If we let the Bible be what it is, though, we can claim it's unique
(theologically), in what it says about God.
But if not, then pagan literature is essentially on the same level.
And trust me, you don't want to go there.
The Old Testament shares terms and ideas with the ancient Near Eastern "pagans."
And we talked a little bit about this last week. This should not be a surprise,
because there are similarities between the conception of how
the world that we experience was made, that are shared with Israel's neighbors.
We see these terms as metaphorical, the terms that I'm going to cover tonight.
We look at them, you know, when the Old Testament says something like
that the sky is supported by pillars.
"Oh, that's just metaphorical. It's just poetic."
To us it is, and you know why?
Because we have a scientific worldview.
That's why.
They didn't.
They were serious.
No ancient person ever scaled a mountain.
Do you realize that? Like the tall mountains.
Because it takes oxygen, they freeze, all this kind of special equipment.
There's no record that any of them ever did it.
It wasn't until the 15th century that we have the whole issue resolved of;
can you sail this way and come out the other way.
The whole idea about the earth being a globe and all that kind of stuff.
That was debated up into the 15th century.
We look at that and go, "oh, you know, it's just poetic."
It is to us.
But what I'm going to say is, again, back to my introduction,
if you take it literally, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt.
They were serious about it.
All these concepts (and even some of the terms)
are part of ancient Near Eastern cosmology.
In other words, what I'll show you tonight:
The division of the world, what the world looks like in Israelite cosmology.
You can find the same descriptions anywhere else:
Egypt, Mesopotamia, ancient Syria, the Hittites, whatever.
Because this was a common worldview.
Now, if we say that Israel knew better
through special divine revelation, then we have a problem.
Then we have to say that the literature of the pagans, somehow they knew too.
Did God speak to them?
Where did they get that information?
I really don't want pagan literature to be in any way even looking inspired.
That opens a real can of worms for inspiration.
It's just ground we need to stay away from, and for good reason.
It's legitimate to stay away from it.
If we let the Bible be what it is though, we can claim it's unique (theologically),
and what it says about God.
But if not, then pagan literature is essentially on the same level.
And trust me, you don't want to go there.
You want it to be unique.
Let's get into it here. Exodus 24.
Israelite cosmology has three tiers.
This is the Ten Commandments passage.
«You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above,
or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth.»
Three levels.
New Testament is the same. Philippians 2:8, verse 10.
«So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven
and on earth and under the earth.»
What, like the worms? No.
We're going to see what they were thinking here.
Revelation 5: Heaven, earth, under the earth.
It's a three-tiered cosmology.
This is what it would look like.
This is a three-tiered cosmology.
There's God. We're going to see in the verses I'll show you
that God lives above the vault of heaven. The firmament.
And in the firmament, you have windows and doors.
And you have the earth.
We're going to see verses that talk about the ends of the round flat earth here.
Underneath is Sheol.
Sheol can be both the grave and it can also be the underworld.
It's not quite hell, but it's sort of like hell.
We can talk a little bit about it.
And then underneath that, we have the great deep.
These are all Scriptural terms that are on this map.
This is what an Israelite, an Egyptian would have had different terms,
but the same three-tiered level.
Same with the Mesopotamians.
Now they have, theologically, they have dramatically different views of
what's going on here. Not just who made it, but what's going on.
Views of afterlife, the value of humanity.
I mean, it's dramatically different.
And I've made the comment before, Genesis is about theological messaging.
And there are some dramatic differences in what Israel is saying, the Bible is saying,
and anything else.
So let's take a look at the parts.
Waters above and below the heavens.
Genesis 1:6, «And God said, “Let there be an expanse
[Some translations have firmament. It's raqı̂a in Hebrew]
in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
And God made the expanse [the raqı̂a] and separated the waters
that were under the expanse
from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so.»
And what was that expanse called?
Heaven.
The heavens, the sky. Shamayim in Hebrew.
So you have here the sky.
And you have waters above the sky.
And of course you've got waters below down here,
but then you have the atmospheric heavens as well.
Psalm 148 mentions the waters that are above the heavens.
That's after the flood.
Did you catch that?
Because a lot of people want to say, "oh, the waters above, they went away with the flood.
See, the firmament was this canopy thing, and it was there,
and then the flood just went away and..."
No. It wasn't.
According to the psalmist, he's still referring to it.
Proverbs 8, «When he established the heavens, I was there;
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
[Isn't that interesting? We'll get to that: Circle on the face of the deep.]
when he made firm the skies above.»
Made firm is 'amats in Hebrew.
It is the same verb for letting a tree grow firm, hard.
Ancient cosmology across the board believed that the sky
was this dome over the earth, and it was solid.
Kind of like the Truman Show. Okay?
They believed that the stars were affixed to it.
Some of the stars never moved, but other ones did.
And the ones that did, this is why the word stars
is attributed to the sons of God and to angels in biblical literature.
They believed that the stars were animate beings.
That they were really divine beings.
And then they'd come to earth as angels, but they lived up there.
And those were the ones that moved. Why? Because movement shows what?
If something moves, it's alive. Okay?
Again, they can't take a rocket and go up and check it out.
They believe that there's a solid expanse over them.
Another passage.
Job 37, verse 18. «Can you, like him,»
speaking of Job, drawing the dramatically poor comparison
of God and Job, of course we know who's going to win there, but
«Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard [ḥazaq]
hard as cast metal, [mutsaq], as a metal mirror?»
Mutsaq is the same word used in the casting of the laver,
the tabernacle where they would wash. It's solid.
It's also the same terminology used for flint rock.
Again, these passages point to the belief that
there's a dome, the sky's a dome, and it's solid.
God lives above it, we live below it.
Job 22. «But you say, ‘What does God know? Can he judge through the deep darkness?
Thick clouds veil him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the vault of heaven.»
It's where God lives. It's his address.
You know, and before we think, "oh, that's quaint. How cute."
We think that, don't we?
If a little child would ask you, where does God live? Up there.
Is there something wrong with that answer?
I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I've used it, you know.
Because there's the sense that God lives off planet.
Why? Because he created the earth for us.
He doesn't need it. He's independent of it.
He transcends it.
That's all it is. It's very normal.