Biblical Heights

[Thomas]

It is quite clear that the cosmology used in the Bible has simularities to the known cosmology of other cultures at that time. Many Christians has of course noticed that as well, and I have recently seen a special attempt to clear up the mess with a theory of “Hellenistic Corruption”.
This idea attempts to blame Antiochus IV, a Seleucid king in the second century BC, of having changed the Bible for good in the direction of Hellenistic cosmology. I’m rather unclear on the documentation of this hypothesis, possibly because I always try to give an author the benefit of the doubt. But we’ll get back to that. First, the Biblical cosmology.

Hebrew/Biblical Cosmology or Hellenistic corruption?

Hebrew/Biblical Cosmology or Hellenistic corruption?

King James version

Genesis 1:

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Genesis 7:

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

“Sheol”, is often translated to hell, and appear in that manner in Genesis 37:35;42:38;44:29,31; 1 Samuel 2:6; 1 Kings 2:6; King James version. Now one might wonder why I use the KJV, and it is mainly because it hold many of the words from the translation used on the illustration above. Windows, firmament, the great deep and so on.
To my knowledge there is little-to-none disagreement among the professionals as to whether the Biblical cosmology is the one presented in the illustrations above or not. It seems to be rather commonly accepted.

Babylonian cosmology for measure - some claim the Biblical one is a copy of this.

For futher reading on the Biblical cosmology there is an interesting site on the subject here - short and rich on source documentation, but I haven't checked all of them, though.

Left behind is of course a crucial question: If the Bible is the word of God, then why did he tell us such lies?

I hope to see more rebuttals to this real-world-inconsistence issue, than the one I started off with, with Antiochus IV, the Seleucid king. Read all about it.

The author himself notice a problem with the Hellenistic Corruption apology.. uhm.. theory :

By Douglas Cox
The corruption of the Bible's cosmology in the hellenistic period is understood from an interpretation of the cryptic language of Daniel's vision described in chapter 8, which indicates that the main revisions in the Bible's cosmology were initiated by Antiochus IV. His identification of the "raqia" or "firmament" of Genesis 1 with heaven was the source of the strange idea of "waters above the heavens." Previously, the "raqia" referred to the earth's rocky crust.

Exposing the fraud of Antiochus IV, and identifying the statements supporting hellenistic cosmology, does not kill the credibility of the Bible. But why have the Bible scholars missed them? They failed to recognize these hellenistic corruptions, which once identified, appear as conspicuous as a moustache on the Mona Lisa.

Well, perhaps they didn’t notice the moustache on Mona Lisa because it wasn’t there in the first place? Perhaps it has been made up to explain why the cosmology presented in the Bible doesn’t correspond with modern science. At least I would like to see some documentation or more solid arguments supporting the “Hellenistic Corruption” claim before I find it appealing. But it would be just as good if anyone has a better theory explaining what that incomplete and wrong cosmology are doing in a book by no less than God himself, who allegedly should explain the world to us therein?

 

[Riddick]

i see, u claim it is a copy. you wouldn't be satisifed with proclaiming anything less, wuld u. so i dont really find it shocking, disturbing, or any other revelation of some sort of pissedoffness.

 

[Thomas]

i see, u claim it is a copy.

I don't really claim that, and it doesn't matter anyway. The question is what that incorrect cosmology are doing in the Bible in the first place, and furthermore; where the evidence are to support that it's a "Hellenistic corruption" - if anyone should embrace that hypothesis.

 

[Abdul Alhazred]

The Bible being an anthology covering thousands of years, I would say there is no single "Biblical cosmology".

The explaining away of contradictions belongs to a later period than when any of the stuff was written.

Certainly in periods when sea faring was common they didn't believe in a flat Earth.

 

[Thomas]

The Bible being an anthology covering thousands of years, I would say there is no single "Biblical cosmology".

In that sense, definately so, but when I and others speak of a Biblical cosmology, we're merely refering to the cosmology presented in the Bible as it stand. In this case in the King James version.

I definately doubt that the cosmology above is a pure Hebrew invention, in fact, I would place my head on the block and say it most likely is a mixture of many, but probably with an overweight of the original cosmology presented therein.