GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 2:26 pmCarrier's response:
To the contrary, “outer space” is more accurate terminology. It is anachronistic to use “heaven” when translating ancient texts as today we mean by the word “heaven” at an alternate dimension that has no physical place in this universe; whereas they meant by the word what we mean now by…outer space. Literally. The physical space above the earth that contains the moon, planets, and stars, exists a measurable (and flyable) physical distance from us (and is, indeed, inhabited by extraterrestrial beings). I explain and demonstrate this in the Preface to my new book Jesus from Outer Space. You cannot understand what ancient peoples, and early Christians, were saying, if you do not understand this.
Anyone who pretends it’s otherwise is thus demonstrating their commitment to modern dogmas and their fear of ideas that make them uncomfortable, rather than logic or historical accuracy. And it is high time to stop coddling them.
I recall that some people in the evangelical Christian circles in which I grew up believed that Heaven was located in a black hole ("up there") while Hell was well and truly located at the center of Planet Earth ("down there"). I asked my (pastor/missionary) parents about this, and they seemed to prefer more of an "alternate dimension" interpretation, as mentioned by Carrier in the highlighted section above, but they had nothing personal against the more literal interpretation of "up" and "down" in the Bible, and acknowledged it was possible. (I think my mom may have actually thought that way at some point in her life; I remember her observing that we cannot detect what lies beyond the event horizon of a black hole, so..., you know..., it could be....)
In truth, the "heavens" which the ancients imagined bears little resemblance
either to the Outer Space into which our astronauts are launched
or to the kind of Alternate Dimension my parents contemplated. They imagined layers of tangible reality stacked on top of a firmament, and they were wrong.
It may be worth noting that, despite the title of the book, its cover depicts neither Outer Space nor the Heavens (or, alternately, it depicts a weird combination of the two of them). Concentric varicolored circles? That is not Outer Space. A spherical planet floating in a sea of night sky? That is not the Earth imagined by the ancients.