Ivy Winslow

“And herein lies a potential solution for the dilemma of the scientific inaccuracy of the ancient cosmic geography in Scripture: The Israelite culture, being pre-scientific, thought more in terms of function and purpose than material structure. Even if their picture of the heavens and earth as a three-tiered geocentric cosmology, was scientifically “false” from our modern perspective, it nevertheless still accurately describes the teleological purpose and meaning of creation that they were intending to communicate. Though there is no literal underworld beneath the earth with rivers of fire and souls trapped in mountains waiting for the judgment, it still communicates the truth, transcendent of that ancient culture yet revealed through it, that those who have died await a future resurrection and judgment before the living God. Jesus’ descent into that imagined underworld is a theological narrative explaining the transcendent truth that his death and resurrection paid the price for the sins of his people, and secured his victory over the spiritual powers who rule mankind, and from whom Christ has taken back his inheritance of the earth. Our modern worldview obsessed as it is with empirical science and human reason is so blinded to its own ignorance of transcendent reality and stunted imagination, that it amounts to idolatry, the limited, fallible human mind and senses as god.”
― Brian Godawa, When Giants Were Upon the Earth: The Watchers, the Nephilim, and the Biblical Cosmic War of the Seed