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Araboth (Hebrew: עֲרָבוֹת, Tiberian: ʿĂrāḇōṯ, Deserts/Plains): [18] The seventh heaven, under the leadership of the Archangel Cassiel, is the holiest of the seven heavens because it houses the Throne of God attended by the Seven Archangels and serves as the realm in which God dwells; underneath the throne itself lies the abode ...
reconstruct the so-called Hebrew cosmology. Babylonian Views of the Heavens During the latter part of the nineteenth century, critical scholars commonly suggested that the ancient Hebrews borrowed many of their ideas, including the notion that heaven was a solid hemisphere, from the Babylonians, probably while the former people were exiled there.
- Randall W. Younker, Richard M. Davidson
- 2011
- Old Testament Cosmology
- The Heavens
- The Earth
- The Underworld
“Cosmology” refers to the way we understand the structure of the universe. The biblical writers’ conception of how the heavens and earth were structured by God represents a particular cosmology. The Israelites believed in a universe that was common among the ancient civilizations of the biblical world. It encompassed three parts: a heavenly realm, ...
We find an Israelite understanding of the heavens in Genesis 1:6–8, which describes it as an expanse, with waters above and below: “And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse (רקיע, raqiaʾ) in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ . . . And it was so. And God called the expanse (רקיע, raqiaʾ) Heaven.” The sky, though...
The earth sat upon the watery deep. The “waters below” speak not only to waters that people use but also the deeper abyss. Thus, the earth was surrounded by the seas (Gen 1:9–10), having arisen out of the water (2 Pet 3:5). The earth was thought to be held fast by pillars or sunken foundations (1 Sam 2:8; Job 38:4–6; Psa 104:5).
The realm of the dead was located under the earth. The most frequent term for this place was Sheol (שאול; Prov 9:18; Psa 6:4–5; 18:4–5). The word for “earth” (ארץ, ʾerets) is also used—the graves dug by humans represented gateways to the Underworld. In Job, the realm of the dead is described in watery terms: “The dead tremble under the waters and t...
Some view Gehinnom as a place of torture and punishment, fire and brimstone. Others imagine it less harshly, as a place where one reviews the actions of his/her life and repents for past misdeeds. The soul’s sentence in Gehinnom is usually limited to a 12-month period of purgation before it takes its place in Olam Ha-Ba (see: Mishnah Eduyot 2:10 and Shabbat 33b).
Origen's model of two heavens was followed by later writers who kept the concept of a spiritual and immaterial heaven of the first day (caelum) and the corporeal/sidereal firmamentum. [ 25 ] [ 26 ] Various views on the materiality of the firmament emerged among the Church Fathers , including that it had been made out of air, out of the four elements, or out of a yet-distinct fifth element. [ 27 ]
Hence he employed the word haazinu when addressing the heavens. The material world, however, was distant and insignificant to Moses, so he used the word tishma when addressing the earth. Moses was close to the heavens, but since the purpose of Judaism is to connect both matter and spirit, Moses had to invoke not only heaven but earth as well.
With the exception of Saturn and Venus, the planets are not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, although the stars—called kohavim in Hebrew—are mentioned almost forty times. 16 Close Another term used to describe the heavens is mazzalot, but it appears only once in the Bible, and its meaning is unclear; some translate the word to mean the planets, while others translate it to mean the ...
