Charles Halton states that we misread the Bible when we interpret its descriptions of the Heavens and Earth as the ancient authors’ best attempt at a literal description of how the cosmos was structured. If we take the Biblical description literally we arrive at something like this picture of the cosmos by Michael Paukner.
Mr. Halton goes on to say:
I don’t think that any of these cultures believed that they produced a scientifically accurate description of the universe. This idea should be tautologically obvious since it is anachronistic to think that ancient cultures would view the world like modern people who take things like the Hubble telescope and quantum mechanics for granted. How else would ancient people have approached a topic that was so beyond their technological capacities to understand? Symbolic representations were the only things available to them.
This is a new thought for me, that perhaps the biblical authors’ descriptions of the world aren’t an attempt at a physical description at all, but rather a decidedly symbolic description because the writers themselves knew they had no way of knowing how the physical world was really structured. I’d assumed the ancient authors were “taking a best guess” at describing the physical structure of the cosmos and that they were unsophisticated enough not to realize that they’d never be able to get at an accurate description because they didn’t have the tools necessary for the job.
Mr. Halton then introduces the idea of quantum mechanics in our own time. I certainly don’t have the tools to understand quantum mechanics, though I could give a thumbnail description of the ideas surrounding the field. Due to the fact that I know I’m ignorant on the subject, my description would end up being just as symbolic and untied to actual physical particles, forces, and structures as an ancient author’s description of the structure of the cosmos. But if I can set out to convey ideas about the quantum realm of our universe yet knowing that I’m light on physical details, why shouldn’t I allow that an ancient author might recognize his own limitations in knowing the physical details of the world and so try conveying ideas about the world in a symbolic manner?
Mr. Halton continues:
We should respect this fact as as we read ancient texts and not force them into some hyper-scientific grid. Instead, read them as they were intended and likely understood by the vast majority of ancient peoples themselves: as beautiful and accurate–in their own right–symbolic representations of the world from the perspectives of particular cultures.