‘HE SET THE EARTH ON ITS FOUNDATIONS, SO THAT IT SHOULD NEVER BE

MOVED’ (PSALM 104:5; ESV): VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF ANCIENT

NEAR EASTERN COSMOLOGIES AND THE OLD TESTAMENT WORLDVIEW

Martin G. Klingbeil, D.Litt.

Professor of Biblical Studies and Archaeology
Associate Director, Institute of Archeaology
Southern Adventist University
Collegedale, Tennessee (USA)
mklingbeil@southern.edu

1. Introduction

Anthropology is intricately woven into cosmology. Our understanding of ourselves is

deeply affected by what ideas we hold about the universe, its inherent order, and what

our place is within this divinely created system. Humankind throughout the Bible has

endeavored to understand themselves by looking at the bigger picture, at the cosmos in

which they are placed by divine creation. Psalm 8:3-4 provides a meaningful insight in-

to the intricate connection between anthropology and cosmology, asking the primordial

question: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the

stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son

of man that you care for him?” (Psa 8:3-4 ESV) Essentially, anthropology and cosmology

constitute the two main pillars that theologically throughout Scripture move forward

the story of salvation.1 Therefore, humankind finds themselves always in relationship to

creation and the Creator and the appropriate relational understanding of both points

towards redemption.2

1 See for example from a NT perspective: Sang Meyng Lee, The Cosmic Drama of Salvation: A Study of Paul's Undis-
puted Writings from Anthropological and Cosmological Perspectives (WUNT 2.276; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010).
2 Houtman discusses the relationship Yahweh-humankind-cosmos especially within the context of both negative
and positive aspects of divine judgment, and points to the intricate relationship between the three: “Wir fassen
zusammen. Für israelitisches Verständnis war der Kosmos einerseits eng mit dem Menschen, andererseits eng

Page 1 of 21
 This paper explores one part of the equation, i.e., Old Testament cosmology, com-

paring it with its Ancient Near Eastern counterparts, and setting it in contrast to current

cosmologies. The conclusion will reintegrate the data into the overall panorama of Old

Testament anthropology.

2. Cosmology and Weltbild

Genesis 1 puts the creation of man and woman in the context of the creation of

“heaven and earth”, the bipolar word-pair which throughout the Old Testament is used

as the predominant denominator of the created world.3 Throughout the texts of the Old

Testament, this phrase is used either merismatically or antithetically to denote either the

totality of the created cosmos or the contrasted parts of the cosmos respectively.4 In

Genesis 1 the word-pair is used as a merism pointing to the cosmological dimension of

the creation account.5

While Old Testament cosmology is bound to the text through which it is described

and developed, it nevertheless echoes a visual phenomenon that has been captured

through literary devices such as the word-pair “heaven and earth” mentioned above or

through the poetic description from Psalm 104:5 as found in the title of this paper (“He

mit JHWH verbunden.” Cornelius Houtman, Der Himmel im Alten Testament: Israels Weltbild und Weltanschauung
(Oudtestamentische Studiën 30; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993), 150.
3 According to Pennington the word-pair occurs about 185 times in the OT depending on how the context pa-
rameters are set. He makes a good case against the traditional view in Biblical Studies that OT cosmology is be-
ing tripartite. See below for further discussion. Jonathan T. Pennington, “Dualism in Old Testament cosmology:
Weltbild and Weltanschauung,” SJOT 18.2 (2004): 260-277.
4 For a distinction between the two usages of the word-pair, see ibid., 271-273. Cf. also Jo e Krašovec, Der
Merismus im Biblisch-Hebräischen und Nordwestsemitischen (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1977); idem, Antithetic
Structure in Biblical Hebrew Poetry (VTS 35; Leiden: Brill, 1984).
5 See for example Walton’s discussion of the cosmological dimension of Genesis 1. He comes to the conclusion
“that the Genesis [1] account pertains to functional origins rather than material origins and that temple ideolo-
gy underlies the Genesis cosmology”. In this way, Walton distances himself from reading Genesis 1 as an ac-
count of material origins. John H. Walton, Genesis 1 As Ancient Cosmology (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns,
2011), 198. While the cosmological dimension of Genesis is clearly visible, its ontological and material dimen-
sions should not be disregarded. As a good counterpoint to Walton, see: Gerhard F. Hasel and Michael G. Ha-
sel, “The Unique Cosmology of Genesis 1 against Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian Parallels,” (to be pub-
lished).

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set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved”; ESV). Interestingly,

texts that are declarative on and one should not underestimate their poetic force which

often expresses itself through imagery.6 Biblical imagery employs mostly metaphor as

its vehicle which is, as suggested by Berlin, almost intrinsic to parallelism as the strong-

est expression of Hebrew poetry.7 Metaphors are literary images and evoke cognitive

processes that help us to understand the unknown with the help of a known reality

which is especially relevant when it comes to the phenomenological description of the

cosmos.8

Since the famous Babel and Bible lectures of Friedrich Delitzsch over a century ago,9

scholars have usually approached Old Testament cosmology through the lens of com-

parative studies, contrasting the biblical data with ancient Near Eastern textual sources,

mainly from Mesopotamia and Egypt.10 The texts are then analyzed according to their

differences and similarities with the biblical texts and depending on the scholar’s philo-

sophical outlook, conclusions about the uniqueness or integration of Old Testament

cosmology with its ANE counterparts are arrived at. While there are a number of excel-

6 A case has been made for the poetic character of Genesis 1 and 2; cf. Frank H. Polak, “Poetic style and parallel-
ism in the creation account (Genesis 1.1-2.3),” in Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition (JSOTSS 319; ed. Hen-
ning Reventlow and Yair Hoffman; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 2-31. However, asides from the
Urgeschichte in Genesis 1-11, most of the texts that are used to reconstruct the cosmology of Ancient Israel are
usually drawn from the poetic sections of the Old Testament: Job 7:9; 9:6; 22:13; 26:5; 28:23-24; 38:8-10; Psalms
14:2; 18:7; 19:1-6; 20:6; 29:10; 33:13-14; 49:1453:2; 75:4; 78:23-24; 80:14; 85:11; 88:10; 89:6-9; 93:1; 96:10; 97:1; 102:19;
103:11; 104:1-2, 5, 13, 25, 26; 136:6; 139:8; Isaiah 14:9; 26:14; 40:22; 41:5; Ezekiel 5:5; 28:12-19; 38:12.
7 Adele Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
1985), 99-102.
8 For an introduction to biblical metaphor theory, see: Martin G. Klingbeil, Yahweh Fighting from Heaven. God as a
Warrior and as God of Heaven in the Hebrew Psalter and Ancient Near Eastern Iconography (OBO 169; Fribourg: Uni-
versity Press / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 9-28.
9 The so-called Babel-Bible controversy was based on Delitzsch’s lectures to the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft in
1902 and 1903 in which he suggested a liberal borrowing on part of the biblical authors from Mesopotamian
sources. For a critical evaluation of Delitzsch’s contribution, see: Bill T. Arnold and David B. Weisberg, “A cen-
tennial review of Friedrich Delitzsch’s ‘Babel und Bibel’ lectures,” JBL 121.3 (2002): 441-457.
10 The usual suspects for this approach are: Enuma Elish (Mesopotamia), Atrahasis (Mesopotamia), the Amduat
(Egyptian) Memphis Theology (Egyptian), etc.

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lent recent studies available,11 there are few studies that deal with pictorial depictions of

ANE cosmology which forms an important data pool, especially when one takes into

consideration the inherent visual character of the concept of cosmology. Cosmology is

after all an attempt to conceptualize the world in which we live phenomenologically

and the German Weltbild captures this idea more adequately: we endeavor to picture the

world.12 Weltbild goes beyond the English cosmology in that its semantic range may also

include philosophical notions over against a so-called strictly “scientific cosmology”

that is often advocated. However, we will question the notion of “scientific cosmology”

below.13

This study acknowledges the importance of images inside (e.g., metaphors) and

outside the Hebrew Bible for the discussion of Israelite cosmology and will draw on the

often underrepresented pictorial evidence from Ancient Near Eastern iconography to

enhance our understanding of the Old Testament Weltbild.

2. Comparing Apples with Pears

All this involves comparisons of different types of data and some methodological con-

siderations are in order at this point.

The Comparative Method in biblical studies refers to the comparison of biblical with

other phenomena that occur in the whole realm of the ANE setting in general. The

comparisons have to work on the level of cultural systems without isolating individual

11 John H. Walton, Genesis 1; idem, “Creation in Genesis 1:1-2:3 and the Ancient Near East: Order out of Disorder
after Chaoskampf,” Calvin Theological Journal 43 (2008): 48-63; idem, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Tes-
tament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2006); Rob-
erto Ouro, “Similarities and Differences Between the Old Testament and the Ancient Near Eastern Texts,”
AUSS 49.1 (2011): 5-32.
12 Weltbild appears to be more inclusive of philosophical notions than the English cosmology, but should not be
translated into English as worldview which is rather Weltanschauung. See our discussion below on the relation-
ship between both terms.
13 “Our attempts at nailing down the specifics of the biblical cosmology, especially with various pictorial depic-
tions, have foisted upon the biblical texts a mistaken grid; we are trying to recreate the ancients’ one logically
consistent image of the cosmos when no such thing existed, at least not by modern ‘scientific’ standards.” Pen-
nington, “Dualism,” 261.

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phenomena from their respective cultural context. The underlying principles of the

comparative method are based on the assumption that there are common characteristics

between societies and cultures, which allow the researcher to make valid comparisons.

Early comparative studies took place on a grand scale (typological comparison) assum-

ing a general cultural uniformity in the ANE, e.g., liberally comparing a text from the

Hebrew Psalter with an Old Babylonian cylinder-seal.14 A more contextual approach fo-

cuses on both differences and similarities, trying to strike a balance between contrasts

and parallels and needs to be informed by the two governing principles of the compara-

tive method, i.e., place and time or geography and chronology.15

Without entering the discussion of the dating of biblical texts and especially the

Hebrew Psalter and other poetic texts from which the majority of cosmological texts are

being drawn, there seems to be sufficient evidence to propose a chronological frame-

work from the Middle Bronze Age to the Persian Period from which comparative mate-

rial could be drawn for the purpose of this study. Geographically, the period outlined

above comprises such a number of historical situations and locations that it appears ad-

visable to advance the geographical limitations beyond the immediate Palestini-

an/Israelite borders, including the two big power centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt.16

After having pointed to the importance of methodologically sound guidelines for

comparative studies, I have to admit that I am comparing apples with pears, i.e., images

14 Cf. the “Pan-Babylonian” movement which thrived in the aftermath of Delitzsch’s lectures mentioned above in
which parallel-hunting became the standard in comparative studies creating a number of lopsided comparisons
which have been made their into a number traditional views held in Biblical Studies, e.g., the tripartite cosmol-
ogy which will be discussed below. Frequently these views are informed by the scholar’s presuppositions. Ar-
nold and Weisberg have shown how anti-Semitic, nationalist, and anti-Christian presuppositions influenced
Delitzsch’s conclusions. Arnold and Weisberg, “A centennial review,” 443.
15 An excellent and up-to-date brief summary on the discussion of comparative studies can be found in Ouro,
“Similarities and Differences,” 5-10. He lists a number of important guiding principles and provides an over-
view of the relevant literature.
16 Cf. Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Comparative Method in Biblical Interpretation - Principles and Problems,” in
Congress Volume, 1977 (ed. J. A. Emerton; Leiden: Brill, 1978), 321-400; Meir Malul, The Comparative Method in
Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Legal Studies (AOAT 227; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1990); cf. al-
so John H.Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the He-
brew Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2006).

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with texts. The growing discipline of ANE iconography has contributed to our under-

standing of the Biblical text based on comparison with ANE pictorial remains. The fea-

sibility of comparing images has been demonstrated in a paper read at the International

SBL meetings in Vienna, 2007, where I discussed the relationship between the literary

and literal or physical image. Taking metaphor as the most prominent trope of biblical

imagery, I concentrated on the relationship between metaphors in the Hebrew Bible

and iconographic objects in the ANE. My preliminary conclusion was that while both

are independent forms of communication which need to be understood in their own

right, they nevertheless are linked to each other via the conceptual metaphor and con-

verge in the concept of what constitutes an image. Thus the literary and literal images

can rightfully be related to each other as done in iconographic studies that deal with ex-

egetical issues.17

A study of visual representations of ANE cosmology becomes thus another viable

way to understand OT cosmology beyond the textual comparative sources.18

17 Cf. here especially for methodological questions on the relationship between metaphor and image, Izaak de
Hulster, “What is an Image? A Basis for Iconographic Exegesis,” in Iconography and Biblical Studies: Proceedings of
the Iconography Sessions at the Joint EABS / SBL Conference, 22–26 July 2007, Vienna, Austria (AOAT, 361; ed. Izaak
J. de Hulster and Rüdiger Schmitt; Münster: Ugarit, 2009), 225-232; idem, “Illuminating Images. A Historical
Position and Method for Iconographic Exegesis,“ in Iconography and Biblical Studies: Proceedings of the Iconography
Sessions at the Joint EABS / SBL Conference, 22–26 July 2007, Vienna, Austria (AOAT, 361; ed. Izaak J. de Hulster
and Rüdiger Schmitt; Münster: Ugarit, 2009), 139-162; Martin G. Klingbeil, “Children I have Raised and
Brought up” (Isaiah 1:2) – Female Metaphors of God in Isaiah and The iconography of the Syro-Palestinian
Goddess Asherah,” in (to be published).
18 Athanasius (ca. 293-373 AD) in his letter to Marcellinus states that the reader of the Psalms – and by extension,
of the rest of the OT where imagery abounds - “is enabled to possess the image deriving from the words”, re-
ferring to expressions that can be realized in both image and language. Anasthasius, The Life of Antony and the
Letter to Marcellinus (trans. Robert C. Gregg; Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Paulist, 1980), 108.
Cognitive linguistics have demonstrated the level of understanding (cognition) a metaphor is able to evoke, as
the most prominent trope of biblical imagery, through the incongruity between different domains of
knowledge. In this way, it is possible to relate the textual image to the real image as both of them converge in
the mental image. For a recent perspective on cognitive linguistics and metaphor, cf. Olaf Jäkel, “How Can
Mortals Understand the Road He Travels? Prospects and Problems of the Cognitive Approach to Religious
Metaphor,” in The Bible Through Metaphor and Translation: A Cognitive Semantic Perspective (ed. Kurt Feyaerts; Re-
ligions and Discourse 15 (Oxford/Bern/Berlin/Bruxelles/ Frankfurt a.M./New York/Wien: Peter Lang, 2003), 55-
86. Jäkel verifies nine central tenets of the cognitive theory of metaphor to religious metaphor and comes to the
conclusion that most hypotheses of cognitive metaphor theory apply also to religious metaphor except for the

Page 6 of 21
 3. ANE Visual Representations of the World

Moving beyond textual to pictorial sources in the quest for an ANE cosmology and its relation-

ship to the OT equivalent has the advantage of coming closer to the visual character of cosmol-

ogy mentioned above, focusing on the attempt to establish a coherent material and functional

image of the natural phenomena the ancients encountered and reflected upon. Furthermore, an

image is able to transmit complex relationships in a condensed form and thus often expresses

abstract concepts in a much more comprehensive way than a text is able to accomplish.19 ANE

Iconography is the tool through which these images are studied.

As a separate discipline within biblical studies, ancient Near Eastern iconography

describes and interprets the pictorial remains of ancient cultures. It focuses on the
development of themes and motifs throughout the material culture of the ancient
Near East and tries to establish possible relationships with the cultural and religious
history of the ancient world.20

3.1. Egyptian Visual Representations of the World

The most frequently used cosmological imagery found in Egyptian iconography originates from

contexts depicting the Egyptian sky goddess Nut whose stretched-out and bent-over body sig-

nifies the heavenly realm: “Nut is depicted as a woman stretched over the horizon, with stars

and celestial lights forming her garb.”21

A complex image of her (Figure 1) is found on the sarcophagus cover of Wereshnefer (380-

300BC) housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is dated to the 4 th century BC but its

invariance hypothesis which states that “certain schematic elements get mapped from the source domain on to
the target domain without changing their basic structure”. (58)
19 “The visual image is better adapted for the portrayal of complicated relationships. … Faced with words and
ideas, the individual hearer quite often understands them in terms supplied primarily by his or her own cultur-
al heritage. It is considerably more difficult for the terms of that cultural heritage to prevail when a concept is
visually rendered, because we are then confronted with a cluster of aspects and not with a mere abstract pattern
permitting arbitrary interpretations. Iconography allows this influence of the cultural heritage considerably less
latitude than does the abstract phoneme. It can thus emphasize a number of very common peculiarities in the
reasoning of and imagination of the ANE more quickly and effectively than can the written word. Iconography
unavoidably compels us to see with the eyes of the ANE….” Othmar Keel, ABD 3:358-359.
20 Martin G. Klingbeil, “Psalms 5: Iconography,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings (ed.
Tremper Longman III & Peter Enns; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2008), 623.
21 Margaret Bunson, A Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 193.

Page 7 of 21
motif origins are to be located towards the end of the New Kingdom (16th-11th centuries BC).22

The center of the image is formed by a disk which represents Egypt with the standards of its 41

districts. In the upper portion the western necropolis on the western shore of the Nile is

depicted represented through the two Anubis jackal figures.23 Other nations and people are

related to Egypt along a concentric circle around its periphery, “represented by a figure with a

feather on its knee signifying subjugation”.24

Figure 1: Sarcophagus relief with Egyptian cosmology from Metropolitan Museum of Art

The circular representation of the world demonstrates that the ancient Egyptians had a

notion of the world of being a round shape with Egypt at its center surrounded by a ring

representing the ocean. Two female figures emerge from the ring that are designated as East

22 Izak Cronelius, “The Visual Representations of the World in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible,”
Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 20.2 (1994): 196-198, fig. 2. Cf. also Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Bibli-
cal World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), ???????fig. 33.
A fragment with similar content has been found which possibly dates to the end of the New Kingdom: J. J.
Clère, “Fragments d'une nouvelle representation egyptienne du monde,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen
Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 16 (1958): 30-46.
23 Keel suggests that it was located in the upper part and not in the western section for aesthetic reasons. Keel,
Bildsymbolik, 33.
24 Cornelius, “Visual Representations,”197.

Page 8 of 21
and West respectively. The most inward circle (Egypt) is filled with respresentations of the

underworld characterized by the night stars, Duat figures and the triple winged sun-disk which

has to go through the underworld every night. There is also a passage from the underworld to

the western necropolis relating death and underworld with each other. The whole world is

sustained by the Egyptian concept of power (Ka) which is personified with feet, arms and one

eye. This recognizes a spatial dimension in which the earth needs to be suspended, but

interestingly it is suspended through the abstracted yet personified concept of Ka. The world is

overarched by the goddess of heaven, Nut with three sun-disks and stars going through her

body, representing the heavenly realm and the movement of the celestial bodies through it. She

is held up by the air god, Shu. The winged sundisks on the right and left of the goddess

represent the setting (right) and rising sun (left), “born again each morning”.25

If one considers the overall composition of the image there appears to be a bipartite

division between the earthly realm consisting of world, ocean and underworld, contrasted with

the heavenly realm represented by the goddess Nut.26

Aside from this complex Egyptian cosmology on the Wereshnefer sarcophagus there are a

number of other cosmological depictions of Nut which show the world in a more two-

dimensional composition.

25 Ibid.
26 This is contra Cornelius who suggests a tripartite composition of the image connecting it with the Egyptian
temple: “Fig. 2 [our Figure 1] represents the Egyptian tripartite world: heaven, earth and underworld”. Ibid.
Keel on the other side distances himself from the traditional tripartite idea of Egyptian cosmology in suggesting
a twofold composition: “Wenn wir 33 [our Figure 1] als Gesamtkomposition betrachten, fällt auf, daß die Welt
auch hier im Grunde aus zwei Komponenten aufgebaut ist: aus der ERde mit dem Meer und der Unterwelt als
ihren Randgebieten einerseits und dem Himmel andererseits…. Einmal mehr erweist sich die Bedeutung der
zweiteiligen Formel.” Keel, Bildsymbolik, 33.

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Figure 2: Earth and Heaven depicted through Nut and Geb on a papyrus from the New Kingdom (1570-1085 BC)

On Figure 2 one can see Nut supported by the air-god Shu arching over the earth-god Geb

who is representing the earth in a reclining position, his body covered with reeds and other

vegetation.27 The earth is again associated with the Duat (underworld) represented through the

head and arms of Osiris who is receiving the setting solar barque with the falcon-headed sun-

god Ra and (falcon-headed sun-god) who is facing the goddess Maat with the feather represent-

ing truth and world-order. Thus the heavenly realm is also double-represented through Nut

and the sun which travels on the heavenly ocean during the day through the heavens and dur-

ing the night through the underworld as well as through Nut’s body in order to be born again

the next day: a small sun is depicted next to Nut’s womb with the hieroglyphic sign for “son of”

(s3 – pictographically the goose) which grows into a full sun above Shu’s head.

We have again a basic twofold composition whereas both parts are doubly depicted, i.e.

Nut and Ra representing the heavenly realm, and Geb and Osiris representing the earthly realm

including the underworld.28 Water imagery as found in the heavenly ocean and the sun barque

can be related to the importance of the Nile in Egyptian cosmology.29

27 Cf. Ibid., 29-30, fig. 32. See also: Friedrich Junge, “Unser Land ist der Tempel der Ganzen Welt,“ in Götterbilder -
Gottesbilder – Weltbilder. Polytheismus und Monotheismus in der Welt der Antike. Band I: Ägypten, Mesopotamien,
Persien, Kleinasien, Syrien, Palästina (ed. Reinhard G. Kratz and Hermann Spieckermann; FATII 17; Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 25-26.
28 Another central element in the composition is the air-god Shu whose association with the sun produces life as
indicated by the four ankh signs on arms and hands; cf. Keel, Bildsymbolik, 31.
29 “Der Schiffsverkehr spielte in Palästina nicht die Rolle wie in Ägypten. In Ägypten, wo das Reisen zu Schiff die
einfachste und bequemste Art des Reisens war, lag es in dem Augenblick, da man den Himmel als Ozean sah,
nahe, die Sonne diesen in einem unsichtbaren Schiff befahren zu lassen. Das dürften die Gründe sein, warum
sich die Vorstellung Ägypten unnabhängig auch in Mesopotamien findet....“ Ibid.

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 3.2. Mesopotamian Visual Representations of the World

Mesopotamian cosmology is less frequently attested in ANE iconography than its Egyptian

counterpart. For this reason, the kudurru,30 a Babylonian memorial or boundary stone from the

12th century BC housed in the Louvre (Figure 3) plays an important role in representing a Meso-

potamian view of the world.31

The unfinished stone32 was probably brought to Susa by the Elamite king Shutruk-

Nahhunte as part of campaign spoils. Kudurrus are characteristic of the Kassite dynasty whose

kings ruled over Babylon from the 16th to the 12th centuries BC.

Figure 3: Babylonian kudurru from the 12th century BC housed in the Louvre

30 On Babylonian kudurrus see: Ursula Seidl, Die Babylonischen Kudurru-Reliefs. Symbole mesopotamischer Gottheiten
(Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 87; Fribourg: University Press, 1989).
31 Keel suggests the following rationale: “Der Grund liegt darin, daß der Ägypter hoffte, nach seinem Ableben in
der in den ewigen Kreislauf der Sonne einzugehen. Mit Hilfe magischer Manipulationen, wie dem Bildzauber,
versuchte er zur Verwirklichung dieser Hoffnung beizutragen. So wird vor allem der Kreislauf der
Sonnenbarke, in die der Tote aufgenommnen werden möchte, unzählige Male dargestellt. Oder Nut wird auf
dem Innern der Sarkophagdeckel abgebildet. Sie sol den Toten wie die Abendsonne aufnehmen und zu neuem
Leben wieder gebären.” Ibid., 38.
32 Its lower registers have not been inscribed yet and only the iconographic details are completed.

Page 11 of 21
 The most outstanding element in the composition is a giant horned dragon (serpent) that

is coiled around the base of the stone. The raised head is at the bottom of and another serpent

though without a head, can be seen around the very top of the monument.33 They represent the

lower and upper oceans. The band at the top is filled with the symbols of the principal gods of

the Mesopotamian pantheon some of them on their emblem animals.34 This respresents the

heavenly realm, the abode of the gods. Below them is a band of different figures, representing

the earthly realm: animals, plants and figures with musical instruments in a procession

worshipping the gods above. Below is a fortified city which could refer to the underworld as

there are four massive pillars at the corners of the stone which reach above the fortified city and

support the earthly sphere.

Mesopotamian cosmology in this case displays a fivefold division: “upper ocean, heaven,

earth, city of the dead, lower ocean”,35 but one needs to relativize this observation as there are

other examples that show different compositions ranging from a three-part to a six-part

universe. The dominant feature of the kudurru is the horned serpent-dragon which represents

the waters of chaos in Mesopotamian cosmology. However, there is no Chaoskampf motif

present here as we find it often in other contexts.36

33 Cornelius, “Visual Representations,” 198, suggests that the serpent at the top is the continuation of the one at
the bottom, but the image does not clarify this, nor does the description on the Louvre’s website: “In this case,
the decoration is divided into three registers, delineated at the top and base by two huge horned serpents. The
lower register, where the text was to have been carved, is empty, although the surface was carefully prepared
to receive the inscription: there are four polished zones demarcated by walls. Two of these zones are carved
with horizontal lines ready for the cuneiform script.” Online: http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-
notices/unfinished-kudurru (30 May, 2012). Cf. also Keel, Bildsymbolik, 38-39.
34 The depictions of the gods seem to be ordered hierarchically in three groups: “The upper register depicts the
symbols associated with the principal deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon. Their order reflects the accepted
hierarchy of the gods. The first triad consists of the three great deities: Anu, the sky god; Enlil, the earth god;
and Ea, the god of Apsu, the body of fresh water on which the earth was believed to float. The second level rep-
resented the astral deities: Sin, the moon god, and his two children Shamash, the sun god, and Ishtar, the planet
Venus. Immediately below them are the deities most in favor in the 2nd millennium BC. Marduk and his ani-
mal attribute - a horned dragon named Mushussu - are given pride of place, reflecting the theological desire to
establish a universal god for Babylon, the capital of Mesopotamia.” Online: http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-
notices/unfinished-kudurru (30 May, 2012). To that list one needs to add Nabu represented by his stylus also on
a dragon.
35 Cornelius, “Visual Representations,” 198.
36 Especially from the 9th to 7th centuries we find the Mesopotamian motif of the weather-god Ninurta (or Adad)
fighting the horned Anzu snake. Cf. Klingbeil, Yahweh Fighting From Heaven, 249-252, figs. 81-83.

Page 12 of 21
 From Mari on the middle Euphrates there is a cylinder-seal dating to the 22nd century BC

depicting a scene with cosmological dimensions.37

Figure 4: Cylinder-seal from Mari with cosmological scene housed in the National Museum of Damascus

On a mountain throne in the center of the image is the supreme sky god Anu38 with

celestial symbols in front of him representing the heavenly realm. From the mountainous abode

of the god there are streams of water gushing forth from the mouths of two serpents (birds?)

representing the underworld. These streams of water turn into goddesses from which arise

vegetation depicting the earthly realm, but there is also a Chaoskampf motif present with a god

fighting the waters (Hadad-Ba‘al ). The composition is centered on El/Anu as the balancing

factor that maintains order between the chaotic waters and the earthly realm.39

In comparison to the numerous Egyptian examples, there are few Mesopotamian

depictions of the world and they are more abstracted and less phenomenologically oriented as

the ones from Egypt where the depictions of the gods often reflect the cosmic phenomena, e.g.

Nut’s arched position representing the expansion of the heavens.

In the attempt to summarize the visual representations of ANE cosmology based on the

few examples presented here, the following features become visible:

37 Cornelius, “Visual Representations,” 199-200, fig. 8. Cf. Keel, Bidsymbolik, 39-40, fig. 42.
38 This could also be the Canaanite highest god El, because Mari lies geographically and culturally on the border
to northern Syria. Ibid., 39.
39 “Was das Weltbild betrifft, so erscheinen auf 42 [our Figure 4] als konstituierende Elemente das Urwasser, der
Erdberg und der durch die Sterne repräsentierte Himmel. Der dadurch geschaffene Bereich wird von der
Ordnungsmacht Els beherrscht, der das oft prekäre Gleichgewicht zwischen den tödlichen Gewalten des Chaos
und der Lebensmacht Baals garantiert.“ Ibid., 40.

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 1. There is not one ANE cosmology, not even an Egyptian or a Mesopotamian one. There

are geographically and chronologically differentiation that one needs to take into

considerations.

2. Egyptian cosmologies are more phenomenologically oriented, linking the visual

representations to the cosmic observable phenomena while Mesopotamian cosmologies are

more abstracted and centered on the hierarchic constellations of the pantheon.

3. Both the Egyptian and Mesopotamian cosmologies are deeply polytheistic and

mythological in their visual representations in that they link the various parts of the cosmos

with divine beings or functions.

4. Whereas Mesopotamian cosmologies depict a strong underlying Chaoskampf motif,

Egyptian cosmologies echoes this through the Duat (underworld) cosmological component yet

withouth the motif of the cosmic battle.

4. OT Imagery as Representations of the World

As mentioned before, texts from the OT used for visual reconstructions of Ancient Israelite

cosmology notably come from the poetic texts of the Hebrew Bible. As a good case study, Cor-

nelius and Deist’s visual representation of the world of the Hebrew Bible might be taken.40

40 Cornelius, “Visual Representations,” 218, fig. 10.

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Figure 5: Visual representation of OT world according to Cornelius and Deist.

We follow Cornelius’ description:

Above is the heavenly ocean (1). In heaven is the cherubim throne (i.e. a winged
sphinx – 2) which is a well-known concept in the Bible (e.g. Pss 18:11, 80:2; Isa 37:16)
and its world…. The same is true of the winged sun. The winged figure depicted
here (3) is a combination of the sun god and the storm god with a bow (… cf. Ps 104
…). The earth is a disk (4), not floating in the ocean, but resting on pillars (5). Jerusa-
lem and the temple mount are the centre of the earth (6). The underworld is a dark
pit beneath the surface of the earth (7) as described in Ps 88. IN the subterrestrial
ocean (8) is the serpent of chaos (9).41

There are a number of other attempts to visually represent the cosmology of the OT that

follow more or less the same approach as outlined by Cornelius, i.e. interpreting the cosmology

of ancient Israel on the basis of ANE sources, some of them more modernist and materialist in

41 Ibid., 203. Cornelius further supports the various elements in the image with the following texts from the He-
brew Bible: (1) center of the universe: Judg 9:37; Ezek 5:5; 38:12; (2) pillars of the earth: 1 Sam 2:8b; Ps 18:8, 16;
75:4; 82:5b; 104:5a; Job 9:5; Isa 24:18; Jer 31:37; Job 26:11; (3) heaven and winged sundisk: Gen 1:6-7; Ps 29:3, 10;
104:2-3; Isa 40:22; Amos 9:6; Mal 3:20a; (4) sea serpent: Ps 104:3, 26b; 148:7b; Amos 9:3b; Job 26:8; 38:22; Isa 24:18;
and (5) subterrestrial water and underworld: Exod 20:4; Deut 4:18; 5:8; 9:13; Ps 24:2; 30:4; 88; 107:18. Cornelius,
“Visual Representations,” 200-203.

Page 15 of 21
their endeavor to synthesize the biblical data into one coherent picture (see for example Figure

6),42 others like Cornelius more in tune with the ANE evidence.43

Figure 6: Modernist representation of OT cosmology

A number of observations need to be made at this point. Firstly, the preponderance of po-

etic texts for the reconstruction of cosmology raises the question about the literary character of

the Hebrew Bible and the hermeneutic principles associated with its reading. The poetic charac-

ter of the cosmological texts needs to be taken into consideration and one needs to be cautious

to not take a poetic expression as a literal description of a natural phenomenon. The “windows

of heaven” (Isa 24:18; Mal 3:10) which have been associated with the mythological heavenly

ocean known from Egyptian and Mesopotamian cosmology, do not necessarily represent an Is-

raelite mythological understanding of the origin of rain on the earth, as texts like 1 Kgs 18:45

and Judg 5:4 in narrative contexts, but also even poetic texts like Ps 78:23 demonstrate. “Such

42 Keel criticizes this model adequately: “Die modernen Darstellungen des (angeblich) ao Weltbildes übersehen,
daß für dem AO die Welt nie ein geschlossenes profanes System, sondern eine nach allen Seiten offene Größe
war. Die Mächte, die diese bestimmen, interessieren ihn mehr als die Bauart des Weltgebäudes, von der man
sich (je nach Ausgangspunkt) die verschiedenen, niemals koordinierten Vorstellungen machte.” Keel, Bildsym-
bolik, 48, fig. 57 caption.
43 Wright provides an interesting study of the heavenly realm based on different modern representation of the
world and suggests two different models which were in conflict with each other: “The picture of the heavenly
realm in the Hebrew Bible, the foundation document of Judaism and Christianity, is a multifaceted image. To
be sure, a strictly monotheistic, aniconic depiction dominates the imagination of the Hebrew Bible's latest edi-
tors. On the other hand, however, in conjunction with evidence from the Hebrew Bible itself, there is abundant
archaeological, inscriptional and textual evidence to show that for some ancient Israelites and Judaeans, as was
the case for their neighbors as well, the heavenly realm was populated by myriad gods and goddesses. Judaism
and Christianity inherited the monotheistic, aniconic model; the other was lost.” J. Edward Wright, “Biblical
versus Israelite images of the heavenly realm,” JSOT 93 (2001): 72. However, his assumptions are based on a
late dating and editing of all relevant biblical texts.

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figurative language does not lend itself to the reconstruction of biblical cosmology.”44 Younker

and Davidson conclude: “One of the great ironies in recreating a Hebrew cosmology is that

scholars have tended to treat figurative usages as literal (e.g., Psalms and Job), while treating

literal passages such as in Genesis as figurative.”45

This brings me to a second observation. Care needs to be taken to not read the Hebrew

Bible through the lenses of ANE mythology. This has been aptly illustrated for example through

the pan-Ugaritic bias in the interpretation of the Psalms.46 “Even when there is a proximity in

time and place between terms in the Bible and non-biblical texts, it does not necessarily imply

that there is a similarity in meaning for every ancient writer whether inspired or not.”47

Another good case in point more pertaining to the subject of this paper is the discussion of

the tripartite vs. the bipartite (or bipolar, dualistic) division of OT cosmology. Scholars have

long suggested that the OT reflects the ANE three-storied universe with heaven, earth and un-

derworld as its basic components: “One of the standard assumptions of OT studies is that the

Hebrew people viewed the world as a three-tiered structure consisting of the heavens, the earth,

and Sheol or the underworld. Relying heavily on ancient near eastern parallels, the majority of

scholars understand OT cosmology as tripartite.”48 However, a closer look at the usage of the

expressions as used in the Hebrew Bible, develop a different picture. The term ~Aht. “deep” in
Gen 1:2 has been interpreted as the primeval ocean and connected to the Babylonian goddess

Tiamat mentioned in the Babylonian creation account Enuma Elish who engaged with the crea-

44 Hasel and Hasel, “Unique cosmology,” 12. (In print).

45 Randall W. Younker and Richard M. Davidson, “The Myth of the Solid Heavenly Dome: Another Look at the
Hebrew Term rāqîaʿ,” AUSS 49 (2011): 146.
46 Climactic for the pan-Ugaritic school has been the appearance of Dahood’s three-volume commentary on the
Psalms in the AB series. Dahood’s opus magnum is characterized by a thorough treatment of almost the entire
vocabulary of the Hebrew Psalter against the background of Ugaritic poetic literature, at times producing ra-
ther new and unfamiliar renderings of individual Psalms. Although its first appearance was greeted with en-
thusiasm in academic circles, cautious voices soon expressed increasing skepticism against the work, based
mainly on his disregard for the Massoretic vocalization of the text and his rather uncritical application of the
comparative method in using the Ugaritic material. Mitchell Dahood, Psalms I: 1-50 (AB 16; Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1966); idem, Psalms II: 51-100 (AB 17; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968); idem, Psalms III: 101-150
(AB 17A; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970).
47 Hasel and Hasel, “Unique cosmology,” 13. (In print)
48 Pennington, “Dualism,” 260. See for example: Robert A. Oden, Jr., “Cosmogony, Cosmology,” ABD 1:1162-1171;
and Cornelius, “Visual Representations,”200; J. Edward Wright, The Early History of Heaven (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000).

Page 17 of 21
tor god Marduk in a cosmic battle at the dawn of creation. The philological connection has been

shown to be unwarranted and the contextual usage of the term in the Hebrew Bible points to a

poetic depiction of a literal large body of water without any mythological connotations.49 Fur-

thermore, there is no Chaoskampf motif present in the biblical account which is so prevalent and

even almost inevitable in the polytheistic environment of the ANE.50 Similar observations apply

to the term lAav. “Sheol” which has been connected to the underworld or the world of the dead

along the lines of Egyptian cosmology, but rather serves as a poetic depiction of the grave. Pen-

nington makes a convincing argument in dismantling the presupposed tripartite cosmology of

the OT by showing the literary relationship between the terms “earth”, “Sheol”, and “deep”

which often function interchangeably and together form the realm of the earth in contrast to the

heavenly realm.51 The following table is based on Pennnington’s study of the tripartite vs. the

bipolar composition of OT cosmology:

Heavenly Realm
God, Angelic Astral, Metereological

Earthly Realm
Land of the Living/Sheol/Deep

Thus, in the merism “heaven and earth” discussed at the beginning of the paper as the

most basic expression of OT cosmology we have a fundamental bipolar cosmology that focuses

on the heavenly vs. the earthly realm which includes the land of the living, Sheol, and the

49 Hasel and Hasel, “Unique cosmology,” 8-9. (In print) See also: David Toshio Tsumura, The Earth and the Waters
in Genesis 1 and 2: A Linguistic Investigation (JSOTSup 83; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), 45-62 [see footnote 37 in
Hasel and Hasel]
50 “We would conclude that many of the biblical passages that have at times been discussed under the categories
of theomachy or chaoskampf have been misclassified.” John H. Walton, “Creation in Genesis 1:1-2:3 and the an-
cient Near East: order out of disorder after Chaoskampf,” Calvin Theological Journal 43.1 (2008): 48-63. However,
Walton opts for a functional reading of the creation account on the exclusion of the material and with that his-
toric aspect of creation. A close reading of OT cosmogony would have to include both material and functional
aspects. Cf. Younker and Davidson, “Myth of the Solid Heaven,” 147.
51 “The tripartite view is based not on how the OT presents itself cosmologically but on recognition of the heaven
and earth pattern plus a desire to fit in the occasional data about the question of existence after death, the idea
of the netherworld. However, this is an anachronistic reading stemming from the later, more developed ideas
of the afterlife from the Second Temple period. A much simpler solution is to understand Sheol in the OT, like
the seas and the ocean deeps, as part of the earthly realm. Thus, rather than a tripartite structure…, we have a
basic bipolarity….” Pennington, “Dualism,” 267.

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deep.52 Beyond the A number of texts can be adduced to support this argument: Psalm 115:16-

17; 148, Amos 9:2-3, etc.

5. Weltbild vs. Weltanschauung

We have to some extend deconstructed the widely held notion of lining up OT with ANE

cosmologies, especially from the perspective of a mythological reading of the Hebrew Scrip-

tures. At the same time, the visual representations of ANE cosmologies have demonstrated that

the object of cosmology was not necessarily an attempt to provide the viewer (or reader for

texts) with a modernist view of how the universe works. Scholars have thus repeatedly and

sometimes somewhat condescendingly identified the ancient Israelite cosmology as pre-

modern: “In summary it is clear that the Hebrew Bible reflects a pre-modern (i.e. primitive)

view of the world….”53 Going beyond the elevated modern, other authors have in good post-

modern fashion suggested that the OT represents a variety of cosmologies as much as there are

a plethora of ANE cosmologies.54

In contrast, I would suggest that our modernist attempts at reconstructing an OT cosmol-

ogy are deemed to be misguided if we do not recognize the ideological and religious dimension

of ancient cosmologies. This moves the discussion from the question of Weltbild to the question

of Weltanschauung, or from the question of cosmology to the question of worldview. OT cosmolo-

gy, and its ANE counterparts for that matter, is not interested in a modernist and systematic

depiction of how the world works and how it is materially structured, but how the human

sphere interacts with the divine. Thus the question moves from “how does it work” to “who

holds it (and us) together”. The visual representations of ANE cosmology illustrate this ade-

quately, but our materialist worldview often leads us to ignore this important fact.

52 One should mention in this context also the “demythologized” understanding of the term [;yqir' “expansion,
firmament” which according to the biblical data is not a solid structure as presupposed from the perspective of
ANE mythology (though not even necessarily present in Egyptian cosmology): “However, more recent research
has shown that the idea of a flat earth was not held by either the early Christian church or Medieval scholars.
Indeed the overwhelming evidence is that they believed in a spherical earth, surrounded by celestial spheres
(sometimes hard, sometimes soft) that conveyed the sun, moon, stars, and planets in their orbits around the
earth.” Younker and Davidson, “Myth of the Solid Heaven,” 146.
53 Cornelius, “Visual Representations,” 204.
54 See for example: Houtman, Der Himmel im Alten Testament, 283-317.

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 The answer needs to include cognizance of the accentuated monotheistic tenor of the bib-

lical vs. the polytheistic worldview of the ANE, a fact that has been highly visible in the repre-

sentations of ANE cosmologies above. The biblical worldview in contrast is theocentric and sets

everything else in relationship to God whereas the ANE worldview is geocentric and sets every-

thing in relationship to the world. Thus the preferred biblical depiction of the cosmos in the

word-pair “heaven and earth” becomes at the same time an expression of the biblical

worldview. Everything in creation (human sphere) needs to be constantly related to its creator

(the heavenly sphere) and depends on his sustenance. Psalm 104 is a vivid description of this

worldview, centering cosmology on a theocentric worldview describing the one and only crea-

tor God in comparison to the many mythological gods of the ANE. As a matter of fact, a close

viewing (and reading) of ANE cosmologies makes one wonder if there is not a good dose of

monotheistic polemics underlying the writing of this Psalm, especially if one considers the in-

sistent emphasis on God’s creative and sustaining activity in the cosmos and his absolute con-

trol of the created space in contrast to the personified and deified natural phenomena known

from ANE cosmologies (see especially vss. 3-15).

6. Anthropological Implications

How does the understanding of ANE and OT cosmology reintegrate into the broader sub-

ject of biblical anthropology? Based on the data gleaned from the comparison of visual repre-

sentations of ANE cosmologies with the OT worldview the following points have become perti-

nent:

1. In the OT, anthropology and cosmology are always set in relationship to each other.

Whenever the ancient Israelites thought about the cosmos, they also thought about humankind

in relationship to the cosmos. Questions of human origins, life and death are intricately woven

into the fabric of ancient cosmology, both in- and outside the Hebrew Bible.

2. In moving the discussion from Weltbild (cosmology) with its modernist (or post-

modernist) notions to the question of Weltanschauung (worldview), it has become apparent that

humankind in the OT saw themselves not only in relationship to the cosmos but first of all in

relationship to the center of gravity of this universe. The difference between an ANE geocentric

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worldview and an OT theocentric worldview demonstrates this aptly. Thus the questions of

human origins, life and death can only be adequately answered from this center.

3. The demythologizing force of OT cosmology which in the texts, at times, is connected to

a polemic treatment of ANE cosmologies, furthermore points to the theocentric force of OT. It is

not a polytheistic mythologized cosmos surrounding the human sphere, but the ancient Israelite

person is set in relationship to the one God who has created the cosmos and all that is within.

4. OT cosmology or worldview provides ample answers to the existential anthropological

questions. The origins of humankind, present life and destiny are bound up in Yahweh and we

are created to serve him, not in a servile capacity, forever trying to meet the requirements of the

deity as in ANE cosmologies, but in response to his bountiful provisions.55

Thus cosmology and anthropology meet each other in the story of redemption with its

cosmic dimensions and its human recipients reaching beyond the confines of the OT. Cosmolo-

gy and anthropology have been described as “the two pivotal perspectives” on the cosmic dra-

ma of salvation as developed by Paul in the NT (cf. 1 Cor 4:9).56

A closer look at visual representations of ANE cosmologies and its contrasting OT

worldview have provided a unique perspective on the most important issue in biblical anthro-

pology, i.e., the salvation of humanity through the recreation of the imago dei.

55 Comments Walton in contrasting ANE and ancient Israelite thought: “In Israel people also believed that they
had been created to serve God. The difference was that they saw humanity as having been given a priestly role
in sacred space rather than as slave labor to meet the needs of deity. God planted the garden to provide food for
people rather than people providing food for the gods. … In Mesopotamia the cosmos functions for the gods
and in relation to them. People are an afterthought, seen as just another part of the cosmos that helps the gods
function. In Israel the cosmos functions for people and in relationship to them.” Walton, Ancient Near Eastern
Thought, 215.
56 “I have pointed out that cosmology and anthropology are the two pivots of Paul’s theology. These two pivots
can be likened to the warp and woof upon which Paul weaves the backdrop of his cosmic drama. Placing its fo-
cus on human salvation, the cosmic drama became projected into human history.” Lee, The Cosmic Drama of Sal-
vation, 304-305.

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