Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and if you're one of those who are familiar with my recent episodes, you know I've got quite a few subjects that I've been discussing of late that need continuation, but I also have quite a few that I've been meaning to get to for a while now. I've loved having so many interviews lately as well.
[00:00:36] Part of me thinks, hey, it'd be nice to have my episodes neatly ordered and series all accomplished at once, but apparently that's just not how my brain is going to work. So I appreciate all of you who are on the rollercoaster journey with me. It's funny, actually, because here we are, episode 91, and I would have thought that by now we would have been past the flood story. But, lots of rabbit trails and fun excursions, and I don't know about you, but I'm enjoying it. I just want to give you all a big thank you for helping me do what I am doing here.
[00:01:13] Some of the topics I've got going are still in the middle of research and reading. So, this week I thought I'd get to one of the topics that has been on my list for a while now, the topic of cosmic geography. And it's a bit funny because I was thinking of doing this episode weeks ago, and with all the stuff that's been going on recently, this is actually a very appropriate topic for now. This might end up being another series, and I also think it might connect to other topics in some interesting ways, but it'll take some work to get there.
[00:01:49] Of course, I've definitely talked about cosmic geography in a lot of ways already, but I haven't addressed it head on. And I hope this will be fruitful, especially if you are more new to studying the Bible in its ancient context. As always, I'm not saying this information is hidden, or special, or unique, or even, quite frankly, necessary to understanding the Bible.
[00:02:15] But studying the ancient context of the Bible will peel back some layers to some passages and some things that we otherwise need to force into what usually ends up being a literalist reading of the text. And actually, before we go on to our specific topic, I want to address what I just said about a literalist reading of the text.
[00:02:40] First of all, I'm not suggesting there is something wrong about a literal interpretation of the text. But, lately, I've had some interaction with some people who are very bothered when they see someone suggest anything that goes beyond their literal understanding. And the claim that I see over and over again is, you're not taking the Bible seriously. Or even people who say that I've never read the Bible. Just this week, I had someone tell me that maybe I should read about Jesus before reading the Old Testament. And maybe I should read Genesis 1 1 and John 1 1, insinuating that something I suggested goes against those verses.
[00:03:29] The interesting thing is that what I suggested may or may not have even gone against that person's interpretation. It's just that when you start talking about the Bible in different ways than people expect, it can hit their radars in ways that make them a bit alarmed. Even if what you're saying is perfectly orthodox, normal Christian concepts.
[00:03:53] Though I didn't intend for this topic to piggyback off of my last one about the definitions of the Divine Council, these things are quite related. Frequently there is a misunderstanding in these types of conversations, because when I don't use the common ways of talking about things, like if I talk about something from a different angle than it's usually talked about in Sunday school, for instance, the assumption often is that I'm doing this in an anti Christian way. Or, what the person supposes is anti Christian.
[00:04:29] For instance, if I'm talking about the Cosmic Temple in Genesis 1, then suddenly I might have people accusing me of trying to prop up evolution. The Cosmic Temple itself has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution. And further, I don't really care one way or another about evolution aside from finding science an interesting thing to read about.
[00:04:53] If you listen to some past episodes here at Genesis Marks the Spot, you'll know that I really don't care about evolution in regards to the Bible. But many people just have that knee jerk reaction. Like if you talk about Genesis 1 in anything but a non literal way, then chances are someone around is going to jump to the conclusion that the only other way you can talk about Genesis 1 is from that lens of evolution.
[00:05:21] Well, it's because they haven't heard of other ways and because there are often two buckets that people put things into: My bucket and the other ,bucket the bucket that's wrong and we just won't go there. And you know, I'm not even talking about any particular topics here yet necessarily I'm just saying that quite often there are two options given for something that we're talking about. And that's called a false dichotomy. And I'm here to suggest that each side that insists on only these two types of options are both actually being impacted by the effects of, the Enlightenment, I think. They're both steeped in modern ideas, not ancient ones. And as far as literal interpretations, if the Bible has to be explaining things from a perspective that sounds awfully like how modern science would put it, Then, really, it's implied that a scientific view is the way or the lens through which to read Scripture.
[00:06:28] And I can't really blame people here for genuinely living in their context today. Because our current way that we view the world around us, and science, or the Bible in particular, is that these paradigms are supposed to be giving us some sort of truth. Something we can hang our hat on and say, that's the way it is.
[00:06:51] Now, I'd argue that that goes beyond the purpose of science in particular if we are expecting it to prove some point. Science is a methodology for studying the world. It's not a methodology for somehow proving how the world works. Like, if you think that science is here to prove things, then what you've been listening to is something that has an invested interest in using science for a purpose, and that's not science itself. And this includes Young Earth Creationist science. I'm gonna say that it out loud. They're out to prove something, and they want to use science to do it. And they think that that's what science is about, is to prove things, rather than to test hypotheses.
[00:07:44] And really, science is good at proving that something isn't the case, but it's not so good at proving that something is the case. Because to prove that something is the case, you have to discount all other possibilities and prove them wrong. And that's a really big task. It's not going to happen very lightly for most concepts.
[00:08:07] Another thing that I've been accused of lately, and look, I don't really mind how people respond to what I'm saying. I'm not personally offended or hurt or up in arms about this stuff. I just bring out all of this to try to explain an angle here that I think is missing in these conversations. But another thing I've been accused of is that by not accepting young Earth creationist only, then that means that I think young Earth creationists don't like science, or they reject science, or something like that. And I'm not saying that they do. I don't think that's the case at all, at least not usually.
[00:08:48] I'm sure there's people out there who think science is all bunk and we shouldn't be doing it and it's pointless.
[00:08:54] But you watch something like a popular Young Earth Creationist documentary and they are accessing the fields of science to try to explain their position. And so that's not anti science. It's using science for a purpose. which many people do. But again, there's a difference between what science is and how people are using science. Like, what are they using it for?
[00:09:23] Now, Young Earth Creationists will, by necessity, reject many consensus views within the scientific community, and I would suggest that they introduce that presuppositionalist methodology to science that isn't inherent to the scientific method. In other words, they have a conclusion they want to reach before they start.
[00:09:47] Now, to be fair, it's also the case that every scientist builds their theory around prior suppositions. And these are actually called hypotheses, which doesn't mean that that's the opposite of proof. It's just what science is. But a young Earth creationist isn't taking a young Earth as a hypothesis, but as a fact that must now be proven. And, as I said, science isn't here to prove things, primarily.
[00:10:18] I think one of my earlier episodes I've talked about the book Think Again by Adam Grant, and he suggests that we should be thinking and looking at the world scientifically, which is not trying to prove ourselves right and be dogmatic about every little thing, but rather to look at things and try to be less wrong about what we're thinking.
[00:10:43] So, the difference with Young Earth Creationist science is that they will outright reject evidence that leads them away from the conclusion that they seek, rather than allowing the evidence to change the next iteration of the hypothesis or the theory. I think that's a problem, because science is based on the examination of evidence. You can't just refuse to go where the evidence leads.
[00:11:08] Anyway, this might all seem a bit strange in an episode about cosmic geography. But I have some sort of method to my madness here. I bring all of that out because what I'm going to talk about in Cosmic Geography is going to be different than how we today understand the world.
[00:11:29] This is an ancient perspective, though at the same time it can and does interact with science as the observation of the world. Cosmic Geography is outside the realm of modern science, which is about evidence and process and mechanics, but it retains aspects of observing the world. Things like astronomy, for instance.
[00:11:58] These ancient views show us a new way of thinking about the world, and I think it's something for us to reclaim rather than reject. Not so that we can put it into a new scientific box, but it's a helpful lens for scripture reading. . Now a brief word on those who scoff at these ideas being included in our pursuit of Bible study, and those people are out there. And I kind of don't wanna keep talking about this, but it is a recent example. In Doreen Virtue's critique of Michael Heiser, for instance, Marcia Montenegro brought up the three tiered cosmology that Dr. Heiser talked about, and she laughed it off as something that he was trying to force into the Bible from pagan sources.
[00:12:48] Now, when I say the three tiered cosmology, I mean the idea that there is a heavens, and that there is an earth or a land, and then there is an underworld. Why this is controversial makes me scratch my head a bit and makes me wonder if Marcia just discounts anything and everything that she reads from someone like Dr. Heiser without entertaining the idea that maybe he could have been right about some things.
[00:13:17] Back in the day, well before I came across the idea of biblical theology, I had the idea that the Bible was particularly different from anything else around it. Now, yes, I was LDS at the time, but even in Christendom, there's this presumption that the Bible and the people of the Bible are just so vastly unique from the people around them. And that's just not the case. The Bible doesn't describe its cosmology like it's some sort of a textbook, but just studying for ourselves the different passages that touch on these things, it simply does describe the cosmos in ways that are similar to the Israelite neighbors. It just does.
[00:14:06] Let's look at Psalm 104 for a moment, starting in verse 5. He set the earth on its foundations so that it should never be moved. You covered it with the deep, as with the garment. The waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke, they fled. At the sound of your thunder, they took to flight. The mountains rose. The valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth. You make springs gush forth in the valleys. They flow between the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst. Beside them, the birds of the heavens dwell. They sing among the branches. From your lofty abode, you water the mountains. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
[00:15:00] Okay, I could go on there, but you see the imagery is here of, there's a watery deep, there's the earth on foundations, there's the heavens, and God in a lofty abode.
[00:15:14] And again, what the Bible doesn't do is it doesn't say, okay, , the cosmos is structured in three tiers and here's one and here's the other and here's the other one. You have to look at the actual descriptions and what it's describing. And so if you read those with modern presuppositions, you're going to think, okay, that's talking about the ocean. That's talking about the atmosphere and all of these other things. And really, again, putting your presuppositions and the way that you're thinking about the cosmos onto this ancient text.
[00:15:53] So to say that the three tiered cosmology is either made up or just comes from pagan sources and not the Bible itself, it's just not the case. You can get it from the Bible. If that wasn't the case, you couldn't have flat earthers who claim that they are just understanding things the way the Bible presents them. So the cosmology is there. Now, what you can't get from the Bible, at least from the biblical text and manuscripts, are things like maps or images of this cosmology, like you can see in Babylonian sources or in Egyptian sources that had pictures of this cosmos.
[00:16:36] Now, some of you might already be familiar with what I've been calling cosmic geography. But others will not, so we'll do a brief primer on what this is, and also point out that sometimes the term is used more specifically, and sometimes more generally, but it's always going to connect the unseen realm with the seen realm, or the physical realm. So, that's what makes it cosmic, because the cosmos is more than just the physical world.
[00:17:11] So there's the physical realm, where humans walk around and do things, and then there's the spiritual realm. And we, today, tend to think there's some sort of boundary, and, I mean, I suppose there is a boundary at that, but it's like we are thinking that these are separate dimensions, as if they're totally separate rooms. And so the boundary between them is like a wall, right? You walk from one into another one. And we think, okay, for God to act in the world under this circumstance, He has to open the door or the window and reach in purposefully. And when He does that, that's called a miracle. That's kind of how many of us think of it. And if we want to interact with the unseen realm, we also must breach this wall somehow. Like, don't knock on the door to the spiritual realm and just ask anyone to come chat, because you won't know what you'll get.
[00:18:12] But there's a particular way these realms were understood in biblical times, and that we, generally speaking, have lost the thread of today.
[00:18:23] And again, I've talked about this before, and just last week, in fact, I brought this up. Not everyone's lost this way of thinking, but with things like the Enlightenment and attempts to understand the world apart from God and spiritual influence We just live in a culture that has a different narrative than societies had in the past.
[00:18:43] And sometimes we laugh at these past ideas and ridicule them instead of trying to understand them. That ancient way of understanding these realms is not so much that there is a wall that is this hard barrier, but it's more like, well I'm trying to come up with a good metaphor here. It's like a permeable mirror where the spiritual realm and the physical realm actually interact very often and kind of flow into and out of one another.
[00:19:13] And not only that, but there are earthly and spiritual counterparts that kind of act in tandem. Now, again, this is just a metaphor. I'm not saying that for every person here on earth, there is some spirit being who is also doing similar things, like one is the puppet of the other being controlled or something like that. That's not what I'm talking about. We're not talking against free will or anything like that here.
[00:19:40] But there are heavenly counterparts to things on the earth, and we see this in Scripture. I'm thinking the tabernacle as the copy of the heavenly tabernacle. I'm thinking of us as the image of God acting to reflect God. I'm thinking of us doing God's will on earth as it is in heaven. The mirroring of heaven and earth isn't just a nice line in the Lord's Prayer that's kind of poetic. It's indicative of a much broader concept.
[00:20:13] Now if you've heard the term cosmic geography before, chances are strong that it's because you've heard about the Divine Council worldview, The idea that God has a council of heavenly beings, and more particularly that God has assigned spiritual beings over the nations to have authority over them. These spiritual beings have taken worship for themselves instead of leading the people to worship the sovereign creator.
[00:20:42] Now, I know for many listeners here, none of that is new. This is the understanding of the situation we find in the Old Testament where the people of Yahweh are set apart as chosen for him and the other nations around them are ruled by rebellious gods. So it's like God created jurisdictions, groups of people, and geographical areas.
[00:21:07] And, in essence, what we have here is this connection between Earth and Heaven. And usually it's a very direct one, as if the Earth mirrors what is in the Heavens.
[00:21:20] See, it's again not unfamiliar territory for Christians as we pray for God's will to be on earth as it is in heaven. It's just that, you know, in rebellious lands, what's happening there? They're not reflecting God's will. They're reflecting something else that's going on still in the heavens.
[00:21:41] So, this creation of borders and boundary lines is one aspect of cosmic geography, but it's also wider than this. Cosmic geography can refer to any aspect of geography at all that has a cosmic meaning or correlation. And again, I'm repeating myself here, but this is an important point. By Cosmic, I'm referring to the Cosmos, or All of Creation, which includes not just Earth and the physical universe, but the unseen, non physical aspect of creation too. So, like the spirit realm.
[00:22:24] So we are always referencing earthly geography, but it's not just earthly geography that we're talking about.
[00:22:34] I mentioned the Cosmic Temple earlier, and if you are unfamiliar and want more information on that, I would maybe point you to episodes number 10 and 16, although there's more conversation that applies to that concept in other episodes. The search function on my website works pretty well. It will actually pull from not just the show notes and the titles, but also my transcripts. So if you want to find anything, it's pretty easy to do with a search on my website.
[00:23:07] But the Cosmic Temple is fundamentally the description of cosmic geography in creation. It's what we see in Genesis 1, which is the creation of the cosmos, described in a way to show that the entire cosmos is ordered for two related purposes. One, for the flourishing of humans, and two, for God's dwelling.
[00:23:34] But it's not like God's going to leave heaven. He's still in heaven, but he's also going to be with us here on earth. That's the way he set things up in creation from the get go. And so this sets up the rest of the story of the Bible as well as being a focus for our entire human existence. The story as set up is one about not just life on earth, but also life in the heavens, we might say.
[00:24:06] This is why God has an earthly family down here and a heavenly family up there in the form of the heavenly host. You're familiar with these things already, this may be basic information. But look, I really think that this is something that is tough to wrap our minds around in the way that the ancient people had it so embedded in their thinking.
[00:24:30] So is this stuff that we absolutely have to have in order to understand the Bible? No, it's really not. But it's information that will help to understand the Bible. Is this information that will help clarify harder passages? Like, is this stuff the best explanation for some of the things we see in places like, for instance, Genesis 1 26, and the Tower of Babel, and the Exodus, and Deuteronomy 32, and Psalm 82, and Isaiah. And the list just goes on and on.
[00:25:10] I really think this helps to explain all of those things, if you have the concept of cosmic geography in your head.
[00:25:19] Now, I know I am biased towards biblical theology. But look, this isn't a foreign context that we're importing into the text, this is just ancient context. This is an old, old way of seeing the world and the heavens, and I can't imagine a better way of looking at all of this than that.
[00:25:42] Cosmic geography is a foundational aspect of many of the things we talk about on this podcast, and in a way, it's not hard to understand, but in another way, I think it's something we really have to sit with for quite a while to really let it permeate our understanding, if we'll even allow it to do that.
[00:26:04] The reason I talked about science earlier is because one way that elements of cosmic geography are handled in interpretation today is frequently via concordism, or similarly, by a literal view. So what is concordism? Concordists will define Hebrew terms and ideas so that they correspond, that is, concord with structures in modern cosmology. So concordists map our ideas onto the Bible, or the Bible's ideas onto our ideas, one way or the other. And in a way, that truly is the plain English reading of the text, right?
[00:26:51] Obviously, there are many things we read in the Bible that ought to concord to things that we understand. Like Moses was a real person. Even if we aren't sure of the date of the exodus, it was a real historical event. The Promised Land is a particular area in the Near East. Babylon was an empire that took Israelites into captivity.
[00:27:14] But Concordism is generally more about the scientific parts of the Bible. So the raqia, or the firmament, is like the atmosphere. Concordists tend to redefine terms into our new modern terms. But they aren't very different from literal interpreters who don't redefine anything per se, but will say something like, The heavens are where God dwells, so when Jesus returns, he has to float down from the sky. Or the idea that we will literally rise up into the air to be raptured.
[00:27:53] I've even seen people suggest that the underworld is literally a location below our feet, underground. Concordism and literalism happen across the map with just about anything you'll see in the Bible. Such as the dietary laws are about health, or the sacrificial system involved blood, because some people claim blood is a real detergent. Definitely not what I want to be washing my clothes with.
[00:28:21] Now, again, I'm not saying there aren't correspondences to real things between elements we see in the Bible and our real lives and our world. I think as Christians, we do need to see that there is that real connection between the Bible and history and what we experience.
[00:28:37] I think Moses really lived. The exodus and the exile really happened, and most importantly, Jesus came incarnate on the earth. Christianity is an evidence-based faith, remember. But here's the thing with science. I think the Bible presents a reality that is much more Ritual based than material science based.
[00:29:04] Many Christians think that baptism and the Eucharist have genuine literal effects, and this is not about putting those things under a microscope or into an MRI to calculate some properties, although I'm sure there are those who hold to an idea that you would see differences there if you could manage such a thing.
[00:29:25] But even if you couldn't do that, I think ritual is a powerful thing that has reality backing it up. In other words, it's not, NOT real. Even if we can't scientifically measure it. But many of us want to measure it. It's interesting to me that so many Protestants will often be concordists or literalists about material creation, but they refuse to be concordists or literalists in regards to baptism or the Lord's Supper.
[00:29:58] A potentially challenging question I will leave for you in that. Does that suggest a materialistic worldview? A worldview that suggests only real physical matter matters or exists? Oh, sure, we can throw in some spirit beings here and there, angels and demons. And then, hey, we think we're not materialists. But we almost always treat those spiritual beings as if they are effectively material, just a different kind of material. I just want to throw that out there as an idea to think about, not as an accusation to anyone in particular, I just want to promote thinking.
[00:30:40] But I do think the refusal of Protestants to take something like the Lord's Supper as being real Versus the common insistence that six day creation has to be real... Well, if nothing else I think that does go to show that most of us, at least, aren't true Concordists in that we think that everything in the Bible has to be quote unquote literally true in the exact same sense.
[00:31:08] And if some really essential elements of the Christian faith don't have to be analyzed by science, then maybe it's not such a big problem to think that it's okay to not be Concordists in everything.
[00:31:23] Now, listen, really, almost everyone who takes any sort of literal approach will pick and choose which parts of the Bible's descriptions are literal or factual descriptions and which ones aren't. And I'm not trying to make this into some sort of accusation or charge against that type of interpretation.
[00:31:43] This isn't an inherent criticism, and I'm not blaming anyone for it, or claiming something negative's going on necessarily, or that anyone shouldn't do that. It's just that sometimes we don't think we're doing that, because we believe we have rational reasons for not believing certain parts. We might say that baptism is what now saves doesn't really mean that baptism actually saves.
[00:32:10] And there's a reason that people would say that. However, again, just as a thought experiment, I really do wonder how much of the literal approach just amounts to materialism with a Christian spin. And again, to repeat myself, I'm really not trying to argue against the view, I just want to knock on some ideas to get us thinking in a different way is all.
[00:32:35] The fact is, I do think that material creation is absolutely important and essential. It's part and parcel of God's interaction with us. So being materialists in the sense of taking material creation as something that is important, I think that's a good thing. After all, Jesus was incarnate as a real, literal human being.
[00:33:00] If you take away too much materialism, you end up in the opposite ditch with anti physicalist views. And we do not want that. Again, you can think of what I'm saying in all of that as a kind of kicking the tires of the ideas to see what stands up to scrutiny in that way and what doesn't. And it matters here in this conversation about cosmic geography because half of cosmic geography is material creation.
[00:33:31] So the exercise is to take our ideas of material creation and bring them into this worldview of how that parallels the spiritual realm. Because I mentioned before how often we do have those two buckets that we put ideas into. Something's either material or spiritual. Now I'm saying maybe things are more interconnected and complicated than that picture.
[00:33:59] But in any case, back to cosmic geography as a whole. The tendency today is to demythologize many of the ideas of the ancient world to bring them into our modern constructs. Part of this is just normal human action, because we have questions, and we trust the Bible, and so we want the Bible to be answering our questions.
[00:34:25] The problem is, it doesn't really do that for a lot of our questions. Often, our questions today are about the physical world, and we don't see those connections to the spiritual realm that actually exist as described in Scripture. Here's an example of some different ways that this can look. Do you go to Genesis 1 7 and ask, what does the Bible teach us about what's up in the sky?
[00:34:53] Well, some of the more extreme literalists will, and they'll decide that that verse is telling us that the sky is a hard dome. But, part of the problem with that is, amongst other things, that the verse says nothing about a dome. It says there's an expanse, and the Hebrew word raqia at least suggests it's a hard substance. But it doesn't say anything at all about a dome. Most people think that it's describing a dome, though, right? If you think of it as a hard substance. Why do they think that? Well, most likely, it's because they've looked around outside, and they imagine that the sky is something that is roundish. So no matter who we are, no one is only getting our cosmology through the Bible. We are all including other information that is outside the Bible, including our own observations.
[00:35:53] But even if you're not a hardline literalist, if you're a Concordist, you don't go to Genesis 1 7 and ask, what does the Bible say about the sky? Because you've already decided what's up in the sky. You learned about that in elementary school. You think, well, there's an atmosphere up there, and so then maybe you ask, well, where does the Bible teach the atmosphere? And then you'll go to that verse. Or, you read that verse and you're trying to picture it and you map it onto the thing you know about, the atmosphere.
[00:36:27] You're not going to the verse first to ask what it teaches or what the meaning is behind the text. You're going to the verse to find something that props up what you already believe, or you're fitting what you already believe into the verse. Because this is what makes sense to you.
[00:36:45] And this is normal reading. This is how we're going to approach any text we need to try and make sense of. My point is to show how we use the Bible for our own questions in our own framework, even though the Bible might not be teaching anything at all about those questions. Instead of bringing our questions to the Bible, expecting answers, we can ask, What is the Bible teaching here? Or what is the biblical meaning behind this part here? And sure, there's also the related question of, what is the Bible describing exactly? What is it teaching? It might be teaching, hey, that thing you maybe see when you look up, God made that.
[00:37:30] But often there's an even more specific meaning or function for something in the text. In the case of the Expanse, or the raqia, which is a word that is used for something hard, often like a metal sheet, what it's describing is actually what we might call a heavenly land. It's just like our Earth's surface, only it's in the heavens.
[00:37:54] So maybe we can describe the expanse as the floor or the ground of the heavens. If you're here on Earth, and you're thinking of the dwelling place of the gods being in heaven, well they need a place to walk, don't they? We necessarily are thinking about the unseen spiritual realm in ways that correlate with our world, because that's a natural way for us to think and process and understand.
[00:38:20] It's not that ancient people weren't intelligent. Honestly, we can't even really tell if they were primarily considering these metaphors or not. But when we see a description of this hard thing that's up above us, and we know they're already thinking that that's where the gods live, well, here's a piece of our cosmic geography. Earthly geography concretely connecting to heavenly geography.
[00:38:44] Okay, so with all of that, let's look at some Mesopotamian cosmology for a moment. Starting with the expanse, or the raqia, is a good way to get into this. If we are only reading Genesis, then it feels like the raqia is like this hard substance that keeps back the waters of the heavens. I mean, that's what it describes, right?
[00:39:06] Genesis 1:6-8 is God creating the expanse that separates the waters above from the waters below.
[00:39:14] Then, in the flood narrative, Genesis 7 11 describes the floodgates of the sky opening along with the fountains of the deep. That verse says nothing about an expanse, or firmament, or raqia, but we are assuming that the floodgates, or windows of the sky, are in that hard surface of the raqia.
[00:39:36] Another idea, remember how we talked before about the idea of the raqia being the atmosphere, which effectively the atmosphere is everything that's connected to the land, that goes above the land up to the heavens. So we could take these verses in Genesis one and Genesis seven and try to harmonize them and say that the floodgates of the sky and the fountains of the deep are both the waters above and the waters below, right? But again, we're missing the descriptive elements of the raqia as being a hard, flat surface. Thinking of it as the atmosphere rather, robs the term of its metaphorical imagery. So, really, that's no good.
[00:40:20] So the question is, what else is there that's better that we can be thinking about other than the atmosphere? And it's really not too hard to find that, actually. First, again, we've got the three tiered cosmos of the Ancient Near East. And it's a bit simplistic, because there are differences between texts and between cultures. But in general, there's the heavens above, the physical earthly realm in the middle, and then the underworld. In the literature, it seems as though there's some open space between these realms, because that's how you're going to move around.
[00:40:55] In some literature, there are actually multiple heavens as well. I'm going to read from the book Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography about a Mesopotamian text that has three heavens, and each of these three heavens is composed of three different types of stones. Then the author is going to get into a biblical connection in all of that.
[00:41:18] So, reading from Wayne Horowitz, he says, quote, It is inconceivable that these heavens were composed of three giant contiguous blocks of stone, because this would not allow for movement within the heavens. Therefore, it must be assumed that the floors of each level of the heavens were composed of a different type of stone, and that there was open space between each stone floor, just as there is open space between the Earth's surface and the lower heavens. Furthermore, it may be assumed that each stone floor was visible from below, and served as a roof for the region below. These assumptions find support in a parallel from Exodus, where the floor of heaven is apparently built of blue brick. Exodus 24, 9 through 10 says, "then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu and the 70 elders of Israel rose up and they saw the God of Israel and beneath his feet was the likeness of sapphire brick, just like the heavens for clarity." We can also look for parallels to this in Ezekiel one verses 26 through 28. And Ezekiel 10 verse 1. Hebrew sapphire, which is equated with Greek and Latin sapphiris, is a blue stone and has often been identified with lapis lazuli. End quote.
[00:42:47] Okay, so if the ancient reader was thinking of the raqia as a hard blue stone that composed the floor of the heavens, we can track that with these ideas.
[00:42:58] So what about it separating the waters above from the waters below though? Does that mean that there is just water that goes from below up to the raqia and then the raqia has got the above waters, there's no space between? Is that what we're supposed to be visioning here?
[00:43:18] Well, remember again, we are picturing a mirroring of heaven and earth. So a hard blue stone floor would indeed keep the waters above from mingling with any of the waters that flow on the Earth's surface. And it doesn't discount that there can be an atmosphere between those.
[00:43:38] If the waters above are actually the rivers of the heavenly realm, then we aren't talking rain necessarily. Though, perhaps those heavenly rivers could be seen as the source of our rain. None of this is spelled out, but for the ancient person, it wouldn't have to be spelled out. Nothing in this idea goes against what we see in the Flood narrative, as the judgment on the earth can come from the heavenly waters and the waters of the deep, the two realms that parallel ours.
[00:44:10] So again, if I haven't made this clear, what I'm picturing here is that You have the Earth, you have the oceans on the Earth, then you have atmosphere, you have open space, and then you have the raqia, and the raqia both forms the ground of the heavens, as well as preventing the heavenly rivers from flowing into the Earth.
[00:44:32] So, the raqia is not the atmosphere. The atmosphere isn't described, it's kind of assumed that it's already there.
[00:44:39] This also makes more sense than a raqia that's just holding back a single massive ocean that's hanging above us. Just like it doesn't make sense for the heavens to be totally made of stone, it doesn't make sense for them to be completely flooded either. As if there's just a giant ocean up there, and all of the spiritual beings are hanging out in their spiritual boats.
[00:45:02] The Flood story also helps us see that the barrier between the three realms is permeable. So, let's talk about barriers for a minute. Earlier, I mentioned the idea of walls and how we might think of the realms as different rooms that mirror each other in ways, although I don't particularly like that metaphor because it doesn't really help us see how connected they are.
[00:45:30] But we do need to see that there are boundaries there. And so the general concept of boundaries and borders is a pretty important one. I remember early on in my study of biblical theology, trying to read the Bible in context, I realized there was an interesting theme of thresholds that kept showing up in stories.
[00:45:52] Why were thresholds mentioned specifically? I can't remember where I was, I think some Bible study with a teacher who wasn't totally unversed with the idea of contextual thematic studies, but he also wasn't really deep into it. And I asked him what the deal was with thresholds, and he said, well, that's just where they happen to be. It doesn't really have any particular significance.
[00:46:17] Of course, that didn't really sit well with me at the time, and I sat with the idea for quite a while before it dawned upon me, as I studied other things, that what was going on at these thresholds were often things that connected to covenant or ritual.
[00:46:36] Temple type stuff, in other words. It seems that, just like with altars, a threshold could serve as a type of sacred space or a zone where one could interact with the spiritual realm or perform important acts that would have significance with the spiritual realm. Well, now I realize just how obvious this is.
[00:47:01] Boundaries from one place to another place are really a big deal. Boundaries can be crossed, sometimes to good effect, and sometimes to ill if you're not actually supposed to be crossing those boundaries. So God sets the boundaries of the nations. The zones of increased sacred space as you move into the tabernacle can bring blessing when treated properly, or death when not.
[00:47:30] The gift of the Promised Land, and Abraham's movements in it, are monumental. And interestingly enough, he has to cross a really important body of water, the Euphrates, which is just called the river in the Book of Joshua as Abraham moves from his old life into his new life in following God.
[00:47:52] Now I want to look at those verses of thresholds, but I don't want to get too distracted. So my suggestion is when you're reading and you see something mention a threshold, pay attention and see what it's talking about.
[00:48:07] There are common tropes associated with these ideas of cosmic geography. The really important place is always in the middle. When you're looking at the Earth, for instance, like a map of the Earth, the really important place in the ancient world would be in the middle. The less important places are out at the ends of the Earth, and the whole thing is surrounded by water. So not only do we have boundaries that have something to do with water between the earth and the heavens and the earth and the underworld, but we have water boundaries between spaces here on earth that also seem to reflect those waters above and the waters below. Passing through the waters, being given new life, proceeding from one zone of existence to another.
[00:49:00] I'm going to read a couple of long quotes from Lexham Geographical Commentary on the Pentateuch because I thought these were pretty cool. We're starting with talking about this way of thinking about the world, where the most important place is at the center, and we're combining conceptual ideas with physical space, remember.
[00:49:21] Quote, for a biblical example, Mount Zion was seen as the center with the surrounding nations lying at the ends of the earth. Psalm 2, verses 6 and 8 say, "I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession." Thus, the physical space is seen through its conceptual counterpart. The result is that, in referencing one of these physical boundaries, a latent symbolism may be intentionally evoked. Images, such as creation and passage through chaos and death, give rise to the sense that one is leaving the known created order and entering into a new and unknown realm. Many have noted the significance of leaving one's homeland, as does Abraham in Genesis 12. From an ancient Near Eastern perspective, it represents a complete break with the societal structures that give life meaning and security. But how much more so if we view it in light of crossing the mythical boundary of the known world and moving beyond the ends of the earth? This quality of liminality and transition is potent in the larger story of Abraham. It is the story of the birth of a new people. Crossing the threshold between life and death, Abraham is moving through the waters of creation and emerging on the other side, set apart for a new purpose. End quote.
[00:51:01] That probably makes us think of baptism, right? It makes us think of the Exodus. If we just think of these things in terms of physical geography, we're missing the wider concepts and meaning.
[00:51:15] I've talked before about archetypes, and I've asked the question, how do we figure out what the prime example of the archetype is, as opposed to just another iteration of it? Do we think that Eden is the prime example of sacred space, or is it the temple? Both Eden and the temple were temporary, and they never lasted long. But, the Promised Land, on the other hand, is an enduring example of what we can see Eden and the temple being. People can be exiled from the land, but the land itself isn't going to go away.
[00:51:57] We tend to have pretty specific ideas of what the promised land is and what those borders are. Sometimes, though, the land is described in wider terms, like in Genesis 15, verse 18. It says, On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.
[00:52:26] Okay, so that's describing the Levant, is what we would call it today. So I'm going to quote again from Lexham Geographical Commentary. It says, quote, It is perhaps the same cosmic geography that is then evoked in Genesis 15 18. By referencing the whole of the Levant, we not only acknowledge the physical reality and imperial perspective of this space, we also use it to invoke the symbolism of creation. Just as Yahweh is bringing forth a new people, He is also bestowing a new land. This new land is not like the land of Mesopotamia or the land of Egypt. See Deuteronomy 11, verse 10. It is separate and different, a land unto itself. But just as land and descendants are intertwined, this new land cannot exist without one in the center, the hero, bold and faithful enough to cross the threshold and enter this new world, leaving behind the old. From this new center, one extrapolates outward, with the ends of the earth touching the thresholds of the other known worlds, represented by those already recognized watery boundaries. The brook of Egypt and the Euphrates. End quote.
[00:53:54] So again, we've got watery boundaries and past those boundaries are both Egypt and a Babylon. It's interesting, isn't it, that the promised land is so distinct from those archetypical enemies. The promised land is the New Eden, and outside that is exile, and yet there is a promise that the ends of the earth will be given as well.
[00:54:18] Quoting from the commentary again, it says, quote, reading our passage through the lens of this reconstructed conceptual space, it not only fits with our observations regarding literary style, it heightens the impact. With Yahweh initiating a new creation. In order to accomplish this, he graciously bestows upon his new Adam a world unto himself, because Yahweh also knows that land and descendants are inseparable as much for his purposes as for Abraham's. So too, this is no meager nation state with abounded territory, but rather something greater and more complete. It is a gift befitting the patriarch of a new people, the father of countless descendants. Abraham has been gifted "Not-Egypt" and "Not-Mesopotamia." Rather, it is Yahweh's own land in the midst of the others, yet separate and unique. Through the phrase, From the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, totality is expressed, and the point is not whether it was ever literally, historically achieved. The meaning is greater than literal boundaries. It expresses Yahweh's creation of a new world in which the children of Abraham, who are also the children of Yahweh, will rule. End quote.
[00:55:48] So, cool connections there with Abraham and Adam and the promised land and Eden. So are we to take this description, which is a real physical place, you know, should we take it as just intending to reference the physical aspects of it? Or is it, again, a type of archetype of something that's greater than the physicality of it?
[00:56:15] Are the people of God merely the ethnic descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Of course not! It was never about ethnicity. And it's not about physical space. Though, of course, both real people and real land are in view. If the Promised Land is Eden, though, and Eden was never to remain just Eden, but rather spread to the whole world, to the ends of the Earth, then what we see is something that is, but is not, what we see in front of us and under our feet.
[00:56:53] Space, time, and people all converge in meaning. Space, as in the place we are making into Eden. Time, as in the time we worship God as Lord of the Sabbath, Lord of the Cosmic Temple. People, as in the body of Christ, making disciples of all nations.
[00:57:15] When we bring the concept of cosmic geography back into the idea of God allotting the nations to the lower gods, then this is also about spiritual warfare. Absolutely. But even without the aspect of conflict, we were originally intended to grow out of Eden from the very beginning, before sin entered the world. This was the intention. The gospel of King Jesus going to the ends of the earth is the victory over the gods, over death, over sin, over all the powers and principalities that oppose God, taking chaos and taming it into God's order.
[00:58:00] This is more than just Genesis 3 onwards, though it certainly includes that. So we're not discounting Genesis 3. We're just moving it back to Genesis 1 and the purposes of creation. Giving glory to God as His imagers spread His rule across the face of the earth.
[00:58:21] When we bring this into things like eschatology and maybe the modern nation of Israel, whatever that actually is, and what and where and how, there are physical components to what's going on, but it's the wider meaning and messaging that we need to keep in mind.
[00:58:40] The physical things point to that larger spiritual reality, always, in all things. And maybe finding the prime archetype of most things is actually missing the mark, too. Now, don't get me wrong, there's always Jesus and some key things that are clearly the supreme example of something. They are the archetype.
[00:59:06] But, most other things seem to be less "The" archetype, and more just a manifestation of the pattern that we see over and over. How you describe that pattern can be seen from different angles at different times. Eden, the Tabernacle, the Promised Land, the Kingdom of Heaven, the New Jerusalem. And so if we see all of those patterns, they are reflective of that greater good, and they are physical examples of things, but we shouldn't get bogged down in thinking the physical examples are The Thing Itself, as if the physical examples encapsulate the thing in its totality. Because they don't. They never do and they never have.
[00:59:55] This is why we have things like ritual, and why we have that mirroring of the heavens and the earth. So, whenever people are arguing, oh, that's just talking about human judges, that's just talking about this and that, those arguments are at their core reductionist. It's trying to take one thing and boil it down only to a physical element. And we can never do that.
[01:00:22] And this is something that I would caution us against in the modern way that we think about things. Again, it's not about discounting some physical aspect, but let's look beyond that and see that bigger picture and that bigger reality that the physical is pointing to.
[01:00:40] Maybe a good place to end here is in reading Psalm 29. Now, there's a lot of psalms I could have picked to read here, a lot of passages that help to show that there is connection between the earth and the heavens, but I thought this one was appropriate for the idea of God even being the Lord of the boundaries.
[01:01:04] Psalm 29, a psalm of David. Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Siron like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth, and strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry, Glory! The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord sits enthroned as king forever. May the Lord give strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people with peace.
[01:02:16] All right. Thanks guys, as always, for listening. I appreciate you, and I take so much joy in learning with you all, and I hope you do as well. I'm looking forward to more conversations about cosmic geography, as this only just scratched the surface. If you've got questions or topics you'd like to see me cover, please do reach out to me. I've got a bit of a list of them that I've been working on already, so apologies that sometimes that does take some time, but I'm working on it.
[01:02:47] You can reach me either on Facebook or through my website at GenesisMarksTheSpot.com, or you can sign up for my newsletter, check out guest profiles, read blog posts, see my art, and find out how you can support me financially. And a big shout out to those of you who do. I am humbled by your support. I appreciate you all.
[01:03:11] When this episode comes out, we'll be a few days from September 11th, and some of you know what that means! Time for our favorite Christmas songs and hymns. Praise God who came to earth to defeat sin and death and grant us life in Jesus. I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.
