A literalist interpretation of scripture loses the multivalent sense of that term “shamayim” (heavens), which is indeed a plural construct for “skies”. But the word is more mysterious than that in its extended sense of “worlds” beyond our ken (whose German root has the sense of “that which we see”). We are stuck on terra firma (“eretz”) and, as such, we tend to fall into those exegetical ruts along the way when trying to imagine what an ancient compositor/author was getting at when using such figurative language. If you believe the books of the Bible are inspired, as I always have, though my ideas of what constitutes “inspiration” is wildly out of step with the standard canonical notions, then I believe it is worth considering that passages we regard as absurd, speaking of many “skies” could have (in the mind of the author putting stylus to papyrus) could have extended to the macrocosm and limits of what we are beginning to see from the James Webb microscope, to the microcosm and those things hiding in the interstices between consecutive Planck lengths.
Thanks, Daniel. If I’ve understood you correctly then, yes, what we call ‘reality’ is a just drop in the ocean of what that word might mean, and how we visualise it is open to tightly defined scientific metrics at one end of the scale and breathtaking mystery at the other.
A literalist interpretation of scripture loses the multivalent sense of that term “shamayim” (heavens), which is indeed a plural construct for “skies”. But the word is more mysterious than that in its extended sense of “worlds” beyond our ken (whose German root has the sense of “that which we see”). We are stuck on terra firma (“eretz”) and, as such, we tend to fall into those exegetical ruts along the way when trying to imagine what an ancient compositor/author was getting at when using such figurative language. If you believe the books of the Bible are inspired, as I always have, though my ideas of what constitutes “inspiration” is wildly out of step with the standard canonical notions, then I believe it is worth considering that passages we regard as absurd, speaking of many “skies” could have (in the mind of the author putting stylus to papyrus) could have extended to the macrocosm and limits of what we are beginning to see from the James Webb microscope, to the microcosm and those things hiding in the interstices between consecutive Planck lengths.
Thanks, Daniel. If I’ve understood you correctly then, yes, what we call ‘reality’ is a just drop in the ocean of what that word might mean, and how we visualise it is open to tightly defined scientific metrics at one end of the scale and breathtaking mystery at the other.