Ancient Hebrew cosmology
Common across the ancient world
Like most people of the ancient Near East (where the first civilizations developed), the ancient Hebrews understood the world to be a flat plane and motionless. Although no official ancient Hebrew diagrams exist, generally, this cosmology can be inferred from various biblical texts and rabbinic sources.
Many centuries later, the earliest Greek philosophers (such as Pythagoras of the sixth century B.C. and Philolaus of the fifth century B.C.) proposed that the world was instead spherical and that it moved around a central fire and eventually the sun:
No iconographically complete image of the world, like those just described for Egypt and Mesopotamia, has survived from Palestine/Israel. Nonetheless, in numerous miniature objects and in small details of other objects and from biblical passages, a corresponding picture—one of many possibilities—can be sketched. (Keel and Schroer)
pre-Socratic philosophy, in the history of Western philosophy, the cosmological and naturalistic speculations of ancient Greek philosophers who were predecessors or contemporaries of Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE). Among the most significant pre-Socratic philosophers are the Milesians Thales (c. 624–620—c. 548–545 BCE), Anaximander (610–546 BCE), and Anaximenes (flourished c. 545 BCE); . . . and Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570—c. 500–490 BCE). (Fritz)
Because the earliest Greek philosophers focused their attention upon the origin and nature of the physical world, they are often called cosmologists or naturalists. (Fritz)
Although the term ought to refer to any Greek philosopher from c. 600 bc to c.400 bc, the last year of Socrates’ life, it is customarily reserved mainly for those thinkers who attempted systematic cosmologies and were centrally concerned with the nature of physical reality. (“Presocratics”)
After the Old Testament period, the Greeks did eventually influence many Jews to modify aspects of their cosmology, and several hybrids emerged. However, one still finds belief in a solid firmament in Jewish authors like Josephus [a notable Jewish historian of the first century] . . . . (Stanhope)
Professor of the Old Testament John H. Walton explains where the ancient Hebrews derived their cosmology from:
The language of the Old Testament reflects a similar view [of a flat world], and no text in the Bible seeks to correct or refute it. (Walton, Ancient Near Eastern)
Yahweh did not reveal an alternative cosmic geography to Israel in the Old Testament. But there can be no discussion of creation or many other important issues without presupposing some sort of cosmic geography. With no alternative presented, and no refutation of the traditional ancient Near Eastern elements, it is no surprise that much of Israel’s cosmic geography is at home in the ancient world rather than in the modern world. (Walton, Ancient Near Eastern)
Unlike other ancient Near Eastern cosmologies, ancient Hebrew cosmology did not deify the creation:
Israel shared the cosmic geography that was common throughout the ancient world. The difference was that the natural phenomena were emptied of deity. Rather than manifestations of the attributes of deity, they were instruments for his purposes. (Walton, Ancient Near Eastern)
Cosmic waters and the firmament
Worldwide flood accounts are another point where ancient civilizations converge with the Bible. Considering that Noah’s descendants mark the beginning of the post-Flood world, they likely transmitted stories of the biblical Flood to future generations and pagan elements entered into them as the population fractured, forming the various ancient civilizations.
The ultimate source of the Flood waters is something often overlooked by modern readers, but which the Scriptures indicate, beginning in Genesis 1. Before the world was formed, there was only water (Genesis 1:2). Inside this vast body of water, God created a cavity in which to establish the world, separating “the waters from the waters” by way of a “firmament” or solid vaulted dome (Genesis 1:6-8). When the Flood is unleashed, it is these cosmic waters that come rushing in from all sides (Genesis 7:10-11), in addition to rain (Genesis 7:4, 12). They cover mountains and consume the whole world (picture a container gradually filling with water) (Genesis 7:17-20; Psalm 104:1-9), something improbable in models of a spherical world floating in space:
On day 2 of creation, the upper tier—the heavens—was created. God separated “the waters from the waters” (Gen. 1:6) by placing a dome (rāqîaʿ) in the heavens. The word rāqîaʿ occurs only seventeen times in the Hebrew Bible. At its etymological core, the verbal form of the root rqʿ refers to the hammering of metal (e.g., Exod. 39:3; Job 37:18; Jer. 10:9), a notion supported by both the Septuagint (stereōma = firmness) and the Vulgate (firmamentum = something held strong), which treat the rāqîaʿ as a solid structure. Found almost exclusively in so-called Priestly texts, the rāqîaʿ forms the rigid ceiling from which the temple lamps (mǝʾōrôt) hang. Luis Stadelmann concludes, “The impression most likely left on the modern mind by a survey of these ancient ideas about the shape of the firmament is that of a solid bowl put over the earth, like a vault or heavenly dome.” When God set the rāqîaʿ in place, some of the waters were pushed upward, thus separating “the waters from the waters” (Gen. 1:6), presumably creating a bubble of air beneath the canopy of the dome. The firmament is then given the name “heaven” (šāmayim).
The third day of creation involved the gathering of the watery deep below the firmament “into one place” to reveal land. The gathering of these waters into one place only makes sense if “one place” stands “in contrast to an implied ‘every place’ when the waters covered the whole earth.” With the taming of these primordial waters, God has consequently created earth. At the conclusion of day 3, then, the cosmic structure is in place: heaven, earth, and seas. This tripartite structure is confirmed when humanity is given charge over the inhabitants of each cosmically categorized creature: beasts of the earth; birds of the heaven (šāmayim); fish of the sea (Gen. 1:28).
. . . the tripartite cosmic structure evident in Gen. 1 is the assumed cosmology throughout the remainder of the OT. According to the second commandment, it is forbidden to make an idol that has the form of “anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exod. 20:4). (Since the Beginning)
The noun raqia in the Genesis passage, which I have been translating as “firmament,” occurs in its verbal form 11 times in the Old Testament and refers to “beating out,” “stamping out,” or “spreading” by pounding. Frequently, it is used with reference to metal. For example, Exod 39:3 says, “They hammered out (raqa), gold sheets.” Num 16:39 says, “They hammered out plating for the altar.” Jer 10:9 uses the term to refer to plated silver. Similarly, in a language close to Hebrew called Phoenician, we find a cognate noun mrqa, which refers to a metal “platter” or “bowl.”
In the third century BC, the Old Testament was translated by seventy Jewish scholars into a Greek Bible called the Septuagint. The Septuagint was important because it served as the primary Bible of the New Testament authors and early church. When these ancient Jewish scholars made this translation, they selected a very rare term for expressing the meaning of the word raqia. They picked the Greek word stereoma, which indisputably emphasizes firmness and solidity.
Addressing his fellow professional Bible translators in the Journal of Translation, the senior linguist John R. Roberts concludes from the linguistic data that “the Hebrew makes it explicit” that the biblical firmament—the raqia “should be conceived of as a solid dome with a surface.”
The Israeli scholar Nissim Amzallag, in the department of Bible, Archaeology, and Near Eastern Studies at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, believes the term raqia, “designates the firmament as a piece of metal.”
Interestingly, the verbal form of raqia is used in Job 37:18 to refer to the creation of the skies—comparing its creation to the cast bronze plates from which mirrors were hammered out in the ancient world. (Stanhope)
In flood traditions in the ancient Near East, the waters that flood the earth come from a variety of sources.
. . .
Genesis:
I am going to bring floodwaters (mabbûl) on the earth. (Gen. 6:17)
Seven days from now I will send rain (mamtir) on the earth. (Gen. 7:4)
On that day all the springs of the great deep (maʿyenot tehom) burst forth, and the floodgates (ʿarubbot) of the heavens were opened, and rain (geshem) fell on the earth. (Gen. 7:11–12)In all of these texts it is the cosmic waters of every sort that are involved in the flood. The act of creation involved setting boundaries [the firmament] for the cosmic waters. In the flood the restraints were removed, thus bringing destruction. (Walton, Ancient Near Eastern)
The cosmic waters posed a continual threat, and the “firmament” had been created as a means of establishing cosmic order. (Walton, The Lost World)
It has been customary to regard the Hebrew term raqiʿa [firmament] as referring to the solid sky. . . .
We have no reason to suppose that the Israelites thought about the composition of the sky any differently than those around them. We know from Exodus 24:10 that they shared the idea of a pavement in God’s abode—and it is even of sapphire, as in the Mesopotamian texts.
P. Seely has traced the developments of beliefs about the sky. He demonstrates that intertestamental and rabbinic speculation sometimes focused on the material that the sky was made of and how thick it was. The early Christian writers likewise were united in their belief that the sky was solid. Seely concludes: “Astonishing as it may seem to the modern mind, with very rare exceptions the idea that the sky is not solid is a distinctly modern one. Historical evidence shows that virtually everyone in the ancient world believed in a solid firmament.” (Walton, Ancient Near Eastern)
The cosmic structure so eloquently detailed in Gen. 1 runs throughout the OT. (Since the Beginning)
Why would God go to great lengths to define a detailed cosmic structure, only to then mean something poetic? This interpretation is lacking and is primarily chosen to cope with the controversy that biblical cosmology presents for modern cosmology. Above the cosmic waters of Genesis 1 was situated the throne of God, not in a remote area of deep space in an endless universe:
In the Old Testament the heavenly waters are sometimes called the mabbûl, above which Yahweh is enthroned (Ps. 29:10) and which were released in the time of Noah (Gen. 7:10). (Walton, Ancient Near Eastern)
The material composition of the raqia in the minds of the ancient Hebrews was probably ambiguous. However, this is less important than its function of retaining a heavenly ocean in Genesis 1.
Israel’s God abides over a heavenly flood in Psa 104:2-3: “He stretches out the heavens like a tent cloth. He lays the beams of his upper chambers in the waters.” Jer 10:13 says, “When God’s voice thunders, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens.” As emphasized, Gen 1:7 also mentions these “waters above,” and the psalmist declares, “praise him you waters above the heavens!”
When the Bible talks about the throne of God resting above a flood in the sky, it is relating an idea common in the ancient Near East. (Stanhope)
Significance of the issue
Some may brush off this issue as trivial or not important, but it impacts what God said and did not say, and his true work of creation, which the Bible tells us reveals him (Romans 1:20). Arguably, the thought of a firmament eminently points to a creator (Psalm 19:1). As Walton alluded to, “there can be no discussion of creation or many other important issues without presupposing some sort of cosmic geography.” Although Walton accepts modern cosmology, and aims for a metaphorical interpretation of difficult texts (a pattern common among writers of this subject), he makes the following important observation:
Cosmic geography concerns how people envision the shape and structure of the world around them. According to our modern cosmic geography, we live on a sphere of continents surrounded by oceans. We believe that this sphere is part of a solar system of planets that revolve around the sun, which is a star. . . . That this seems so elementary and basic shows how deeply rooted it is in our understanding of ourselves. Everyone has a cosmic geography and knows what it is—it is second nature.
. . . notice a few of the implications of the cosmic geography just described:
- It suggests our relative insignificance in the vastness of the universe. (Walton, Ancient Near Eastern)
Modern cosmology impresses upon those who believe it their insignificance in the grand scheme of things, as God sits far-off somewhere in the remote recesses of the universe. When we contrast this with what Genesis and other books of the Bible plainly describe, we realize God is not far, realistically, and he closely watches over his creation (Isaiah 40:22; Isaiah 66:1; Psalm 2:4; Colossians 3:1; Ephesians 1:20; Acts 7:55-56; 2 Chronicles 16:9). Walton continues:
If we aspire to understand the culture and literature of the ancient world, whether Canaanite, Babylonian, Egyptian, or Israelite, it is therefore essential that we understand their cosmic geography. (Walton, Ancient Near Eastern)
Thus, a correct view of cosmology is needed for a correct understanding of the literature that is the Bible. If we espouse a wrong understanding, we miss important points the Author of this literature is trying to tell us. This is especially important in the message of the first angel of Revelation 14, who calls upon us to worship the true God and again raises the subject of what this God truly created. It is noteworthy that the doctrine of the Trinity, the notion of a spherical world, and the notion of heliocentrism all have related pagan origins and represent the very themes raised by this angel:
Revelation 14:6-7
King James Version
6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
Proverbs 30:4-6
King James Version
4 Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell?5 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
6 Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
Jesuit astronomer Guy Consolmagno states in a video interview that “science is an act of worship” (“Q+A: ‘Science”). According to him, we are rendering worship to someone through the science we practice or believe. He makes this point unintentionally, not considering the similar message uttered by this first angel of Revelation 14 who also cites worship and points back to the creation account in Genesis 1.
Historically, the Jesuits opposed sole confidence in the Bible and instead favored the supreme authority of the Roman Catholic Church. In one statement from their writings, they proclaim:
To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls. Because by the same Spirit and our Lord Who gave the ten Commandments, our holy Mother the Church is directed and governed. (Ignatius of Loyola)
Commenting further in the same interview, Consolmagno emphasizes that the inventor of the Big Bang Theory was in fact a Roman Catholic priest (“Q+A: ‘Science”). This is indeed true. The Church, a religious institution, has been steadily guiding the course of cosmology/astronomy/science for countless centuries:
One of the basic questions of science has a rather surprising answer: Who was the first scientist to put forward the Big Bang Theory? Most would presume that it was either Albert Einstein or Edwin Hubble. Instead, the correct answer is a Diocesan Priest from Belgium by the name of Monsignor Georges Lemaitre. (Kurzynski)
Much more revealing, however, is the surprising number of Catholic churchmen, priests in particular, whose scientific work has been so extensive and significant. Here were men who in most cases had taken holy orders and had committed themselves to the highest and most significant spiritual commitment the Church affords. (Woods)
The Jesuits were also the first to introduce Western science into such far-off places as China and India. In seventeenth-century China in particular, Jesuits introduced a substantial body of scientific knowledge and a vast array of mental tools for understanding the physical universe . . . . The Jesuits in China, according to one expert:
“[A]rrived at a time when science in general, and mathematics and astronomy in particular, were at a very low level there, contrasting with the birth of modern science in Europe. They made an enormous effort to translate western mathematical and astronomical works into Chinese and aroused the interest of Chinese scholars in these sciences. (Woods)
Even though some thirty-five craters on the moon are named for Jesuit scientists and mathematicians, the Church’s contributions to astronomy are all but unknown to the average educated American. Yet, as J. L. Heilbron of the University of California at Berkeley points out, “The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial aid and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, from the recovery of ancient learning during the late Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, than any other, and, probably, all other, institutions.” Still, the Church’s true role in the development of modern science remains one of the best-kept secrets of modern history. (Woods)
Here we see an important way in which the Church contributed to astronomy that is all but unknown today: Cathedrals in Bologna, Florence, Paris, and Rome were designed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to function as world-class solar observatories. (Woods)
It was typical to hear the University of Paris described as the “new Athens”—a designation that calls to mind the ambitions of the great Alcuin from the Carolingian period of several centuries earlier, who sought through his own educational efforts to establish a new Athens in the kingdom of the Franks. Pope Innocent IV (1243–1254) described the universities as “rivers of science which water and make fertile the soil of the universal Church,” and Pope Alexander IV (1254–1261) called them “lanterns shining in the house of God.” And the popes deserved no small share of the credit for the growth and success of the university system. “Thanks to the repeated intervention of the papacy,” writes historian Henri Daniel-Rops, “higher education was enabled to extend its boundaries; the Church, in fact, was the matrix that produced the university, the nest whence it took flight.” (Woods)
. . . it was not coincidental that the birth of science as a self-perpetuating field of intellectual endeavor should have occurred in a Catholic milieu. (Woods)
“Strictly speaking,” argued [Friedrich] Nietzsche, “there is no such thing as science ‘without any presuppositions’. . . a philosophy, a ‘faith,’ must always be there first, so that science can acquire from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist. . . . It is still a metaphysical faith that underlies our faith in science.” (Woods)
Forcing the Bible to speak modern science
Speaking on the importance of context and correct interpretation, Walton states:
In antiquity people routinely believed that the sky was solid. . . . For if the Hebrew term [for firmament] is to be taken in its normal contextual sense, it indicates that God made a solid dome to hold up waters above the earth. . . . the idea of rendering the word in a way that could tolerate modern scientific thinking could not be considered preferable in that it manipulated the text to say something that it had never said. We cannot think that we can interpret the word “expanse/firmament” as simply the sky or the atmosphere if that is not what the author meant by it when he used it and not what the audience would have understood by the word. As we discussed in the first chapter, we cannot force Genesis to speak to some later science. (Walton, The Lost World)
We may find some escape from the problem, however, as we continue to think about creation as ultimately concerned with the functional rather than the material. (Walton, The Lost World)
Walton concedes that the only “escape” to the problem posed by biblical cosmology is to allegorize the text, which is what most that resist the normal contextual sense do. A prime example of this, again, is Consolmagno. He admits in a separate video interview that the Bible does indeed teach that the world is flat, but that it is inconsequential because Genesis 1 is poetry. Consolmagno and the interviewer then go on to label those who accept the normal contextual sense as fundamentalists and a fringe minority:
And I’m thinking, you know, have you actually read Genesis? Where it says the world is flat and it’s covered with a dome and there’s water above and below the dome, you know? . . . what are the oldest books we have? . . . They’re poems, they’re books of poetry and the world was interpreted in terms of metaphor and simile. . . . most religious people are not . . . fundamentalists. Most evangelicals are not. (“Was the Bible”)
Conclusion
The ancient Hebrews upheld the view that the world was flat, principally because their inspired Old Testament writings imparted this knowledge. This was not refuted in the New Testament, even though Christ and the disciples had opportunity to correct the record. The most reasonable conclusion is that there was nothing to correct, especially when one considers that the belief in a spherical world was already quite common and known by the first century. There is also an interesting exchange in the book of Acts between Paul and a group of Greek philosophers (some of whom were proponents of a spherical world), in which Paul concluded, “I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious” (Acts 17:22). After his resurrection, Christ appears to a pair of his disciples and begins explaining the Scriptures with the book of Genesis and the traditional account of creation (Luke 24:27). Had he said something wildly unorthodox about Genesis 1 in this discourse, the reaction of the listeners would have been different. Even centuries after that, rabbinic writings continued to express that the world was flat, covered by a dome, surrounded by water.
Luke 24:13-16, 25-27
King James Version
13 And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.14 And they talked together of all these things which had happened.
15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.
16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.
. . .
25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
27 And beginning at Moses [Genesis] and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
In a different source, the Babylonian Talmud, the rabbis tell us that the scheming men of Babel said: “Let us build a tower, ascend to heaven, and cleave it with axes, that its waters might gush forth.” This text seems to retain the heavenly waters above as an element of this tradition.
Another ancient Jewish passage that assumes a solid sky and explicitly alludes to its heavenly ocean can be found in a text called Genesis Rabba, compiled during Judaism’s classical period between AD 300-500. It preserves a handful of rabbinic speculations about the thickness of the heavenly vault:
. . .
. . . Many early Rabbinic texts explicitly interpret the firmament of Genesis 1 as solid. (Stanhope)
In his careful survey of Rabbinic cosmological literature, the Hebrew University Rabbinic expert Moshe Simon-Shoshan concludes:
The rabbis’ view of the nature and structure of the heavens closely parallels Ancient Near Eastern perceptions on the matter, both in its broader conception and in many of its details. (Stanhope)
The Old Testament’s cosmology interfaces closely with its surrounding cultural context. When it comes to the three-tier cosmology of the Scriptures—heavens, earth, and the underworld—we see repeatedly that the ancient Near East is the appropriate context for understanding the Hebrew authors. In some cases, it is especially foolish to apply a modern scientific interpretation because the biblical conception assumes a flat earth. Too often, we have used our theology to distort the Bible because we deduced philosophically what we think it should (and should not) be permitted to say. (Stanhope)
The Hebrew word translated “circle” here [Isaiah 40:22] (as in, “circle of the earth”) doesn’t specify a sphere. In Isa 44:12-13, a form of this Hebrew word is used to refer to the compass of a craftsman. In Job 26:10 and Prov 8:27 the same term is used again to describe the “circle of the earth” being “inscribed”—another reference to the two-dimensional shape one draws with a compass.
Certainly, we should contextualize Isaiah’s circle of the earth with these parallel passages. An indication that Isaiah is referring to a flat disk can also be found in the immediate passage itself if we would only read one verse further:
He sits over the circle of the earth, so its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the skies like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
Isaiah views the earth like the flat ground over which the heavenly tent is erected. We even have a drawing of this flat earth from roughly the period of Genesis 1’s redaction. A clay tablet called the Babylonian Map of the World depicts the earth disk inscribed with a compass upon which identified geographies are plotted. (Stanhope)
Among the Egyptians to Israel’s west, the circular [flat] earth can also be found in art. A fourth century BC sarcophagus from the necropolis of Saqqara depicts the disk of the earth surrounded by the encompassing cosmic sea. Over this terrestrial circle is depicted the personified sky supported by the hands of the god Shu.
This sort of cosmology pictured on the Babylonian map and in Egyptian art is what Prov 8:27 and Job 26:10 have in mind when they say God “has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters,” and what Isaiah means when he says, “God sits over the circle of the earth.” (Stanhope)
Numbers 23:19-20
King James Version
19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?20 Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it.
Romans 3:1-4
King James Version
1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
Works cited
✅Fritz, Kurt von. "pre-Socratic philosophy". Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Jun. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/pre-Socratic-philosophy. Accessed 8 August 2024.
✅Keel, Othmar, and Silvia Schroer. Creation: Biblical Theologies in the Context of the Ancient Near East. Translated by Peter T. Daniels, Eisenbrauns, 2015.
✅Kurzynski, James. “Georges Lemaitre – Father of the ‘Big Bang.’” Vatican Observatory, 28 Mar. 2016, https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/sacred-space-astronomy/priests-science-georges-lemaitre-father-big-bang/. Accessed 7 July 2024.
✅"Presocratics." Oxford Reference. . . Date of access 11 Mar. 2023, https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100343832
✅“Q+A: ‘Science is an act of worship’ – Vatican’s observatory director on faith and science.” YouTube, uploaded by 1News, 29 Apr. 2019, https://youtu.be/tJqGgBUFO48.
✅Since the Beginning: Interpreting Genesis 1 and 2 through the Ages. Edited by Kyle R. Greenwood, Baker Academic, 2018.
✅Ignatius of Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius or Manresa. TAN Books, 2014.
✅Stanhope, Ben. (Mis)interpreting Genesis: How the Creation Museum Misunderstands the Ancient Near Eastern Context of the Bible. Scarab Press, 2020.
✅Walton, John H. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. 2nd ed., Baker Academic, 2018.
✅Walton, John H. The Lost World of Genesis One. IVP Academic, 2010.
✅“Was the Bible Meant to be Taken Literally? - Guy Consolmagno.” YouTube, uploaded by FORA.tv, 27 Mar. 2008, https://youtu.be/wUyiQufyiK0.
✅Woods, Thomas E. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. Regnery History, 2012.