe whatever it says. That way we feel we can afford to be honest in our discernment of what the text is saying. Fundamentalists may think we are risking terrible danger that way. But we would have to return the question to them: are you any better off twisting the text in the name of literalism? Because if you can do it here, on this subject, you can probably do it anywhere else you may sense you have to. Indeed, you probably already are.

Literalists remain in this conceptual Slough of Despond because they feel trapped in it, mired in it. If they admit the Bible writers pictured the world the wrong way, despite their ostensible divine inspiration, they suspect they will not be facing Saruman (Darwin) only, as menacing as that might seem. No, soon they will be facing down the mighty Sauron (Bultmann) himself. They know there will be no way to defend against his claim that Christianity cannot stop at shedding the ancient three-story world picture but must strip away the encumbrances of mythology, too. And that would be the end of supernaturalism and miracles.

     — *“Faith from that point on rests on the rotten foundation of self-deception, ‘suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.’”*

Indeed, it is to that fatal misstep that we owe the pervasive dishonesty of apologetics: anything to defend the party line.

In what follows, we want to summarize the work of J. Edward Wright, Edward T. Babinski, and Stephen Meyers, demonstrating the identity of the biblical and other ancient cosmologies. In a sense, it is all wasted effort, because there is virtually nothing new to add, and everything we say has long been common knowledge to anyone familiar with the study of the ancient Near East. This essay is basically a remedial course for those who have thought it best to shield themselves from common, mainstream scholarly knowledge.

And yet it is always best for the student not to take for granted what “most scholars say.” It is better to know why they say so. It is best to base one’s opinions on a consideration of the evidence, and this essay is a brief survey of sufficient of it.

One word of caution: some readers will be tempted to evade the obvious implications of this survey by supposing that, while the Bible does indeed describe the world in the same terms as the ancient cultures surrounding them, in the case of the biblical writers, all is but metaphor and conventional speech—just as when we casually remark, “Did you happen to see the sun rise this morning?”

But that is gross special pleading. That is to make a gratuitous, though convenient, assumption for “your side” that cannot be afforded to the “other side.” If, instead, we want to be consistent, we should have to suppose the same is true of all the ancient writers and sculptors who portray the world in the ancient way. We would then be assuming that references to “ancient” cosmology were extravagant metaphor and that all the ancients really understood the world to be arranged as modern astronomy and geology tell us.

But—save for the need to extricate oneself from a tight spot—why suppose such a thing? And then what to make of the history of astronomical discovery? They must already have known everything. You see just how massive and indeed surreal it becomes.

That way, as the saying goes, lies madness.

IN HEAVEN’S NAME

All the ancients, like many alive today, spoke of “heaven” and meant “the sky.” The Bible even uses the same words for both, interchangeably. “The kingdom of heaven” is [literally] the same as “the kingdom of the sky.” The Greek Titan Ouranos (Uranus) is simply the Sky, the Heaven, personified.

You will say I have a sure grasp of the obvious. Why is it necessary to point out such a truism? Simply because modern thinking on heaven as the abode of God and the location of the blessed afterlife has undergone a hasty retooling in light of modern knowledge—namely, that there is no absolute up or down, that the sky and outer space are not up there but out there.

Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, was not being frivolous when he announced there was no God to be seen there. Most people in past ages would have expected to see him there. Is that not where Jesus ascended?

Jack Chick and other contemporary sectarians are still quite happy to pinpoint which nebula holds the gate of the divine realm! But most Christians have reacted to this secularization of the sky and of space by redefining the religious heaven, the theological heaven. And they have done so in a vague manner drawn more or less from science fiction.

Now people speak increasingly of heaven as “another dimension,” whatever that means. It is surprising how little comment this great shift has occasioned. No one who says it appears to have much in mind. It is simply a way of trying to fend off the facts of science.

“God turned out to be absent from the heaven of the sky? Okay, then, there must be some other heaven for him to be in!”

In what follows, my goal is only to show that the Bible writers certainly drew no such distinction.

They would have bet Yuri Gagarin that he would have seen God.

FOR THE WORLD IS HOLLOW, AND I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY

“Let there be a firmament to separate the waters from the waters” (Genesis 1:6).

Exactly what did the biblical writers picture when they had God create “the firmament”? They must have been thinking of something like a giant version of the Astrodome.

The word firmament, as the very word (containing the element firm) implies, denotes a solid dome of metal or crystal. The Latin noun firmamentum comes from the verb firmare, “to make firm.” It is a good word to choose to translate the Hebrew raqiya, which denotes “a dome beaten out of metal sheets.”

“Firmament” appears 17 times in the KJV. In each case, it is translated from the Hebrew word raqiya, which meant the visible vault of the sky. The word raqiya comes from raqa, meaning “to expand by beating out,” such as beating out a metal to give it shape.

Thus, Elihu asks Job, “Hast thou with him spread out [raqa] the sky, [which is] strong, [and] as a molten [cast] looking glass [mirror]?” (Job 37:18)

“And gold leaf was hammered out (raqa)…” (Exodus 39:3)

“Silver spread into plates (raqa)…” (Jeremiah 10:9)

Ezekiel 1:22 describes “the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature… as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above.”

The biblical authors were men of their time, and they lived, quite literally, in the world of their time. And it had a solid ceiling.

(Did you notice that even the English word “ceiling” is based on the root word for heaven, as in celestial?)

“For the Sumerians the universe was a tripartite structure – heaven (the place of the high gods), earth (the realm of humans), and the netherworld (the realm of deceased humans and the mortuary gods). According to S.N. Kramer, since the Sumerian word for tin is ‘metal of heaven,’ it may be that the Sumerians thought that the floor of heaven was made of tin or some comparable metal. It also appears that the Sumerians considered the sky to be a vault or dome because we read of heaven having a zenith.”
— J. Edward Wright, The Early History of Heaven (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 29

Speaking of the most ancient representations of a firm firmament:

• The ancient Egyptians depicted the firmament in the form of a god's arched body, with toes and fingers on the horizons of the flat Earth below (represented by a prone goddess). They also used a less mythologized form: the “wall-ring” to represent the firmament above.
  
  

• The Babylonians, in their creation epic Enuma Elish, depicted the firmament being constructed out of the body of a dead goddess named Tiamat, who was cut in half to form the heavens above and the Earth below.
  
  

“One Babylonian tablet fragment even mentions a ‘Tiamat eliti’ and a ‘Tiamat sapliti’—that is, an Upper Tiamat (Ocean) and a Lower Tiamat (Ocean)—which corresponds to the Hebrew belief in ‘waters above and below the firmament’ in Genesis 1:7.”
— Ed Babinski

Tiamat or Tiamu is the sky in ancient Babylon—the goddess of watery chaos. Marduk splits her like a shellfish into two parts: half of her he set up and ceiled it as sky, pulled down the bar and posted guards. He bade them to allow not her waters to escape.

Many scholars agree that Tehom (used in the Hebrew creation account) and Tiamat share a common ancient root that references deep and chaotic waters.

GEMSTONE HEAVENS

Though the very word underlying “firmament,” as we have seen, implies composition out of hammered metal plates, sometimes the solid matter out of which the heavenly dome is constructed is pictured as crystalline.

“According to the Akkadian text Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts 307, the cosmos is composed of six levels: three celestial and three terrestrial.
The upper heavens are luludanitu stone…
The middle heavens are saggilmut stone…
Bel sat there in a chamber of on a lapis-lazuli throne…
They belong to the stars.
The lower heavens are jasper.
He drew the constellations of the gods on it.”
— Wright, p. 34

This multi-story heaven appears to anticipate the later Ptolemaic cosmology with its numerous crystalline spheres, but that is not our concern here. We do not claim that all the ancients, even within a single culture, had exactly matching conceptions of the universe, only that the general trend certainly looked nothing like the universe as portrayed by modern scientific calculation.

Exodus 24:9–10 assumes precisely the same sort of a sapphire (or lapis-lazuli—same word in Hebrew) heaven pavement:

“Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel; and under his feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself.” (NASB)

Not surprisingly, Ezekiel 10:1 takes for granted the same idea:

“…in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubim there appeared over them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne.”

SITTING UPON THE FIRMAMENT

As “God Most High,” the deity is naturally to be depicted as sitting on a throne at the tip-top of the heavenly dome: where else? Thus it is common to find both literary and pictorial representations of God enthroned atop the firmament, both in the Bible and in adjacent cultures.

“One such depiction is the ninth-century tablet of King Nabuapaliddina (885–882 BCE) from the temple of the sun god Shamash in the city of Sippar… The wavy lines at the bottom of this scene indicate water, and beneath the waters is a solid base in which four stars are inscribed. These waters, then, are the celestial waters above the sky. This tablet depicts the god Shamash enthroned as king in the heavenly realm above the stars and the celestial ocean.”
— Wright, pp. 36–37

In just the same manner, Yahweh “sits enthroned over the flood” (Psalm 29:10a, RSV).

Isaiah 40:22 states:

"[It is] he that sitteth [which can also mean rests] upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof [are] as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in."

This verse has occasioned considerable debate, as fundamentalist apologists have seized upon it as a foothold for their attempts to read modern cosmology anachronistically back into the text.

“According to [Henry] Morris this verse describes a spherical earth. The Hebrew word is hwg. I believe that this refers to the circular horizon that vaults itself over the earth to form a dome.”
— Stephen Meyers, "A Biblical Cosmology." Th.M. Thesis, Westminster Theological Seminary. 1989, pp. 63–69

Similar opportunistic use is made of Job 22:14:

“Thick clouds [are] a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit (hwg) of heaven.”

But it is vain. hwg is “a primitive root to describe a circle:—compass,” as per Strong’s Concordance. Notice that hwg is most definitely not a sphere. There are perfectly adequate Hebrew words for sphere or spheroid if that is what one wanted to mention.

First, there is the word meaning “ball,” rwd (duwr).
Second, the word for “pot,” dwd (duwd), a pot for boiling, or by resemblance of shape, a basket.
Third, the word meaning “round,” tlglg (gulgoleth), a skull (as round) or a head.
Fourth, there is the Babylonian loan word llg (galal), the verb “to roll,” based on the description of a type of water pot shaped like a human skull.

And the Bible never once uses any of these fine words to describe the earth. Again, we find the natural denotation of the word in cognate cultures of the day.

Stephen Meyers makes this point well:

“The Babylonian Map of the World clearly shows a circular earth surrounded by a circular sea (Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum 1960, part xxii, pl.48; for a translation see Wayne Horowitz, 'The Babylonian Map of the World.' Iraq 50: 1988, pp. 147–165). The Šamaš Hymn, which is written to the Sun-god, says, 'You climb to the mountains surveying the earth, you suspend from the heavens the circle of the lands.' The phrase 'the four corners of the earth' which in Akkadian is kip-pát tu-bu-qa-at eerbitti, can be literally translated 'the circle of the four corners.'”
— Grayson, Albert, Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, Vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1972, p. 105

Upper and Lower oceans with circular earth are depicted from Tutankhamun (King Tut), 14th Century BC.

In Egyptian literature, the Hymn to Ramses II found on various stelae inside the temple of Abu Simbel says:

"like Re when he shineth over the circle of the world."
— Adolf Erman, The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians, Trans. Aylward Blackman. London: Methuen & Co., 1927, pp. 258–259

Another similar phrase in The War Against the Peoples of the Sea from Ramses III’s temple at Medinet Habu states:

"They laid their hands upon the lands as far as the circuit of the earth."
— James Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969, p. 262

Keel, in The Symbolism of the Biblical World (pp. 37–40), provides many Egyptian drawings showing a circular earth surrounded by a circular sea.

(http://www.bibleandscience.com/science/bibleandscience.htm)

Again, Babinski notes:

“Round-earth creationists at this point usually change the subject by concentrating their 'scientific' attentions on another verse in the book of Isaiah, 'He who sits above the circle of the earth' (Isaiah 40:22), that they say implies a spherical earth. It doesn't. Just read the verse in context: 'Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in' (Isaiah 40:21–22).”

Isaiah's "circle" thus reflects ancient notions of a flat earth. Isaiah 40:22 describes God as seated on the zenith, the highest point directly overhead. Thus, the verse implies that "earth's dwellers," "all mankind" according to Psalms 33:13–14, are clearly visible from a very high point directly overhead.

Such imagery fits most naturally the conception of the earth below as a flat disc, not a globe. Moreover, there is an obvious link between Isaiah's "circle of the earth" and the "circle" inscribed at creation on the flat surface of the waters in Job 26:10 and Proverbs 8:27.

ENTHRONED UPON THE CHERUBIM

Wright tells us:

"As a king, Yahweh has a throne in heaven, and the image of this heavenly throne was certainly patterned after the cherubim throne Solomon had his Phoenician craftspeople fashion for the temple (1 Kings 6:23–28). The immense throne was placed in the Holy of Holies inside the temple. The winged creatures (cherubim and seraphim) described as part of the throne or as the means of transport in Isaiah 6, and Ezekiel 1 and 10 are common features in the iconography associated with ancient Near Eastern thrones… Like any earthly king, Yahweh, too, sits on a winged cherubim throne… The throne the prophet Ezekiel saw in his vision was made of lapis-lazuli, a bluish stone that was widely used on the thrones of ancient Near Eastern kings.”
— Wright, pp. 76, 78

Such cherubim-flanked thrones are depicted on the sarcophagus of King Hiram of Byblos and on a carved ivory panel from Megiddo.

Yahweh’s flying throne chariot is described with precision in Ezekiel 1:22–26:

"And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above. And under the firmament were their wings straight... And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads... And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne (kicce'), as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it."

In Ezekiel 10:19–21 the cherubim are at least partially described. They are certainly not the angels of Christian folklore. In fact, the word “angel” (malachi in Hebrew) simply means “messenger” and is never used of either seraphim or cherubim.

"And the cherubim lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in my sight: when they went out, the wheels also [were] beside them, and [every one] stood at the door of the east gate of the LORD'S house; and the glory of the God of Israel [was] over them above. This [is] the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river of Chebar; and I knew that they [were] the cherubim. Every one had four faces apiece, and every one four wings; and the likeness of the hands of a man [was] under their wings."

Cherubs occur frequently throughout Near Eastern iconography. They usually appear as winged lions with human faces, winged humans, or, in Assyria, winged bulls with human faces. They are like the Greek chimaera, composed of parts of disparate animals.

They serve two purposes in the Bible:

1. They are God's treasure guardians, which is why he posts one at the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:24), two (symbolically) atop the lid of the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18–20), and one to guard Adam in Eden before the Fall (Ezekiel 28:12–14, reading “With an anointed guardian cherub I placed you.”)
   
   

2. They are personifications of the storm clouds which transported the flying throne of the storm God Yahweh (precisely as they carried the chariot of his Syrian counterpart Baal Hadad). This is what we see them doing in Ezekiel 1, but they are also mentioned carrying the divine throne chariot in Psalm 18:9–14:
   
   

"He parted the heavens and came down, a dark cloud beneath His feet. He rode on a cherub and flew, soaring on the wings of the wind. He made darkness His hiding place, dark storm clouds His canopy around Him. From the radiance of His presence, His clouds swept onward with hail and blazing coals. The Lord thundered from heaven; the Most High projected His voice. He shot His arrows and scattered them; He hurled lightning bolts and routed them." (Christian Standard Bible)

Yes, one might, if one felt the need, dismiss all this as metaphor, but then one must ask if that’s all the Syrians next door meant when they said the same things of Baal? Why should we think so?

AXES MUNDI

In ancient Egyptian cosmology, J. Edward Wright says:

"The celestial plane itself is either supported by pillars, staves, or scepters, or is set on top of the mountains at the ends of the earth… Although these supports appear typically in pairs in Egyptian iconography, the pair in fact represent four supports, thus ‘the four corners of the earth.’ The tombs of Pharaohs Tutankhamun, Seti I, and Ramses II, in addition to the figures of the celestial cow or woman, have alternative depictions of the sky being supported by pillars or by people holding staves of some kind. These images also appear in many texts."

Wright cites examples:

"I see the glory of thee and the fear of thee in all lands, the terror thee as far as the four supports of heaven."
— Victory Hymn of Thutmose III

"O thou… who shinest from thy Disk and risest in thy horizon, and dost shine like gold above the sky, like unto whom there is none among the gods, who sailest over the pillars of Shu…"
— Book of the Dead 2:102

"Great Circle, the sea, the southern countries of the land of the Negro as far as the marsh lands, as far as the limits of darkness, even to the four pillars of heaven."
— Luxor inscriptions of Ramses II

The idea that these pillars kept the earth in place inspired the scribe of Thutmose III to state in his inscription describing Thutmose’s renovations of the Karnak Temple in Luxor:

"In order that this temple be established like the heavens, abiding upon their four pillars…"

Amenhotep III, regarding the many pillars in the Karnak Temple, states:

"Its pylons reach heaven like the four pillars of heaven."

Otherwise, the sky rests on the tops of the mountains:

"I know that mountain of Bakhu upon which the sky rests…"
— Coffin Text 160

Depictions of the sky resting on the mountains appear in two forms: flat or vaulted.

"These images, and the hieroglyphic term for sky or heaven (pet), indicate that the ancient Egyptians thought the celestial realm was a vast expanse that was either flat or slightly convex."
— Wright, pp. 13–16

Wright also notes:

"The celestial realm is often thought to have a river or other vast body of water running across it." (p. 10)

From the Hymn to Aton (period of Amenhotep IV, Akhenaten, 1380–1362 BCE):

"For thou hast set a Nile in heaven, that it may descend for them and make waves upon the mountains, like the great green sea…"
— Wright, p. 11

Ed Babinski notes:

"The Bible also talks about the pillars of the earth. In Job 9:6 it says, 'Who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars (ydwmu) tremble.' The LXX says, 'Who shakes the earth under heaven from its foundations and its pillars (stuloi) totter.' In Psalm 75:3 it says, 'The earth and all its inhabitants are melting away; I set firm its pillars (ydwmu).' The LXX says, 'I have strengthened its pillars (stuloi).' In I Samuel 2:8 it says, 'For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s and he had set the world upon them.' The Hebrew word for pillar is yqxm. The root is qx meaning 'to melt' (Brown, Driver, Briggs, 1980, 848). Therefore, yqxm means 'a molten-like pillar.' The only other place it occurs is in I Samuel 14:5 referring to a mountain. Probably the pillars of the earth are the same thing as the foundations of the earth which were mountains."

Stephen Meyers adds:

"In Ugaritic we have seen that there are two mountains, trgzz and trmg, that bind the earth. Gibson says that these twin mountains were founded in the earth-encircling ocean, and held up the firmament, and also marked the entrance to the underworld (1978, 66). The mountains are said to bind the earth. This may indicate that the mountains surrounded and supported the earth as well as confined the netherworld. The mountains were seen as the foundations of the earth, and the support pillars for the heavens. The Hebrews probably held a very similar view as the verses above indicate, as well as later Hebrew writings. So the phrase 'pillars of heaven' and 'pillars of earth' are referring to the same mountains. One emphasizes the height of the mountains holding up heaven, the other emphasizes the depth of the mountains that hold the earth firm."
(http://www.bibleandscience.com/...genesis1_pillarsearth.htm)

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

It seems logical that, as Wright explains:

"Those who ascend to the celestial realm may also arrive there by ascending a celestial ladder fashioned by the gods."
— Wright

Examples from ancient Egyptian texts:

"Now let the ladder of the god be given to me, let the ladder of Seth be given to me, that I may ascend on it to the sky and escort Re as a divine guardian of those who have gone to their doubles."
— Pyramid Texts 1:166

"Hail to you, daughter of Anubis, who is at the windows of the sky, the companion of Thoth, who is at the uprights of the ladder! Open my way that I may pass."
— Pyramid Texts 1:93
(Wright, p. 22)

Of course, this is precisely what Jacob sees in Genesis 28:12:

"He had a dream, and, behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and, behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it." (NASB)

This certainly seems to presuppose no great distance between the ground and the dwelling place of God.

Nor is it only angels (messengers) who take the trip. The Bible is full of tales of Yahweh coming down to see how man is doing and what man is up to. This makes perfect sense if Yahweh was thought of as a man in the sky.

In many visions of Yahweh, he actually resembles man in some fashion.

Image the Royal Museum

HOW WAS GOD DEPICTED?

This Phoenician silver drachma has the image of Yahweh on it. It was made around 350 BC and is now in the British Museum. It depicts a bearded divinity enthroned over a winged chariot wheel.

Admittedly, this is a non-Jewish representation of Yahweh. But it is the first recorded effort of an ancient people to depict Yahweh as Zeus. Notice the solar wheel, symbolic of the sun, and wings which represent being aloft and in motion — once again a man in the sky! Notice the eagle in his hand. The inscription to the left of the eagle's head says, Yahweh.

Yahweh appears again looking like his Greek cousin Zeus in a third-century CE/AD wall mosaic in a Jewish synagogue in Palestine. It becomes more and more evident that the notion of a strictly formless “aniconic” deity was exclusively the product of abstract philosophizing on the part of the Deuteronomic priests during the Babylonian Exile and did not represent any more ancient Israelite belief.

Not only so, but it did not even manage to drive the older conceptions from the field, as we would tend to suppose from our Sunday School assumption that biblical teaching simply equals ancient Israelite belief — an illusion the Bible itself partly fosters but also belies, in that it is clear the priests and prophets had their work cut out for them getting the people as a whole to shun polytheism and to drop idolatry.

Ever since Erich von Däniken popularized the notion in the early 1970s (in his silly book Chariots of the Gods?), many have adopted the idea that the gods of ancient myths were astronauts, voyagers to Earth from distant planets. It is worth noting that, if you were to hop into your time machine and go back to some ancient Greek, Mesopotamian, Viking, Vedic Hindu (or biblical Hebrew!) and tell him:

"Look, I hate to break the news to you, pal, but what you took for gods were really just aliens from space! They were people like us, but with powerful weapons, flying machines, and maybe longer lifespans! They just came from up there, not down here!"

The recipient of your “news” would probably say:

"Yeah? So what else is new? That’s exactly what we thought!"

You see, that’s all the ancients meant by “gods.” They weren’t Thomas Aquinas or Paul Tillich! And it is of such a god that the Bible speaks — a deity with a posterior who uses it to sit upon a throne, up there.

Deuteronomy 26:15 beseeches God:

"Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy people Israel, and the land which thou hast given us, as thou swarest unto our fathers, a land that floweth with milk and honey."

And the Bible tells us that, sometimes when he looked down, he did not like what he saw.

And then, we must assume, he took a climb down that ladder.

The Tower of Babel is a good illustration. 

THE TOWER OF BABEL

by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563)

Babel is composed of two words: “baa” meaning "gate" and “el,” meaning "god" in Hebrew. Hence, "the gate of god."

"And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top [may reach] unto heaven..."
— Genesis 11:4

"And the LORD [=Yahweh] came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built."
— Genesis 11:5

Just before Yahweh destroys the Tower, he says:

"…now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."
— Genesis 11:6

In other words, whatever humans put to mind, they can accomplish. At this time, humans were building a tower to heaven — it must have been a plausible task.

The idea that God had to come down from heaven to see what was going on — and had to stop them for fear that they would reach heaven — lends credence to the idea that heaven was really conceived as a physical place in the sky and not too far away at that.

Now, if Yahweh is troubled by man's accomplishments, why are the Egyptian pyramids still standing? The largest pyramid (449.5 feet) is much taller than any recorded ziggurat — and still standing!

Let us not forget our modern-day architectural achievements. A new building just built in Taipei, Taiwan is 1,676 feet tall.

We are already in God's heaven.

THE WATERS

We have already observed that Genesis 1 has the flat earth resting upon a cosmic ocean, with another whose waves pound downward against the submarine hull of the firmament. Shamash’s throne is shown resting atop the waters above the stars.

The second commandment makes reference to the subterranean ocean when it urges us:

"You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."
— Deuteronomy 5:8; Exodus 20:4

Under the earth? Good luck making sense of this passage in light of modern science! We only have microscopic and small organisms in water found under the earth’s crust. Odd that God would be concerned with graven images of protozoans!

But the text makes perfect sense once we recall that the ancients believed that the earth was flat and supported by pillars over the dark waters underneath. They believed that huge, massive creatures like whales came from beneath the Earth.

The first two lines in Genesis point the way to the truth of what they believed. Genesis 1:1 says:

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Nothing is said of creating water, at least not so far. Then Genesis 1:2 states:

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

Here are the waters — but their presence seems taken for granted. Nothing is said even here about their creation.

Young Earth Creationists attempt to explain that the "waters above the earth" reference an immense vapor canopy or pre-flood reservoir that later drained during the Great Flood. Genesis 7:11 reads:

"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."

Now of course, one could resort to metaphor, but this makes perfect sense using the ancient model described above. The firmament kept the waters back. God opened the windows of the firmament, and water began to fall and flood the Earth.

Young Earth Creationists state that these waters were drained completely, which is why we obviously don't see a vapor canopy above us. But if true, after the flood, the waters shouldn't be mentioned again in the Bible — yet they are.

Psalm 148:4 states:

"Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that [be] above the heavens."

Once again shamayim is used here in all instances of “heaven.”

It is interesting to note that water is mayim in Hebrew. In Aramaic, heaven is dabashmaya, and water is maya. As you can see, the -ya (Aramaic) and -im (Hebrew) endings allude to the plurality of what is being mentioned.

As mentioned earlier, shamayim literally means "from the waters."

For the next three sections, one can do no better than to condense and reproduce some material from Ed Babinski’s fine website:
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/geocentrism/cosmology.html

(But don’t blame him for our hilariously witty section headings!)

WELCOME TO THE FLAT EARTH SOCIETY!

First, Daniel 4:10–11 says:

"There was a tree in the midst [or center] of the earth, and its height was great. It reached to the sky, and was visible to the end of the whole earth."

Such visibility (i.e., "a tree of great height at the center of the earth and seen to the end of the whole earth") implies a flat earth. However, this verse may be explained away as depicting a "mere dream" of Daniel's — a "metaphorical image" of the extent of Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom.

However, the fact that flat earth imagery surprised no one in the story of Daniel also implies that it was taken for granted. A similar scene occurs in the New Testament as well:

Second, Isaiah 42:5 and 44:24 state that at creation God "spread out the earth" — the Hebrew verb for "spread" being used elsewhere in Scripture to depict a flattening or pounding. Also, if the earth was not "spread out," but "rolled up tightly like a ball" at creation, the writer could have said so. We find the requisite Hebrew construction in Isaiah 22:18, where a man is "rolled up tightly like a ball." Hence, the earth at creation was spoken of as being flattened or pounded flat.

Third, Isaiah 11:12 declares:

"Gather (them) from the four corners of the earth,"
and Revelation 7:1 adds:
"I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth."

Young Earth Creationist Henry Morris suggests that rather than "corners," a more precise translation of the Hebrew is “four quarters of the earth,” simply meaning the four directions. This, of course, begs the question: why would four (presumably flat) directions — North, South, East, and West — remain the norm even to the extent of a psalmist rejoicing:

"He removes our transgressions from us, as far as the east is from the west." (Psalm 103:12)

On a globe, east and west are not infinitely far away.

Fourth, Matthew 4:8 states:

"The devil took him [Jesus] to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world [Greek: cosmos], and their glory."

One could see "all" the kingdoms of the world from a very high mountain if the world were flat. This verse has been explained away as a "vision" received on a very high mountain. However, if it were only a vision, why take Jesus to a mountain at all?

Furthermore, Jewish writings composed between the Old and New Testaments, like the Book of Enoch, share an unquestionably flat earth perspective:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm

Fifth, throughout Scripture the shape and construction of the earth is assumed to resemble that of a building — having a firm immovable foundation and a roof (or canopy):

• "He established the earth upon its foundations, that it will not totter, forever and ever." (Psalm 104:5)
  
  

• "The world is firmly established, it will not be moved." (Psalm 93:1)
  
  

• "For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and he set the world on them." (1 Samuel 2:8)
  
  

• "It is I who have firmly set its pillars." (Psalm 75:3)
  
  

• "Who stretched out the heavens... and established the world." (Jeremiah 10:12)
  
  

• "Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in." (Isaiah 40:22)
  
  

• "Stretching out heaven like a tent curtain." (Psalm 104:1–2)
  
  

• "In the heavens... in the true tabernacle (tent), which the Lord pitched, not man." (Hebrews 8:2–3)
  
  

• "The One who builds his upper chambers in the heavens, and has founded his vaulted dome over the earth." (Amos 9:6)
  
  

• "Praise God in his sanctuary, praise him in his mighty firmament." (Psalm 150:1)
  
  

As readers may have noticed, it is impossible to demonstrate the superiority of a spherical interpretation in any of these cases.

Those who reject flat earth representations typically turn to a favorite verse:

Job 26:7:

"He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth on nothing."

The Hebrew for "on nothing" means literally "without anything." Thus it may be paraphrased:

"Without support other than God Himself."

Foes of the flat earth interpretation of the Bible emphasize the difference between this verse and ancient Hindu cosmology, where the earth rests on a turtle’s back, then elephants, then something else ad infinitum.

However, ancient Egyptians, who were also flat earthers, did not feel the need for supports ad infinitum. Egyptian texts speak of divine power as “The Support of all things.” Egyptian gods claimed:

"I laid the foundations of all things by my will."
and
"I conceived a place to stand. I uttered its name, and the standing place at once came into being."

Thus, Job's verse simply reflects ancient thought about divine sustaining power — not spherical science.

Most importantly, Job 26:7 does not mention the earth’s shape at all. It is less "spherical" than even Isaiah 40:22.

Meanwhile, Job uses language implying a flat earth:

• "(God's) measure is longer than the earth." (Job 11:7, 9)
  
  

• "Who stretched the line on (the earth)?" (Job 38:5)
  
  

• "He looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens." (Job 28:24)
  
  

All imply a flat expanse.

In Job 38:16–18, God harasses Job with questions that likewise reflect a flat earth conception:

"Have you entered into the depths of the sea? Or have you walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of darkness? Have you understood the expanse of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this!"

God also asks:

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" (Job 38:4)
"On what were its bases sunk?" (Job 38:6)

Jeremiah 31:37 similarly speaks of the "foundations of the earth" being searched out.

As for the earth’s movement — is there a biblical reference to earth’s rotation?

Henry Morris claims one exists in Job 38:14 (KJV):

"It [the earth] is turned as clay to the seal."

However, other translations read:

• "It is changed like clay under the seal." (RSV, NASB)
  
  

• "The earth takes shape like clay under a seal." (NIV)
  
  

The Hebrew word does not imply "rotation" but "change" or "taking shape."

Morris further imagines the "seal" is impressed on a spinning potter’s wheel, but the ancient metaphor almost certainly refers to a flat clay tablet receiving an impression — a far better fit for the flat earth imagery.

Thus, Job 38:14 is not a reference to a rotating spherical earth, but to a flat earth illuminated by dawn, like a tablet stamped under a seal.

Psalm 148:3–4 continues the ancient picture:

"Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, stars of light! Praise Him highest heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens!"

And finally, in Genesis, when the "flood" covers the earth, the text states that the "floodgates of the sky" were "opened," and then had to be "shut" — supporting the idea that the ancient firmament kept remaining waters at bay.

The Bible agrees with Luther that “the waters above the firmament” remained up there, firmly in place — matching ancient tales of cosmic waters held back by divine architecture.

HERE COMES THE SUN

The Bible does not list the number of planets in our solar system. Back then, planets were called “wandering stars” because they appeared to be tiny lights in the sky like all other “stars,” but the ancients noted that some “stars” did not rotate in the same enormous circle each night around the pole star as did all the rest.

The word “planet” is derived from the Greek word for “wanderer.”

The wandering stars known by the ancients included Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Add the above five “wanderers” to the sun and moon, which also traced their own unique paths across the sky, and you get a total of seven major heavenly objects that stood out from the stars.

The ancients imagined that these seven were special gods overseeing the earth below. For instance:

• The Babylonians referred to the “watchful eye” of Shamash, the sun, who notes all things.
  
  

• A prayer to Nergal (Mars) states: "With Sin [the Moon] in Heaven thou perceivest all things."
  
  

Compare this with the Hebrew notion:

"These seven [lights] are the eyes of the Lord which range [wander] to and fro throughout the earth."
— Zechariah 4:10

Nor does the Bible reveal that its authors were aware of the earth being one more “wandering star” like the rest. Instead, “the heavens and the earth” are spoken of as the two halves of creation, with the earth forming a firm foundation and the heavens “spread out” above it in an equally firm fashion.

According to Genesis 1:16, only “two” great lamps were created:

"God made two great lights — the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night — he made the stars also."

The Hebrew term translated as “great lights” literally means “great lamps” — the two great lamps being the sun and the moon — with no recognition of the fact that every twinkle in the sky might be another great lamp like the sun, or perhaps a planetary body larger than the earth with many moons (great lamps) of its own.

Rather, the Bible depicts stars as relatively small objects, created after the earth, and “set” in the firmament above it — objects that may even “fall” to earth at the end of time.

Revelation 6:12–14 states:

"There was a great earthquake... and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casts her figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places."

And Revelation 7:1 states:

"I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth."

Finally, Revelation 21:1 concludes:

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea."

From a Babylonian seal cylinder in the British Museum. [No. 89,110.]

HEAVEN’S GATE

Shamash was the common name of the sun-god in Babylonia and Assyria. Might it be purely coincidental that shamash and shamayim are both related to something aloft or a celestial body? Maybe not!

Shemesh is actually the Hebrew word for sun.

Why is this important? Shamash is often depicted as a winged god rising from between twin mountain peaks with rays emanating.

Malachi 4:2 says:

"The Sun (shemesh) of righteousness arises with healing in his wings."

From a Babylonian seal cylinder in the British Museum (No. 89,110).

Wright says:

"The divine celestial bodies (sun, moon, and stars) pass through doors or gates as they become visible in the sky. Descriptions of the celestial bodies entering the visible sky via gates are augmented by cylinder seals depicting the sun god rising between mountains that are oftentimes surmounted by open gates."

This imagery is verbalized in prayers to the sun god Utu:

"Utu [= Shamash], when you emerge from the great mountain, the mountain of springs, when you emerge from the Holy Hill, the place where destinies are decided, when you emerge from where heaven and earth embrace, from heaven’s base."

"O Shamash, on the foundation of heaven thou hast flamed forth,
Thou hast unbarred the bright heavens,
Thou hast opened the portals of the sky."
— Wright, pp. 33–34

THE MAN IN THE SUN CAME DOWN TOO SOON

The solar deity Shamash not only appears in liturgical vestiges of the Old Testament — old sun hymns and the like — but also as a heroic character. The Anglicized form of the name Shamash may be more familiar: Samson.

Anyone can see that, though numbered among the Judges in the Book of Judges, Samson is very different from all the others. He is no prophet, no seer, no military commander — just a rogue with superhuman strength. Samson is the Hebrew Hercules, perhaps literally. Both were originally sun gods, as is clear from Samson’s name (“the Sun”!), his long hair (representing the sun’s rays), and more.

As with Joshua and others, Samson retained his place in scripture only by being demoted to a legendary hero. What Jaan Puhvel says of Indo-European myth applies equally to the myths of ancient Israel:

"Myth can be transmitted either in its immediate shape, as sacred narrative anchored in theology and interlaced with liturgy and ritual, or in transmuted form, as past narrative that has severed its ties to sacred time and instead functions as an account of the purportedly secular, albeit extraordinary happening… This transposition of myth to heroic saga is a notable mechanism in ancient Indo-European traditions, wherever a certain cultic system has been supplanted in living religion and the superannuated former apparatus falls prey to literary manipulation."
— Jaan Puhvel, Comparative Mythology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, p. 39)

There are two separate and partially parallel collections of Samson tales, full of evidence that Samson was the sun god.

First Cycle

1. Miraculous Nativity (Judges 13:2–5)
Manoah of Zorah has no children; his unnamed wife is barren (like Sarah, the Shunammite, Hannah, and Elizabeth). A man appears, promising that she will conceive and commanding that the boy be raised with the strictest discipline of the Nazirite vow for his whole life — unusual, as the Nazirite vow was normally temporary.
The point here is to explain Samson’s long hair — characteristic of the sun god.

2. The Lion and the Riddle (Judges 14:1–19)
Samson kills a lion (like Hercules does) — the lion’s mane symbolizing the rays of the sun.
The wedding reception imagery recalls Psalm 19:4–5:

"In [the skies] he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber and like a strong man runs its course with joy."

3. Foxes in the Field (Judges 14:20–15:8a)
Samson catches 300 foxes (implausible even for a superhero!) and ties their tails together with torches to burn the Philistines’ grainfields — symbolizing the sun’s destructive summer heat.

4. The Jawbone of an Ass (Judges 15:8b–17)
Using a sun-bleached donkey jawbone, Samson allegedly kills 1,000 men.
This is folklore explaining the place-name Ramath-lehi ("Hill of the Jawbone").

5. The Miraculous Spring (Judges 15:18–19)
After the battle, Samson thirsts and cries out for water. God provides a spring — another link between the sun god and mountains of springs (as with Utu).
(Verse 20 concludes the first cycle.)

Second Cycle

1. The Ambush at the Gate (Judges 16:1–3)
Samson lifts the gates of Gaza and carries them to a hilltop — a traditional image of sunrise: the sun god rising through mountain gates. Cf. the Pillars of Hercules.

2. Samson and Delilah (Judges 16:4–31)
Another tale of betrayal by a Philistine woman. Delilah extracts Samson’s secret (his hair = his strength).
Once his hair (the sun’s rays) is cut, Samson is powerless and blind — symbolic of the obscured or dying sun.

In the end, Samson stands between two pillars (Boaz and Jachin — cosmic pillars) and collapses the temple, dying in the act.

Samson’s identity as the sun god is unmistakable:

• His long hair = sun’s rays
  
  

• His strength connected to his hair = sun’s visible power
  
  

• His blinding = the sun’s disappearance
  
  

• His position between pillars = heavenly gate symbolism
  
  

Samson's stories preserve ancient solar myth — recast as heroic folklore in a new religious context.

CONCLUSION

Heaven, according to ancient Judaism and Christianity, was simply the sky.

At the highest portion of the sky, God was believed to sit upon a solid firmament — a great dome that separated the waters above from the waters below. The firmament housed the sun, moon, and stars, set like lamps within its vault. Beneath it lay a flat, immovable earth, supported by pillars rising from the primal deep.

The Bible’s descriptions of heaven match consistently with the observable sky:
Birds fly through heaven, clouds drift within it, tornadoes sweep into it, and rain falls from its windows. If one replaces the word "heaven" with "sky" in nearly any biblical passage, the meaning remains unchanged.

This cosmological model was not born of stupidity, but of sincere and careful observation. Without the benefits of modern instruments, our ancestors reached conclusions that made sense based on what they could see and measure. In this respect, their efforts deserve acknowledgment.

However, the tragedy lies not in the mistaken worldview of antiquity, but in the modern insistence on clinging to those ancient errors despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Ancient thinkers, including biblical scribes, adopted new ideas when better evidence emerged — incorporating, for example, elements of Greek cosmology. They evolved. Today's biblical literalists, however, freeze ancient ideas in place, mistaking obsolete human attempts at understanding for infallible truth.

Thus, the Bible, once a living record of human curiosity and imagination, has too often been transformed into a tool of manipulation — a defense against truth rather than a celebration of it. It is not the honesty of ancient minds that should trouble us, but the dishonesty of modern ones who refuse to let knowledge progress.

Recognizing the Bible’s cosmology for what it truly is — a sincere but limited view of the world — frees us to honor the real human achievement: the relentless pursuit of greater understanding, ever willing to move beyond error into deeper truths. 

FIG. 13 - The Ancient Hebrew Conception of the Universe (from Robinson 1913, p.13)

Waters above and below the firmament.

 Answering the critics:

Question:
"If what you say is true, why does Paul mention a third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12:2?"
— Pete M.

Response:
The mention of a "third heaven" by Paul is widely understood by scholars to refer to a conceptual division rather than a literal architecture of stacked heavens.
Douglas Ward of The Christian Resource Institute writes, "Paul described his experiences in the only way that he had at hand. His point was not to tell us how many levels of heaven there might really be."
This interpretation fits with 2 Peter 3:13, which describes a new heavens and a new earth without reference to multiple levels.
Paul's "third heaven" imagery reflects cultural language, not a literal map of heaven.

— R. Finley

Question:
"Doesn't Job 26:7 prove a spherical earth because it says 'God hangs the earth on nothing'?"

Response:
Job 26:7 states, "He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth on nothing."
At first glance, this might sound like advanced cosmology, but the context shows otherwise.
Ancient cosmologies often pictured the earth suspended or supported by divine power, not necessarily needing physical pillars or structures.
The verse says nothing about the earth's shape, and elsewhere Job describes a flat earth with "ends" and "foundations."
Thus, the idea of the earth "hanging on nothing" is poetic, not scientific.

— R. Finley

Question:
"Doesn't Isaiah 40:22 say the earth is a sphere because it mentions 'the circle of the earth'?"

Response:
Isaiah 40:22 says, "It is he who sits above the circle of the earth."
The Hebrew word translated as "circle" is chug, meaning a flat circle or disk, not a sphere.
If Isaiah had intended to describe a spherical earth, he could have used the Hebrew word duwr, meaning ball or sphere, which is used elsewhere (such as Isaiah 22:18).
The imagery reflects the ancient belief in a flat, circular earth beneath a domed sky.

— R. Finley