A Response to William Lane Craig on Hebrew Cosmology: Here's Your

Evidence
- December 04, 2021

In the 몭rst half of this podcast, William Lane Craig responded by name to my earlier
blog post where I’ve argued that he misrepresented a passage in the Swiss
Egyptologist Othmar Keel’s book on biblical cosmology. I think that post stands on its
own. This one will cover some actual evidence for biblical cosmology.

For those who don’t know, I’ve written a book largely on ancient Hebrew cosmology in
its cultural context that rocks out on electric guitars (errr... in a scholarly way), have
tracked everything I can 몭nd in scholarship on the topic now for several years, and I
believe along with the overwhelming majority of Hebraists, Egyptologists, and
Assyriologists that the biblical authors believed in a tri-part universe with a literal
underworld and solid sky dome upholding a heavenly ocean over the earth.

This blog post will be one of the better references available on the internet on ancient
cosmology because it shares a lot of newer or little-known important sources on the
topic that don't currently get circulated in the popular biblical cosmology "debate."

Although I’m going to be criticizing Craig, I’m actually a big fan, and he’s a big reason I
chose to become unemployable with a seminary Philosophy degree out of high
school. I’m sure Craig owns many leather-bound books, and his house smells of rich
mahogany. Alas, this is a case where wild Bill Hitch-block is treading into my research
areas and making overcon몭dent claims that I know just ain’t true. 

And that’s like, totally not cool man.

Tons of theologians 몭nd the Bible's

ancient Near Eastern cosmology
offensive to their beliefs about the
Bible’s inspiration (which I think is
overdramatic of them, but whatever), so
they feel compelled to 몭ght this
I've literally been waiting for this debate since consensus by 몭xating on all the
highschool. ambiguities and limits in our knowledge
about the speci몭c details of ancient cosmology (and there are tons; I don’t argue the
ancients had a uni몭ed view on the details, and early Rabbinic sources point-blank
admit it). I don’t know if Craig himself is motivated by theological hang-ups, but as a
“minimal facts” approach kinda guy what exactly does wild Bill believe about these
core features?

Talk is cheap, and I hate when people don’t get to the point, so I’d better cough up a
helping of some of the evidence so people can see I’m not blu몭ng.

The earth was seen as a 몭at disk surrounded by an

ocean ring 
 Illustration of the Babylonian Map of the World Tablet and its
reconstruction (referencing Finkel). 

Exhibit A: For the 몭at disk of the earth, we have the Babylonian Map of the World clay
tablet where a scribe in the ballpark of the biblical classical period actually illustrated
and labeled the earth disk using a literal compass to inscribe it. It’s surrounded by the
Mesopotamian cosmic sea ring labeled the Marratu--“bitter river.” Irving Finkle, the
world’s most famous Assyriologist and the curator of this tablet at the British Museum
(his scholastic prowess practically oozing from that dreadfully iconic beard of his)
agrees with this assessment (Finkel 263) as does Keel—one of the top experts in
biblical iconography (Keel 21-2).

Keel points out this illustration is conceptually paralleled in the Bible where Prov 8:27
and Job 26:10 both use a verb related to a compass to describe God’s “inscribing” the
earth “circle on the face of the waters” or Isaiah’s language of God “sitting over the
circle of the earth” (40:22) (Cosmas Indicopleustes called from the sixth century. He
wants to know how the heavens can be “spread out like a tent” canopy in that verse
unless the earth is presumed 몭at?). A 몭at earth is the most natural way to make sense
of Job 26:10’s language of God “inscribing a horizon on the face of the waters as a
boundary between light and darkness”--the “boundary” being the 몭at horizon line
where the sun rises. Comparison with the Babylonian Map also explains why Genesis
1:9 says the waters gathered “to one place” so that the earth could appear. 

The Babylonian Map has an ocean-ring called the “Bitter River.” Keel (21) pointed out
that Psalm 24:2 refers to this same concept since it cosmically parallels the sea with
an earth encompassing river. It says God has founded the earth, “upon the seas, upon
an earth encompassing river. It says God has founded the earth, “upon the seas, upon
the rivers established it” [‫ֶה‬
ָ‫ֹוננ‬
ְ ‫ְיכ‬
‫ָהרות‬
‫ל־נ‬
ְ ‫ְﬠ‬
ַ
‫ָדה ו‬
‫ְס‬
ָ‫ַמּים י‬
ִ ִPsalm 72:8 reads, “Let
‫]כּי־הוּאַﬠל־י‬
him dominate from sea upon sea, and from the River upon the ends of the earth [‫ומנהר‬
‫]עד אפסי ארץ‬.” This is undoubtedly exactly why the Ugaritic texts call the chaos serpent
counterpart to Leviathan the interchangeable titles “Prince Sea” and “Judge River”
throughout the Baal Cycle—not unlike the chaoskampf language in Psalm 93.3-4 where
Yam “Sea” is paralleled with the “waves of the rivers” neharot).  

As proposed in a Brill volume on Leviathan, one of Leviathan’s cross-cultural Semitic

titles [aqallathon nachash] emphasizes his “wreath shape” and this might be
comparable to the uroboros iconography of the Egyptian chaos serpent Apep (Korpel,
de Moor, 7). The implication would be that Leviathan and the Ugaritic Yam both
represent this cosmic sea-river ring. Horowitz, the author of the leading study of
Mesopotamian cosmology also points out that this cosmology is parallel again to the
Etana legend which tells of how the ancient Mesopotamian monarch was carried
upwards by an eagle and was shown the earth from the sky, whereupon he describes
the earth as a garden encompassed by sea like an “irrigation ditch” in the shape of an
“animal pen.” (63) 

Images enlarge when you click on them.

I’ll avoid covering the Egyptian stuff here that Keel’s Symbolism of the Biblical World
book discusses. The Egyptians depicted the earth and sky in a couple shapes, and I
don’t want to be misleadingly simplistic. However, we can simply note in passing that
the cover of Keel’s Biblical Cosmologies book shows the 300s BC lid of the
Sarcophagus of Wereshnefer that depicts the disk of the earth surrounded by a ring of
Sarcophagus of Wereshnefer that depicts the disk of the earth surrounded by a ring of
ocean labeled the “great ring” not unlike the Babylonian Map illustration.

So, for crying out loud, does William Lane Craig agree with the experts and the
excellent evidence that the Bible assumes an essentially 몭at earth encompassed by a
river-like ocean? He astonishingly doesn’t. What is the alternative you’d propose Craig?
Were ancient people so devoid of curiosity that they just never asked the question?
The specialist in Babylonian astronomy Mathieu Ossendrijver has con몭rmed directly
that Babylonian earthly cosmology was indeed 몭at, and I don't know why we shouldn't
infer this same explanation for the biblical evidence (Panaino 20). It's not like the
biblical authors would have believed convoluted later Hellenistic theories that the
earth was a globe with people presumably living on opposite sides upheld by some
invisible force.

Theologians often don’t realize that this issue isn’t safely constrained to abstract,
distant discussions of Iron Age civilizations. The features of cosmology, especially the
몭rmament, I am discussing here were pretty directly discussed in early Rabbinic
sources, were a point of controversy for centuries as Semitic populations of Christians
were butting heads with Hellenistic science, as well as in the Quran and its Syriac
Christian context—who were still explicitly discussing and believing core aspects of
this traditional ancient Near Eastern cosmology right up to the seventh century AD!
Here's a free paper by Yale's Near East guy about this.

For the nerds, my book chapter covering some of this is also now available as a PDF
here. I got so tired of repeating its content, that I just caved and made it freely
available.

The 몭rmament and waters above 

Evidence the heavens were conceived as a bowl 

One of those abominable parts of my diagram that the Philosopher Gospeler called a
“monstrosity” *sobs quietly* is my depiction of the heavens as a bowl. En garde. Good
news for me, the inglorious secret about biblical scholarship is that triumph rarely
corelates with whoever is packing the biggest brains. Rather, it favors whoever is
irresponsible enough to dump the most free time into an obscure niche of research—a
competition of who has the most dismal social life. So, unless Bill has been neglecting
his family and ministry for months, he probably isn’t aware of the good evidence basis
for the bowl 몭rmament I've collected in the Near East.

Here’s seven:

1) We have a Phoenician text from Cyprus that uses a cognate of the Hebrew word
for firmament (raqia) for what is likely a golden bowl or platter (‫מרקע‬ mrqa)
(Brown­Driver­Briggs 955­6). The Akkadian ruqqu (first hit in CAD) for a metal
bowl or cauldron is undoubtedly related and neatly dovetails with associations to
hammered metal just as the verb and noun forms typically do in the Bible. 

2) The Luwian (Hittite) hieroglyph for heaven CAELUM is literally a bowl (e.g. its
depiction as a starry bowl being upheld by gods at Yazilikaya where the relief is
actually even labeled “heaven” and “earth”) and appears likewise as a self­
designating term for bowl on silver bowl inscriptions (Almansa­Villatoro 77). 

3) The Egyptologist Almansa­Villatoro points out that the Aegean poet Sappho
point­blank calls the sky a bowl (whatever that's worth) (77). 

4) The Egyptian hieroglyph for sky is typically a flat roof. However, it is bowed
into a bowl shape with the winged sun taking the same curvature in the top
register of the funerary stele that took over in Egypt during Isaiah’s period, and it
is justified to interpret Hebrew cosmology in light of Egyptianized iconography
(especially in the form of the curved winged sun disk as a symbol for the sky)
because Phoenician mediated Egyptianized iconography dominates Hebrew art
preceding the reign of Josiah. 

5) A bowl shape seems a plausible interpretation of Job 22:14’s language of God
“walking on the vault [lit. “circle] of heaven” to use the ESV rendering. 

6) There was a common tendency in the Near East (e.g. Egyptian, Phoenician,
and Persian) to relate the heavens to the concave interior of an egg shell
mythologically (e.g. see Panaino 41). 

7) The Great Hymn to Shamash (lines 154­5) says the heavens are a “vessel” like a
“seer’s bowl.” KAR 25 ii.16 says the heaven of Anu is “the incense bowl of the
gods.”

Contrary to Craig's assurance to the 몭ock the solid dome model is “outdated” and
“garish,” I think the evidence is pretty darn reasonable.
 Lady Taperet’s funeral stele in the Lourve here, 22nd to 25th dynasties.

One part of my diagram that I now know I

certainly did get wrong was my placement of
the "windows of heaven" that brought the
Great Flood in the upper reaches of the raqia-
몭rmament. I've conversed a bit with the
Semitist Daniel Sarlo, and I think he has
shown beyond doubt in his new JANER
article through biblical and Northwest Semitic
parallels that the windows of heaven were
actually conduits in the raqia connected with a
Daniel Sarlo's Hebrew cosmology
vast well of freshwater called ‫ִם‬ ‫ַה‬under
‫ַמּבּוּלַמי‬
diagram. See PDF key here.
Yahweh's mountain palace on the eastern
horizon. I really love his cosmology diagram too and think his work merits more
attention as we await his dissertation publication.

It’s actually really obvious that heaven is solid in the Bible, like really obvious

It’s continually surreal to me that Christians have a hard time accepting that the
ancients believed the sky was solid since they should have intuited this from hundreds
of places in their bedside Bibles.
Atrahasis III. 3 implies the Anzu bird brought forth the great 몭ood by tearing the sky
open with his talons. In Enuma Elish IV. 135-141, when Marduk creates the sky from
Tiamat’s corpse, heaven is made of the same substance as the earth it is divided from
and is “set up” “to roof” (shamamu) the earth like a building and is “stretched out to
prevent her waters from escape” (see comments in Rochberg, Path of the Moon, 344).
We have statements that the skies can’t sustain the weight of Marduk’s hand.
Egyptian sources mention the possibility of the sky falling if not supported by the
gods.

The Bible has the sky resting on mountain “pillars” with God “walking” on it in Job. It
“shakes” and has “foundations” in 2 Sam 22:8 that shake when the earth does as well
as “ends” (Isa 13:5). The raqia-heaven “shows his handiwork” in Psalm 19:2. Don’t
forget “angels of God” apparently come and go on earth by means of a “ladder” (or
ziggurat steps?), “set up on the earth with the top reaching to heaven.” Isaiah says the
stars will fall like leaves and the sky will “roll up like a scroll” at the eschaton (but that's
a vision so it doesn't count, right?). The heavens are like a tabernacle tent covering
(Isa 40:22). For good measure, educated Royal Quarter Judahites were apparently into
the whole solar-God chariot concept at the Temple in 2 Kgs 23:11 before kill-joy
Josiah banned it. I’m too lazy to go pulling up all the technical citations unless
someone makes me, but in the Gilgamesh Epic, it is said the mountains at the edge of
the world lean against the surface of the sky and temples are often said to touch or
nearly touch heaven. Nearly every ANE culture references the separation of the sky
from the earth at creation—implying it’s solid in parallel with the earth’s material it was
severed from. In Sumerian legend, An “carried off” the sky, and it’s separated with a
copper cleaver in Hittite myth. We are told Marduk “inscribed” the stars on its jasper
surface.

So yeah Craig, there’s tons of mythology and metaphor going on here. Guilty as
charged. But give me a break. Those mythologies and metaphors clearly favor a solid
몭rmament and make the most sense in a context where people didn’t believe in an
atmospheric cosmology. By the way, probably most Christians in history took the solid
몭rmament passages in the Bible literally since it was implied by the Aristotelian hard
crystalline spheres model that held clout up into the Renaissance. In fact, in my
research, I’ve been hard pressed to 몭nd any ancient civilizations proposing an
atmospheric heavenly cosmology outside of niche Chinese philosophy centuries after
the death of Christ. 
the death of Christ. 

The Waters Above 

Craig’s mischaracterization of Rochberg’s research 

The Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q Genesis fragment discussing the

separation of the "waters above" by the raqia.

Craig says he’s read up on Babylonian astronomy and in both his replies has
brandished the Assyriologist Francesca Rochberg’s 2004 book The Heavenly Writing.
He takes her study (which actually doesn’t have much in it on cosmic geography), as
evidence that Babylonian astronomy was “anti-realist” and “didn't try to provide any
sort of physical cosmology.” (How convenient!) According to Craig’s summation of
Rochberg’s work:

"In other words, ancient Babylonian astronomy was purely instrumentalist in its
orientation. It only focused on making accurate predictions. It didn't have a
physical model of the cosmos or of the heavens. There was no part of it....
Babylonian astronomy wasn't a physical interpretation of the way the world was."

This is a frustrating and unfortunate presentation of Rochberg’s conclusions. Similar

to how Craig spun a quote from Keel’s book, he is here implying to his impressionable
audience that this respected specialist supports his framework of fringe skepticism
and ancient apathy about material cosmology. 

Craig is probably unaware Rochberg’s 2011 book In the Path of

the Moon contains a chapter entitled, “A Short History of the
Waters Above the Firmament.” In this chapter, she sides pretty
emphatically against Craig’s denialism and agnosticism about
the limits of our knowledge he is touting in the name of her
 other book. Rochberg point-blank compares Mesopotamian
texts that refer to the heavens as stone to the biblical raqia--
which she identi몭es as a solid “vault” and hammered “plate”
(Path of the Moon, 347). She also agrees with Horowitz in
endorsing the consensus that the Enuma Elish legend has the
heavens retaining a literal sea over the earth like Genesis 1:6-7, and she even proposes
that the Akkadian literary phrase šupuk šamê--literally “base of heaven” may be the
“몭rmament”--“the idea of a cosmic feature to function as a barrier between the
heavenly waters above and the earth below” (Path of the Moon, 344). 

To clarify, I ain't kvetching on Craig for picking and choosing what he agrees with in
Keel and Rochberg’s books. He's a grown man. I’m faulting him for misrepresenting to
the public where these scholars actually stand on what we can know and reasonably
say about Mesopotamian and biblical cosmic geography. Keel and Rochberg are
square in the consensus against his views, and he has implied the opposite to his
evangelical listeners. I highly doubt Craig does this out of malice. It’s probably just a
side effect of him being a professional apologist with a busy schedule frantically
trying to be decently read on literally hundreds of obscure topics with only time to
specialize in a few.

The Egyptians and the waters above 

James P. Allen, the former president of the International Association of Egyptologists,
can probably be considered a leading authority on Egyptian cosmology considering he
wrote THE book on it (Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation
Accounts--free digital version of the book here). He compiles and exegetes the main
primary sources on ancient Egyptian cosmology and discusses the Egyptian literal sky
ocean and cosmic void in probably half of his text commentary sections--comparing
the hieroglyphic references to it directly to the raqia and waters above in Genesis 1:7
at the opening of the book (e.g. the discussion on pg 4-7, 14, 17, 20).

One can track plenty of similar extended discussion in Victoria Almansa-Villatoro's

killer recent 2020 paper in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. This one comes with
the sexy title: “The Cultural Indexicality of the N41 Sign for bj3: The Metal of the Sky
and the Sky of Metal.” See also the NewScientist piece on the paper here if you want
an easier paywall to get around. Almansa-Villatoro argues from primary texts and
linguistic data that the Egyptians believed the sky was metal, retained water, and
meteorites that the Egyptians collected were interpreted by them as chunks of the sky
—probably why they called iron “metal of heaven.” 

In the above image I've quoted where Keel argues the heavenly sea is labeled on the
Map of the Cosmos on the Sarcophagus of Wereshnefer. Anyone who doubts this can
read this free article on the topic by Silva Zago in the Le Bulletin de l’Institut français
d’archéologie orientale that discuses the technical hieroglyphic data and wades into
plenty of parallel primary source discussion of the Egyptian heavenly ocean vault. The
evidence trail is pretty merciless. Plus, all that Arabic, French, and Hieroglyph Unicode
made me feel like Howard Carter in a bowtie just having it open in my web browser.
Here's a snippet from the conclusion:

"In ancient Egypt, the sky was imagined as a body of water, an interface between
the outer cosmos and this world. Early on in funerary literature, the aquatic
nature of the celestial vault, personified by the goddess Nut, was encapsulated in
the words used to designate it, among which qbḥ w occupied a preeminent role.
As was shown above, this enigmatic designation, usually translated as “cool
waters”, does not simply indicate the sky, but also the cosmic waters of the
firmament lying outside the created world, and belonging in the primordial ocean
Nun."

Those who follow my work (like

my just-published She몭eld
 Phoenix paper) will know that
royal Jewish art of the biblical
classical period was remarkably
Egyptian dominant and
intelligently informed--making Egypt a perfectly sensible place to look for context into
the Bible's cosmology.

Why the “waters above the 몭rmament” in Genesis 1 aren’t rain clouds 

I haven’t found anywhere where William Lane Craig has speci몭cally exegeted the
“waters above” in Genesis 1:6-7 besides identifying them as rain clouds in conjunction
with the water cycle. Besides the fact that this explanation doesn’t 몭t the context of
Mesopotamian, Egyptian, or Rabbinic interpretation which all assume there is literally
an ocean over the sky, this interpretation also doesn’t make a lot of sense of the fact
that the Priestly author in Genesis 1 says the sun, moon, and stars were set “in” the
raqia-몭rmament (‫ברקיע‬ v.15). If the luminaries are set in the raqia and the waters
above are speci몭ed in the same passage as “above the raqia” (‫ המים אשר מעל לרקיע‬v.
7), then Craig’s interpretation of the waters above as rain would tend to imply that the
Priestly author must have thought rain clouds came from higher up in the sky than the
sun, moon, and stars. I don’t 몭nd this explanation of the biblical “waters above” a
reasonable alternative to the heavenly sea idea. 

As an aside, if anyone cares, here’s also an Assyrian seal possibly depicting the
waters above the heavens that I haven’t seen recognized yet in any other studies on
biblical cosmic geography. You’re welcome. BioLogos, call me already.
 A possible depiction of the cosmic waters on a
Mesopotamian seal (in Ziffer's paper "The Imagery of the Shrine")

The Solidity of the sky 

Job 37: “Can you spread out the skies as hard as a cast metal mirror?” 

I presume the sky in Hebrew cosmology was hard, in part, because,

besides that being the emphatic meaning of the Septuagint term
for the raqia (stereoma) in its 16 extant occurrences in Greek
literature (some nerd ran that database search here), Job 37:18
says: “Can you like [God], spread out the skies, hard as a cast metal
mirror?” Apologists typically dismiss this passage by taking it to
refer to God spreading out the clouds, not the sky. However, the
verb typically refers speci몭cally to beating out metal and certainly
does here where the context is pounding out a bronze plate. It
doesn’t make sense to compare the hardness of clouds to metal.
Likewise, Clines points out that the “spreading” of clouds is an
ongoing and daily occurrence that would tend to imply a repeated,
ongoing action of the verb (David J. A. Clines, Job 21-37. Word
Bible Commentary 18A [Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2006], 882). However, ancient
mirrors were only “spread out” by hammering during their initial manufacture after
casting. It therefore makes superior sense that the verb refers to a single past action—
the initial creation of a rigid 몭rmament as almost all translations imply.

Ezekiel 1 also 몭gures the 몭rmament (raqia) as a “crystal-colored” platform upon which
God’s throne rests. In my book, I was stumped as to why ancient sources will 몭op
between saying the sky is metallic or crystalline stone, but my reading of Panaino’s
recent book lends me to speculate metal and stone were probably considered
overlapping categories in the ancient mind since metal is harvested from ore. We see
the same switching between the sky being referred to as stone or metal in Middle
Persian texts. Without getting into the details (Read the Kingsley paper cited at this
link if you want those. Also discussed in Panaino 96-7), Ezekiel 1 has some
remarkable parallels to the Babylonian text KAR 307 (also referred to as VAT 8917)
which says directly that the heaven "is saggilmud stone" supporting Marduk’s throne--
probably involving the same types of stones as Yahweh’s throne in the Ezekiel vision. 

Ezekiel 1 is a Babylonian polemical text, so it’s superior to assume its raqia heavenly
crystalline platform of the enthroned God should be conceived just as solid as the
Babylonian parallel of Marduk’s enthronement over a stone heaven.  

Craig’s argument that the existence of planets refutes

the sky dome model 
In his response to me, Craig raises the following objection to the existence of a solid
몭rmament in biblical and Mesopotamian cosmology:  

“The ancient Babylonians understood the motion of the stars and of the planets
and the sun and the moon. The planets would wander across the sky so that they
would cross the path of the fixed stars as they rotate across the sky. Well, that
sort of view is impossible to reconcile with the idea that the heavens are like a
hard inverted bowl over the earth resting on its surface at the horizon. There’s no
way that you can get planets moving across the path of the stars if this is
supposed to be some sort if a cosmology based upon a hard stellar surface.”   

It’s pretty common knowledge the planets were seen as autonomous gods in
Mesopotamia (e.g. Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing, 18, 142): “The gods who keep
changing their positions” as MUL.APIN II words it. Since the planets were animated by
deities (or even devices like a system of cosmic winds and cords in Persian thought),
their movements independent of the stars were never, or almost never seen as
incompatible with a solid 몭rmament in ancient cultures. So I 몭nd this stock objection
of Craig’s strange coming from someone who is claiming to know the literature. It also
tends towards contradicting the scribal performance language of Marduk engraving
[eseru] (Horowitz 14-5) the stars on the lower heaven in Babylonian texts. 

I've put my money where my mouth is on this point and have surveyed some 50
ancient cultures in my book appendix arguing belief in a solid 몭rmament is almost an
ancient human universal (despite the fact that these cultures usually know planets
exists). Again, some Semitic populations believed in a solid sky dome right up into the
Quranic period.  
Almost universally, traditional people observe that all the constellations move in
unison and are presented with two common sense explanations: 1) The stars must be
imbedded in a solid 몭rmament, or 2) The earth itself moves. Since it’s apparent that
the earth doesn’t seem to move, they typically conclude the stars are attached to a
solid 몭rmament that moves (how this might work in relation to the fact that ancient
Near Eastern texts typically have the sky resting on mountain “pillars” is unclear. I'm
not off-hand aware of su몭cient ancient data to do more than speculate.) Even the
Greeks thought the stars were imbedded in a solid crystaline sphere.

Perhaps the biggest issue with Craig’s objection here, however, is that we 몭at-out have
several pesky Neo-Assyrian texts that state: 1) the heavens are stone, and 2) the
constellations are “drawn” on their surface (KAR 307:30-33) (Horowitz 4): 

"The Upper Heavens are luludanilu­stone. They belong to (the god) Anu. He
settled the 300 Igigi (gods) inside.  

The Middle Heavens are saggilmud stone. They belong to the Igigi. Bel sat on the
high [platform] inside,  

The Lower Heavens are jasper. They belong to the stars. He drew [ina muhhi] the
constellations of the gods on them."  

In antiquity, jasper included a stone recognized for its similar coloration to the sky
(Horowitz 14). For the guy in Asshur who wrote this text and the author of its parallel
statement in AO 8196, Craig’s “hard stellar surface” with “몭xed stars” was apparently
not seen as “impossible to reconcile.”

So, we point-blank have two texts where Mesopotamians say the sky “is x-stone” with
the stars “inscribed” on it (whatever that means). AO 8196’s parallel content is mostly
scholarly astrological reference and Wayne Horowitz, who is only the world's leading
expert on Mesopotamian cosmic geography, interprets it literally (Horowitz 9,15). I
therefore think it is irresponsible and pretty ridiculous for Craig to mislead his
audience in his response to me with the exaggerated assurance that “there’s
absolutely no reason at all to think the ancient interpreted these things
literalistically....”

In a blog post Craig dismisses these ancient

passages as mythological metaphor, in part,
because he doesn’t think the ancients would have
found a solid 몭rmament coherent to begin with.
There are two issues with his claim: First, in a new
book on ancient Iranian cosmology, Antonio Panaino
takes these Babylonian descriptions of the heavens
as evidence contextualizing similar ideas in Middle
Persian cosmology where the heavens are also
tripart and said to be made of the “substance of William Lane Craig looking more
metal” or crystal as I’ve previously alluded (Panaino like William "Gains" Craig.
40 n101, 94-7). The evidence one can supply that
these texts are essentially literal probably reverse-contextualizes the earlier
Mesopotamian conceptions as literal. Likewise, the Mesopotamian conceptions
contextualize the Bible’s solid “crystalline” and “metal” metaphors for the raqia in texts
like Ezekiel and Job. 

Finally, Craig’s claim here also doesn’t comport with the fact that the later Rabbinic
period texts I conclude with below are pretty darn emphatic about the solid 몭rmament
and apparently didn’t get any memos that the existence of planets should have
disquali몭ed belief in it, despite the fact that they were culturally downstream of the
Babylonian exile and Persia by that point.

Enter the Rabbis

Craig says:

 “I’ve noticed that when you
challenge people like Stanhope,
they simply appeal to the pictures
or to the myths and they don’t
address the question, ‘how do you
know that ancient peoples
interpreted these literalistically?’
They never seem to address that
central question.” 

The reason I feel comfortable

being so bold in my claims about the literalness of ancient cosmology is, in part,
because I’m looking at the Jewish stuff that Christians publishing on this topic almost
always ignore. I’m working from the assumption that the rabbis of the Hellenistic
always ignore. I’m working from the assumption that the rabbis of the Hellenistic
period didn’t become scienti몭cally dumber than the Late Iron Age biblical authors.
Theologians typically scoff at using these sources on the presumption that they are
too late to useful at informing the Bible's context, but I strongly disagree on the
grounds that these texts yield interpretative predictive validity that fringe
interpretations like Craig's fail to produce.

For example, you can check out this paper by the Bar-Illan University Rabbinic scholar
Simon-Shoshan (this one's free access too): “‘The Heavens Proclaim the Glory of
God…’: A Study in Rabbinic Cosmology."

Simon-Shoshan concludes that texts of the early Rabbinic period re몭ect earlier
aspects of Babylonian and biblical cosmology. Some examples: 

Pesachim 94b of the Babylonian Talmud states (Blidstein 45): 

“The Sages of Israel maintain: The sun travels beneath the sky by day and above
the sky by night [i.e. it is hidden above the wall of the firmament]; while the
Sages of the nations of the world maintain: It travels beneath the sky by day and
below the earth at night. Said Rabbi: And their view is preferable to ours, for the
wells are cold by day but warm at night.” 

Here the Rabbis distinguished their cosmological tradition from the Greek model and
attribute belief in a solid 몭rmament to their people. How about some other ancient
Jewish texts discussing the solid 몭rmament? 

3 Baruch 3:6-8 (Charelsworth 665): 

"And appearing to them, the Lord changed their languages; by that time they had
built the tower 463 cubits (high). And taking an auger [i.e. a drill], they
attempted to pierce the heaven, saying “Let us see whether the heaven is (made)
of clay or copper or iron.” Seeing these things, God did not permit them (to
continue), but struck them with blindness and with confusion of tongues…."

 Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 109a (Epstein 748):

“Let us build a tower, ascend to heaven, and cleave it with axes, that its waters
might gush forth.” 

 Genesis Rabbah 4:5 (Posner 159):

"The thickness of the firmament equals that of the earth: compare, “It is He that
sitteth above the circle (Hebrew: chug) of the earth” (Isa 40:22) with, “And He
walketh in the circuit (Hebrew: chug) of the heaven” (Job 22:14): the use of ‘chug’
in both verses teaches that they are alike. Rabbi Aha said in Rabbi Janina’s name:
 in both verses teaches that they are alike. Rabbi Aha said in Rabbi Janina’s name:
[It is as] thick as a metal plate. Rabbi Joshua son of Rabbi Nehemiah said: It is
about two fingers in thickness. The son of Pazzi said: The upper waters exceed the
lower ones by about [the measure of] thirty xestes [for it is written], “And let it
divide the waters from the waters (Hebrew: la­mayim)”…. Our Rabbis said: They
are half­and­half [that is, equal]."

Again, we can see from this passage that the Rabbis believed the raqia was a literal
retaining vault. Rabbi Janina even thought (undoubtedly from linguistic association to
hammered metal) that it was as “thick as a metal plate” and we see the common
theme that the heavenly ocean was taken as parallel to the earthly seas from which it
was separated. Many early Rabbinic texts explicitly interpret the 몭rmament of Genesis
1 as solid. For example, Genesis Rabba 4:2: 

"Our rabbis said the following in the name of Rabbi Hanina, while Rabbi
Phinehas and Rabbi Jacob son of Rabbi Bun said it in the name of Rabbi Samuel
son of Nahman: When the Holy One, blessed be He, ordered: “Let there be a
firmament in the midst of the waters,” the middle layer of water solidified and
the…heavens… were formed." 

 Rabba 6:8 asks, “How do…the sun and moon set?” The Rabbis disagreed (Simon-
Shoshan 72-3): 

"R. Judah says, behind the dome and above it. The rabbis say, behind the dome
and below it…. R. Simeon b. Jochai said: We do not know if they fly up in the air,
if they scrape the firmament, or if they travel as usual; the matter…is impossible
for humans to determine."

 Bava Batra 25a-b in the Talmud (Simon-Shoshan 72-3): 

 "It was taught in Beraita [i.e. oral law]: R. Eliezer says, the world is like an exedra
[a type of Greek semicircular architectural recess], and the northern side is not
enclosed, and when the sun reaches the north­western corner, it bends back and
rises above the firmament. And R. Joshua says, the world is like a tent, and the
northern side is enclosed and when the sun reaches the north­western corner, it
circles around and returns on the other side of the dome, as [Eccl. 1:6] says…."

 Similarly, in Genesis Rabba 4:1, 2 we read:

“The Holy One, blessed be He, roofed over His world with naught but water….
[God’s] handiwork [heaven] was in fluid form, and on the second day, the raqia
congealed.” 

Conclusion
Craig would probably claim these sources and the some 24 pages (!) of others Simon-
Craig would probably claim these sources and the some 24 pages (!) of others Simon-
Shoshan exegetes are too late or contaminated by Persian or Greek scienti몭c
in몭uence to contextualize the biblical authors. 

Fat chance. 

First, at the very least, we have to admit that the Bible assisted literal interpretations in
the minds of these "ancient Israelites." It seems reasonable that the burden of proof
would fall on people like Craig to explain why their ancestors should have held a more
enlightened "metaphorical" interpretations that just so happen to align with the
sensibilities of modern evangelical pastors.

Both biblical, Mesopotamian and Middle Persian texts liken the sky to stone. The Bible
likens it to metal like Egyptian texts, and this all comports with later Rabbinic Jews
retaining belief in a solid 몭rmament. The Talmud assumes a solid 몭rmament was a
Jewish idea when contrasting their views with Greek in몭uence, and we can clearly see
the rabbis believed in a heavenly ocean separate from Greek cosmology (later, post-
Hellenistic Christians and Jews like Thomas, Basil, Maimonides, Origin, and Luther
would have a devil of a time trying to reconcile the "waters above" with the theory of
crystalline spheres). Ancient Jews interpreted Genesis 1 to derive the heavenly sea
idea, and we also see the purpose of the sky dome was associated with upholding
that heavenly ocean in their mind--which accords with the scholarly consensus that
Genesis 1:6-7 describes a solid 몭rmament lifting up a heavenly sea, which, in turn,
accords with the scholarly consensus that Enuma Elish contains the same idea.

Anyways, buy my book and make me rich. It's what Jesus would want.
____________________________

Blidstein, Gerald J. “Rabbinic Judaism and General Culture: Normative Discussion and
Attitudes,” in Jacob J. Schacter (ed.) Judaism’s Encounter with Other Cultures:
Rejection or Integration? Lanham, MD: Rowman & Little몭eld, 1997.

Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs (eds.), A Hebrew and English
Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), 955-6.

Charlesworth, James H. (ed.). The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volume One

Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments. Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1983.   
Epstein I. (ed.). The Babylonian Talmud: Seder Nezikin. Sanhedrin II. H. Freedman
(trans.). London: Soncino, 1935.

Finkel, Irving. The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood. New York: Double
Day, 2014. 

Horowitz, Wayne. Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography. Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns 1998. 

Keel, Othmar. The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography
and the Book of Psalms. Trans. Timothy J Hallett. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997. 

Korpel, Marjo and Johannes de Moor, “The Leviathan in the Ancient Near East,” in
Koert van Bekkum, et al. (eds.), Playing with Leviathan: Interpretation and Reception of
Monsters from the Biblical World. Themes in Biblical Narrative 21. Netherlands: Brill,
2017. 

Panaino, Antonio. A Walk through the Iranian Heavens: For a History of an Unpredictable
Dialogue between Nonspherical and Spherical Models in the Imagination of Ancient Iran
and its Neighbors. Ancient Iranian Series vol 9 (ed. Touraj Daryaee). Irvine: UCI Jordan
Center for Persian Studies, 2020.

Posner, Raphael (ed.). The Creation According to the Midrash Rabbah. Jerusalem:
Devora, 2002.

Rochberg, Francesca. In the Path of the Moon: Babylonian Celestial Divination and Its
Legacy. Studies in Ancient Magic and Divination vol 6 (ed. Tzvi Abusch et al.) Leiden:
Brill, 2010.

Rochberg, Francesca. The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in

Mesopotamian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Ancient Cosmology William Lane Craig

RiderOnTheClouds
RiderOnTheClouds December 5, 2021 at 12:22 PM
Ben I disagree on the windows of heaven. We do have references to apertures in
the heavens that pour out rain in Mesopotamia. They're called 'Teats of the Amber
Heavens' in UET 6/1 102:23.
REPLY

Unknown December 6, 2021 at 4:01 PM

Any thoughts on Craig's new book on Genesis, evolution and a historical Adam? I'm
not so much concerned about the science side as I am his theological
assumptions (historical Adam + historical fall of original couple = need for Jesus'
death) that then shape his failure to consider the presence of ANE myth in the
creation stories.
REPLY

Unknown December 10, 2021 at 5:06 PM

My 76 year old father grew up in a very rural and poor area in mexico and didnt get
any science education growing up. No schools at all. He once told me that when he
was a young man he believed the sky was solid. I asked him why, and he said that
was just what it looked like to him.

Ben Stanhope December 10, 2021 at 6:48 PM

Reply from Ben Stanhope

Reminds me of a passage in the Yanomami Indian Davi Kopenowa’s

autobiography (8th chapter):

“Sometimes, when the sky makes threatening noises, women and children
whimper and cry in fear. These are not empty cries! We all fear being
crushed by the falling sky, the way our ancestors were in the beginning of
time. I still remember an occasion when that nearly happened to us! I was
young then.We were camping in the forest, near a small stream that 몭ows
into the Rio Mapulaú. It was early in the night. There were no sounds of
thunder or lightning in the sky. Everything was quiet. It was not raining and
we could not feel a breath of wind. Yet suddenly we heard several loud
cracks in the sky’s chest. They came in rapid succession, each more
violent than the last, and they seemed very close. It was really alarming!
Everyone in our camp started to yell and weep in fear: “Aë! The sky is
starting to collapse! We are all going to perish! Aë!” I was also scared! I
had not become a shaman yet and I anxiously asked myself: “What is go-
ing to happen to us? Is the sky really going to fall on us? Are we all going
to be hurled into the underworld?” At the time, there were still great
shamans among us, for many of our elders were still alive. Several of them
instantly started working together to hold up the sky. Their fathers and
grandfathers had taught them this work long ago, this is how once again
they were able to prevent its fall. Then, after a moment, everything got
quiet. Yet I think that this time the sky nearly did shatter above us again. I
know it has happened before, far away from our forest, where it is closer
to the edges of the world. These distant places’ inhabitants were wiped
out because they did not know how to hold it up. But where we live the sky
is very high, and more solid. I think this is because we are at the center of
 is very high, and more solid. I think this is because we are at the center of
the terrestrial layer. But one day, a long time from now, it may 몭nally come
crashing down on us! It will no longer want to stay in place. It will come
apart and crush us all. But this will not happen so long as the shamans are
alive to hold it up. It will lurch and roar but will not break. This is what I
think!”

REPLY

JaySeph December 18, 2021 at 8:10 AM

WLC is yoked!!! I hope he's using grass-fed whey!

JaySeph December 19, 2021 at 7:59 AM

Ben please start a mailing list :D

REPLY

Unknown January 25, 2022 at 12:35 PM

Hi, Ben! I'm reading your chapter on Hebrew cosmology and i got surprised with
your footnote saying that Genesis didn't borrow from the Enuma Elish (i was pretty
sure of this connection).
A few questions:

.What about the Epic of Gilgamesh?

.Does the bible as an whole borrow from any ancient myth?
.Besides Hurowitz's article and Arnold's commentary, what other readings you
suggest on this topic?

Thanks in advance! I'm not a native english speaker, so i apologize by any grammar
errors.
REPLY

Caddy February 16, 2022 at 6:34 AM

Hey, Ben I've been hearing rumors that you've converted to Judaism. Is that true?
REPLY

Henoc February 25, 2022 at 3:40 PM

I have a question. If God has a throne above the sky, and walks on the pilars... is
God a more physical entity than we thought? At least in the oldest traditions of the
Bible it seems that Yahweh is as corporeal and tangible as Zeus or Baal (smells,
walks, has a back, 몭ghts, eats, etc.) What do you think about that? What are your
toughts on this?

Ben Stanhope February 26, 2022 at 11:05 AM

Benjamin Sommer's book Bodies of God in the World of Ancient Israel
deals with this topic in detail. Ancient Near Eastern gods could take on
 deals with this topic in detail. Ancient Near Eastern gods could take on
physical forms but possessed divine 몭uidity. They could be in multiple
places at once and were thought to physically dwell within idols as
immaterial essences as well as being able to manifest physically in certain
places. This is different from ancient Greek religion where the gods are
bound to speci몭c geographies and their idols on earth are simply symbolic
representations of them.

Henoc March 10, 2022 at 3:57 PM

Thanks for the recommendation, I really like ancient mythology and gods.
By the way, in your book you mention that men were mortal in Eden and
that they could increase their lifespan by eating from the Tree of Life. That
reminds me a lot of the story of Sun Wukong, most of his immortality
came precisely from eating divine fruits in Heaven. How common in
ancient times is the myth of fruits that can give immortality (of some
kind)? Is there any chance that the fruits of life in Eden were peaches?

REPLY

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