Had the common man in (first century) Palestine thought about it at all, he would have considered the world flat, with land riding on and surrounded by water below and above. Keeping water up there was the “firmament” – a great, canopy-like dome not too far beyond where birds could fly. Indeed, the firmament had gates for the sun and moon to go through, and through which water fell as rain from the waters above.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer, The Illusion of "Truth": The Real Jesus Behind the Grand Myth
body-mind-spirit, consciousness, philosophy