In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth…
Genesis 1:1-2a NET
This may seem obvious, but it’s worth noting. The Scriptural metanarrative begins by providing the setting. This is a story about the heavens and the earth. And while the heavens are announced first, the focus immediately shifts to the earth. Even when the heavens are mentioned again in Genesis 1, it is only because the creative acts occurring in the heavenly realms affect the earth.
This seemingly simple observation is a foretaste of the metanarrative to follow. The events of Scripture pertain primarily to events on earth. Earth is the primary focus where the cosmic plot will unfold. When we do get glimpses of heavenly events, it is always because it has something to do with events on earth–a heavenly response, decree, judgment, or divine council (getting its name from Ps. 82) meeting pertaining to earthly events. 1 Kings 22, Job 1-2, Isaiah 6, Psalm 82, Daniel 4 (“decree of the watchers,” v. 17), 7, 10, Zechariah 3, Revelation, and others all provide a glimpse or result of heavenly court proceedings as they pertain to earthly happenings.
And this is interesting because Scripture is not about what happens in the heavens on a day to day basis. While Scripture provides a great deal of fodder for historians to understand earth’s history, the same is not true of the heavens. We only know what we know of heavenly events because of the brief glances in Scripture of how heaven affects earth. Meanwhile, plenty of heavenly history no doubt took place, but that history is largely invisible to us.
Several other locales of the Scriptural setting emerge later in the metanarrative. The “eternal fire” seems to have come about as the result of a heavenly decision, and it also only makes an appearance because of its relation to earthly events.
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ “
Matthew 25:41 NIV
While the devil and his angels may have been heavenly creatures, the eternal fire was prepared for them because of their rebellious activity which affected the earth.
Hades/Sheol and Tartarus also make appearances. Hades/Sheol is the place of the dead. (Hades is the Greek word; Sheol is the Hebrew word.) Like the heavens, we get small glimpses into the cosmic underworld but only as it relates to how Hades affects earth or vice-versa. 1 Samuel 28, Luke 16, 10:15, and Revelation 20 are notable examples.
Tartarus is perhaps the most unusual locale mentioned in Scripture. It appears only once in 2 Peter 2:4 as the place of captivity for angels who sinned. (Tartarus is the Greek word; English translations vary as to how this is translated.) In the Greek worldview, Tartarus was “as far beneath Hades as heaven was above the earth” (The Iliad). While Jude doesn’t mention Tartarus specifically, he also refers to this group of angels. They are imprisoned because they abandoned their positions of authority and engaged in sexual sin (Jude 6-7), referring to the infamous sons of God in Genesis 6. (For more on this, see The Epic Gospel We’ve Forgotten.)
So, the setting of the metanarrative of Scripture has its focus set on the earth. The heavens, Hades/Sheol, and Tartarus all make appearances because they interact in some way with earthly characters or events (plot). And while the heavens and the earth may seem to be separate locales, these two cosmic regions overlap at the very beginning and ending of Scripture. This key aspect of the Scriptural setting explains some of the strange characters that we find in the first few pages of Genesis.
Up Next: Reading Scripture Like a Novel: Characters
Epic Gospel 