Is the Heaven of the Bible the Sky?

Question

The answer is yes.

This is a link to an article called "Heaven and Its Wonders, and Earth: The World the Biblical Writers Thought They Lived In" by Dr. Robert M. Price and Reginald Finley Sr. http://www.infidelguy.com/heaven_sky.htm

Early biblical writers did think that Heaven was the sky. They imagined the Earth as a flat disk with a dome over it. The article I linked is well researched and interesting. It really explains some of the stranger parts of the bible when you understand the world that early biblical writers imagined.

Please don't respond by trying to tell me what your personal idea of Heaven is. That is not what this question is about. Please read the article I have linked, and if you have any information to contribute please link it.

why don't you actually read the article before commenting. Even just skim it if you're too lazy.

Answer 1

I looked at it.
Pseudo-intellectual ramblings.
First of all I flatly disagree with some of their assertions.
They really proved nothing and disproved nothing.

If you look at the first passage about the creation of the heavens, you will see immediately the word is always referred to in the plural. For the author to assume Paul was not referring to a literal place is to refute his explicit qualification that he did not know if he (his soul/spirit) was in the body, and he was seeing a vision; or if he had left his body, and was therefore literally in the place he was seeing.
Furthermore I do not believe the ancients were as simplistic as the author paints them.
If you are willing, you might try a different approach and see how a Christian astrophysicist reconciles the Biblical cosmology with what science has discovered, and find they are not only in agreement, but that the Bible disclosed truths about our universe long before science "discovered" them.

http://www.reasons.org/

Answer 2

Heaven comes from The Valley of Reeds, an Egyptian invention, and usurped by the Tribe of Israel, as were judgment day, eden, the 10 commandments (which were the 12 denials, and preceded Moses by come 1200 years) the idea of the trinity, and tons of other stuff. Adam and eve is Babylonian. All of these tribes warred with each other, as well as exchanged goods and idea... Hon, it's just cutural beliefs and their history, and has nothing to do with what is reality or truth.... These people had no idea what caused an eclipse, plague, disease, floods, and so the attributed it all to god or to gods. Death was scary, so they invented a never ending life... And just because we'd like to not have an afterlife doesn't mean that there is such a place.... It is simply contrary to reason.... the price we pay for knowledge, science, education and all the rest of it.....

Hon, it's all fairy tales, history, and folklore of starving stone age shepherds in the middle east.... Get used to it.

Answer 3

Yeah they actually did call the sky the heavens, and according to them the Birds flew in the heavens. Which sheds light on the fact that some things in the bible may be true, but could just be a horribly innaccurate telling of events, because of their wildly low intelligence. It may not be amazing or biblical, or God like, it could just be far beyond their understanding.

Answer 4

Matthew 13:24 He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field,
Matthew 13:25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.
Matthew 13:26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.
Matthew 13:27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?'
Matthew 13:28 He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?'
Matthew 13:29 But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.
Matthew 13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"

Answer 5

The early writers of The Bible did not think the world was flat.
read The Bible it says earth was suspended on nothing. No one knows where Heaven is.The sky? When you look up realize the earth is spinning and someone else is looking up at your down.

Answer 6

If we feel that hell is "down below", it would give rise that heaven is up or in the sky or even the sky itself.

THis is intersting, as the Egyptians envisioned the world in the same way

Answer 7

"The answer is yes."

Then why did you come here asking a question? This ain't not a place to preach anyways, littered with garbage like yours from both sides while anyone with a genuine question gets the, i dunno but i sure like these 2 points here.

Everyone just trying to make their point and barely reading the answers. Great job. Just about every tenth questioner actually wants to know something. Rest are like this.

"That is not what this question is about. "

Maybe that's because you didn't ask a question.

Answer 8

who knows - i read the other day that the bible authors were the same ppl who told everyone the world was flat.. so it is entirely possible isn't it? but obviously not true.

Answer 9

we still call the sky "the heavens" so it is not just biblical people.