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ers in the waters you it was who crushed the heads of leviathan who left them for food for the denizens of the desert 17 in this world view the seas are primordial forces of disorder and the work of creation is preceded by a divine combat or theomachy 18 creation in the agon model takes the following storyline 1 god as the divine warrior battles the monsters of chaos who include sea death tannin and leviathan 2 the world of nature joins in the battle and the chaos monsters are defeated 3 god is enthroned on a divine mountain surrounded by lesser deities 4 he speaks and nature brings forth the created world 19 or for the greeks the cosmos this myth was taken up in later jewish and christian apocalyptic literature and projected into the future so that the cosmic battle becomes the decisive act at the end of the world s history 19 thus the book of revelation end of the 1st century ce tells how after the god s final victory over the sea monsters new heavens and new earth shall be inaugurated in a cosmos in which there will be no more sea revelation 21 1 20 the genesis creation narrative genesis 1 1 2 3 is the quintessential logos creation myth like the agon model it begins with darkness and the uncreated primordial ocean 21 god separates and restrains the waters but he does not create them from nothing 22 god initiates each creative act with a spoken word god said let there be and finalises it with the giving of a name 23 creation by speech is not unique to the old testament it is prominent in some egyptian traditions 24 there is however a difference between the egyptian and hebrew logos mythologies in genesis 1 the divine word of the elohim god is an act of making into emphasizing a sovereign imposition of structure the word of egyptian creator god by contrast is an almost magical activation of something inherent in pre creation chaos awakening its innate potential as such it goes beyond the concept of fiat divine act to something more like the logos of the gospel of john 24 naming god wisdom torah and christ edit according to john h walton in the ancient near east things did not exist until they were named the name of a living being or an object was the very essence of what was defined and the pronouncing of a name was to create what was spoken 24 the pre exilic before 586 bce old testament allowed no equals to yahweh in heaven despite the continued existence of an assembly of subordinate servant deities who helped make decisions about matters on heaven and earth 25 the post exilic writers of the wisdom tradition e g the book of proverbs song of songs etc develop the idea that wisdom later identified with torah existed before creation and was used by god to create the universe 4 present from the beginning wisdom assumes the role of master builder while god establishes the heavens restricts the chaotic waters and shapes the mountains and fields 26 adopting the language conventions from greek philosophers who held that reason bound the universe together the wisdom tradition taught that god s wisdom word and spirit were the ground of cosmic unity 12 christianity in turn adopted these ideas and applied them to jesus christ the epistle to the colossians commonly attributed to the apostle paul calls jesus the image of the invisible god first born of all creation and the gospel of john also identifies him with the creative word in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god 13 cosmography shape and structure of the cosmos edit the old testament cosmos see also cosmography and christian mythology heavens earth and underworld edit the hebrew bible depicted a three part world with the heavens shamayim above earth eres in the middle and the underworld sheol below 27 after the 4th century bce this was gradually replaced by a greek scientific cosmology of a spherical earth surrounded by multiple concentric heavens 9 the cosmic ocean edit further information tehom the three part world of heavens earth and underworld floated in tehom the mythological cosmic ocean which covered the earth until god created the firmament to divide it into upper and lower portions and reveal the dry land 28 the world has been protected from the cosmic ocean ever since by the solid dome of the firmament 29 page needed the tehom is or was hostile to god it confronted him at the beginning of the world psalm 104 6 ff but fled from the dry land at his rebuke he has now set a boundary or bar for it which it cannot pass jeremiah 5 22 and job 38 8 10 30 the cosmic sea is the home of monsters which god conquers by his power he stilled the sea by his understanding he smote rahab job 26 12 f 30 rahab is an exclusively hebrew sea monster others including leviathan and the tannin or dragons are found in ugaritic texts it is not entirely clear whether they are identical with sea or are sea s helpers 31 the bronze sea which stood in the forecourt of the temple in jerusalem probably corresponds to the sea in babylonian temples representing the apsu the cosmic ocean 32 in the new testament jesus conquest of the stormy sea shows the conquering deity overwhelming the forces of chaos a mere word of command from the son of god stills the foe mark 4 35 41 who then tramples over his enemy jesus walking on water mark 6 45 6 47 51 33 in revelation where the archangel michael expels the dragon satan from heaven and war broke out in heaven with michael and his angels attacking the dragon revelation 12 7 the motif can be traced back to leviathan in israel and to tiamat the chaos ocean in babylonian myth identified with satan via an interpretation of the serpent in eden 34 heavens edit the tablet of shamash depicting a scene in heaven with celestial waters below supported by a solid base with four stars 35 form and structure edit further information firmament in the old testament the word shamayim represented both the sky atmosphere and the dwelling place of god 36 the raqia or firmament the visible sky was a solid inverted bowl over the earth coloured blue from the heavenly ocean above it 37 rain snow wind and hail were kept in storehouses outside the raqia which had windows to allow them in the waters for noah s flood entered when the windows of heaven were opened 38 heaven extended down to and was coterminous with i e it touched the farthest edges of the earth e g deuteronomy 4 32 39 humans looking up from earth saw the floor of heaven which they saw also as god s throne as made of clear blue lapis lazuli exodus 24 9 10 and ezekiel 1 26 40 below that was a layer of water the source of rain which was separated from us by an impenetrable barrier the firmament genesis 1 6 8 the rain may also be stored in heavenly cisterns job 38 37 or storehouses deut 28 12 alongside the storehouses for wind hail and snow 41 grammatically the word shamayim can be either dual two or plural more than two without ruling out the singular one 42 as a result it is not clear whether there were one two or more heavens in the old testament 43 but most likely there was only one and phrases such as heaven of heavens were meant to stress the vastness of god s realm 39 the babylonians had a more complex idea of heaven and during the babylonian exile 6th century bce the influence of babylonian cosmology led to the idea of a plurality of heavens among jews 44 this continued into the new testament revelation apparently has only one heaven but the epistle to the hebrews and the epistles to the colossians and the ephesians have more than one although they don t specify how many 45 and the apostle paul tells of his visit to the third heaven 2 corinthians 12 2 4 the place according to contemporary thought where the garden of paradise is to be found 46 the reference to the third heaven may refer to one of two cosmological systems present in antiquity one where the cosmos was divided into seven heavens and the other where the cosmos was divided into three 47 god and the heavenly beings edit the archangel michael a member of the host of divine beings who attend god in heaven defeating satan the dragon of chaos 34 israel and judah like other canaanite kingdoms originally had a full pantheon of gods 48 the chief of the old canaanite pantheon was the god el but over time yahweh replaced him as the national god and the two merged 48 the remaining gods were now subject to yahweh who in the sky is comparable to yahweh like yahweh among the divine beings a god dreaded in the council of holy beings psalm 89 6 9 49 in the book of job the council of heaven the sons of god bene elohim meet in heaven to review events on earth and decide the fate of job 50 one of their number is the satan literally the accuser who travels over the earth much like a persian imperial spy job dates from the period of the persian empire reporting on and testing the loyalty of men to god 50 belief in the divinity of the heavenly bodies explains a passage in joshua 10 12 usually translated as joshua asking the sun and moon to stand still but in fact joshua utters an incantation to ensure that the sun god and moon god who supported his enemies would not provide them with oracles 51 in the earlier old testament texts the bene elohim were gods but subsequently they became angels 52 the messengers malakim whom jacob sees going up and down a ladder actually a celestial mountain between heaven and earth 53 in earlier works the messengers were anonymous but in the second temple period 539 bce 100 ce they began to be given names and eventually became the vast angelic orders of christianity and judaism 48 thus the gods and goddesses who had once been the superiors or equals of yahweh were first made his peers then subordinate gods and finally ended as angels in his service 48 paradise and the human soul edit there is no concept of a human soul or of eternal life in the oldest parts of the old testament 8 death is the going out of the breath which god once breathed into the dust all men face the same fate in sheol a shadowy existence without knowledge or feeling job 14 13 qoheloth 9 5 and there is no way that mortals can enter heaven 8 in the centuries after the babylonian exile a belief in afterlife and post death retribution appeared in jewish apocalyptic literature 8 at much the same time the bible was translated into greek and the translators used the greek word paradaisos paradise for the garden of god 54 and paradise came to be located in heaven 46 earth edit babylonian map of the world c 600 bce the old testament concept of the earth was very similar a flat circular earth ringed by a world ocean with fabulous islands or mountains beyond at the ends of the earth 55 cosmic geography edit in the old testament period the earth was most commonly thought of as a flat disc floating on water 22 the concept was apparently quite similar to that depicted in a babylonian world map from about 600 bce a single circular continent bounded by a circular sea 56 and beyond the sea a number of equally spaced triangles called nagu distant regions apparently islands although possibly mountains 57 the old testament likewise locates islands alongside the earth psalm 97 1 these are the ends of the earth according to isaiah 41 5 the extreme edge of job s circular horizon job 26 10 where the vault of heaven is supported on mountains 58 other ot passages suggest that the sky rests on pillars psalm 75 3 1 samuel 2 8 job 9 6 on foundations psalms 18 7 and 82 5 or on supports psalm 104 5 59 the book of job imagines the cosmos as a vast tent with the earth as its floor and the sky as the tent itself from the edges of the sky god hangs the earth over nothing meaning the vast ocean securely supported by being tied to the sky job 26 7 60 if the technical means by which yahweh keeps the earth from sinking into the chaos waters are unclear it is nevertheless clear that he does so by virtue of his personal power 61 new testament scholar ronald l farmer believes the author of revelation assumed a flat earth in revelation 7 1 62 hebrew bible scholar dr kyle greenwood believes that the phrase four corners of the earth seems to have been an idiom related to the four cardinal directions which encompassed the totality of earth s surface 63 the idea that the earth was a sphere was developed by the greeks in the 6th century bce and by the 3rd century bce this was generally accepted by educated romans and greeks and even by some jews 64 temples mountains gardens and rivers edit in the cosmology of the ancient near east the cosmic warrior god after defeating the powers of chaos would create the world and build his earthly house the temple 65 just as the abyss the deepest deep was the place for chaos and death so god s temple belonged on the high mountain 66 in ancient judah the mountain and the location of the temple was zion jerusalem 65 the navel and center of the world ezekiel 5 5 and ezekiel 38 12 67 the psalms describe god sitting enthroned over the flood the cosmic sea in his heavenly palace psalm 29 10 the eternal king who lays the beams of his upper chambers in the waters psalm 104 3 the samaritan pentateuch identifies this mountain as mount gerizim which the new testament also implicitly acknowledges john 4 20 this imagery recalls the mesopotamian god ea who places his throne in apsu the primeval fresh waters beneath the earth and the canaanite god el described in the baal cycle as having his palace on a cosmic mountain which is the source of the primordial ocean water springs 68 the point where heavenly and earthly realms join is depicted as an earthly garden of god associated with the temple and royal palace 69 ezekiel 28 12 19 places the garden in eden on the mountain of the gods 70 in genesis 2 3 eden s location is more vague simply far away in the east 71 but there is a strong suggestion in both that the garden is attached to a temple or palace 72 in jerusalem the earthly temple was decorated with motifs of the cosmos and the garden 73 and like other ancient near eastern temples its three sections made up a symbolic microcosm from the outer court the visible world of land and sea through the holy place the visible heaven and the garden of god to the holy of holies the invisible heaven of god 74 the imagery of the cosmic mountain and garden of ezekiel reappears in the new testament book of revelation applied to the messianic jerusalem its walls adorned with precious stones the river of the water of life flowing from under its throne revelation 22 1 2 75 a stream from underground or a subterranean ocean of fresh water fertilises eden before dividing into four rivers that go out to the entire earth genesis 2 5 6 in ezekiel 47 1 12 see ezekiel s temple and other prophets the stream issues from the temple itself makes the desert bloom and turns the dead sea from salt to fresh 76 yet the underground waters are ambiguous they are the source of life giving rivers but they are also associated with death jeremiah 2 6 and job 38 16 17 describe how the way to sheol is t...