Tom (of Tomndebb) has it right. The Genesis account of creation has a flat earth with a dome of sky. There’s water above and below. The sun and moon and stars move along the top of the dome.
Here are some pictures that Genesis paints:
Nevermind the fact that there’s light before the creation of light sources, or that night and day are created before an earth on which there can be night and day.
A second vote that Tom has it right. It wasn’t just the writers of the old testament that used that cosmology. That was Babylonian cosmology as well. Later in Genesis you’ll find God calling on the land and the water to give forth life. Water gave forth the fish below and the birds above. Rain was the heavens opening and letting the water behind them (it?) through.
You’ll also find somewhere in Revelations a description of the end of the world in which the firmament rolls up like a scroll and all of the stars fall off of it and crash to earth. And I think you’ll find mentioned somewhere in the Bible the four pillars of the heavens.
That’s why people worshiped on mountains, it got them closer to heaven. That’s why the Tower of Babel was destroyed. Heaven was believed to be close enough to reach with a really tall tower.
Yes, you can say that the statements work as metaphors. And sometimes they were said metaphorically. They were also, used as a metaphor or not, said by people who believed that they were literally true.
Now, the bible does not say, thou shalt believe that the stars rest on a solid invisible dome held over the flat earth by four pillars. Geocentricity was not a commandment. Just like gravity was not a commandment. Both were assumed. But the assumption was woven into many of the stories. And if one part of the story is wrong, questions can be asked about the rest of the story.
Which is why people could be burned for spouting geocentric heresy and might be why people also claim there is no geocentricity in the bible. If there’s no geocentricity there, the stories can still be unquestionable.
Thanks everyone. Great info.
This is to everyone who’s saying that the writers were simply using metaphors. The Bible consists of a number of books written by many different authors in many different times and places. Yet on this one subject (cosmology), AFAIK, all of them consistently spoke in metaphors and, AFAIK, they all used the same or very similar metaphors. Am I mistaken about this? If I’m not mistaken then why would they do this? Was their some strong religious or cultural prohibition (stretching across much time and geography) against describing this subject in real terms? Is there any other subject in the Bible for which they consistently spoke in metaphors? (There may be, I’m not sure.) Yes, modern people do often use similar metaphors in day to day speech. But we only do so because they became part of speech before heliocentrism became common knowledge.
When you say that they speak in metaphors are you saying that they were, in fact, aware of the truth but all of them chose to speak poetically? If they were aware, then at what point did civilization lose that awareness? And if they weren’t aware, then they weren’t speaking in metaphors but simply describing what they believed to be true. Right?
A few other Biblical quotes that imply its authors had in mind a geocentric cosmology:
Zechariah 12:1: “The Lord strecheth forth the heavens and layeth the foundation of the earth…”
1 Chronicles 16:30: " Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved."
Psalm 93:1 “The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is established, that it cannot be moved.”
I Sam. 2:8: “For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and he set the world on them.”
Isaiah 40:22: “It is he that sitteth 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.”
First, cosmological references in the Bible are rare. There are scarcely enough references to work out a pattern of thought. The consistancy that you see, I don’t.
Second, the Hebrews were not scientists, and gave little thought to the matter. Most of the scant cosmological tropes that they had were picked up from neighboring (and conquering) civilizations. There was no religious “prohibition” against describing cosmology in literal terms. In contrast to, say, the Babylonians, the Hebrews just were not sky-watchers.
Third, it is not hard to recognize that certain passages were intended as metaphors and metaphors only. Take Isaiah 66:1, quoted above. Did the Hebrews really believe that God was literally standing on the earth as a footstool? That somewhere you would find giant feet coming down from the clouds? Of course not. It is a metaphor for the continued and direct relationship between God and the affairs of humankind.
I Samuel 2:8 is another example of an obvious metaphor, in this case using the architectural term of pillars. As an expression of cosmology, it would make little sense: if the world literally rested on pillars, then upon what did the pillars literally rest?
The passage is a poetic expression of a basic belief: God created the world, and it exists by his will.
Why is it that resting on pillars is an obvious metaphor?
Is creating a man out of dust an obvious metaphor?
Creating man out of dust is a supernatural explanation of man’s creation which, as theology holds, is beyond human comprehension. But Podkayne suggests that I Samuel 2:8 is not just a religious expression, it is meant to be understood as a descriptive, literal expression of cosmology. I counter that even a Hebrew child, with a moment’s thought, would have found it faulty as a physical explanation: the pillars would have to physically rest on something else. If the pillars were held up miracuously by God, then the pillars were unnecessary in the first place.
Walloon, don’t assume pre-Enlightenment people are able to think logically as we do. All the things that they didn’t understand were consigned to be part of a supernatural world which didn’t make sense (because they didn’t understand it).
Many of the beliefs of ancient peoples don’t stand up to logic (let alone the scientific reality), and yet, they believed it to be true.
The creation account lays out a cosmology rather plainly of a dome separating waters above from waters below. They believed it, though it wasn’t logical. This wasn’t metaphor for them, it was as real as a flat earth is to modern day flat earth looneys.
Peace.
Catholicism uses lots of extra-biblical ideas. Study the Reformation.
Lithium, did you accidentally post in the wrong thread? There is not even a mention of Catholic opinion in this thread.
Sorry. Chaim did refer to Catholic theologians, however, that is hardly the main point of the discussion.
Walloon, I’d be very interested in seeing some cites to back up your assertion that this was obviously metaphorical to the Hebrews. There are many references to the foundations of the earth or the pillars of the earth in the Bible, and none to any other sort of cosmology–or not any that I’ve ever seen anyway. I’d be delighted if anyone could point some out to me.
If it was so obvious to them that the Earth didn’t stand on pillars or upon a foundation of some sort, then what did they think? That it floated in space? That’s not necessarily troubling to the modern mind, aquainted as we are with the notion of gravity as a force, but I suspect that if you presented your ideas to an ancient Hebrew, they’d find that quite a bit nuttier than the foundations/pillars idea. Obviously something is holding the earth up! If it wasn’t built on something, it’d fall! That’s what happens to heavy stuff!
Anyway, even if these passages are not meant to be an exact description of their cosmology, with literal pillar-shaped pillars, they do strongly imply the mindset that the Earth is unmoving, and thus a geocentric perspective. What’s under the pillars? G-d only knows, kid. Forget the pillars, son, point is, G-d made the earth, and here it sits!
As an aside, I’ve always found in discussions like this that some folks, even people who aren’t Biblical literalists, can get really defensive when you discuss that fact that the Bible portrays the Earth as flat and unmoving. I mean, nobody’s pointing and laughing at those silly ol’ Hebrews for their simpleminded geocentric cosmology–that’s what everybody thought at that time in history. Finding heliocentric cosmology in the Bible would be every bit as odd as stumbling across a recipe for a scrumptious Jello mold in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.
No one is claiming that the Hebrews had a heliocentric cosmology; certainly not I. I am arguing that we cannot know for certain when the authors of Hebrew scripture were using poetic metaphors, and when they are being literal, when they made references to cosmology.
Throughout the Old Testament there are versions of the idea that “the Lord is my shepherd.” They say it again and again; maybe they meant it literally? Of course not. Just because the same trope is used several times in Old Testament literature does not undo it as a metaphor.
The Hebrews may have thought that ultimately the physical structures of the earth and heavens were unknowable; that they could only be understood through metaphor.
I think some here are underestimating the rich understanding the authors of Biblical scripture had of metaphor and its uses. Read Proverbs, Psalms, the Song of Solomon. We have improved our knowledge of cosmology since then, but we have never surpassed the beauty of some of those metaphors.
Try Shakespeare.
Who cares? Whole sections of the old testament (e.g. the flood story) are not only silly, but they’re copped directly out of old Mesopotamian myths. Just like much New Testament theology is directly out of Zoroastrianism. I have a hard time understand how otherwise intelligent people could take it seriously.
Markci: And yet, many very intelligent people do take it quite seriously. If you don’t find the subject relevant, then why are you posting in this thread? Go play somewhere else.
I’ll play where I like, thank you very much.
