Shalom, Popeye.
Retrobyter, Bible Scribe -
Items no. 1-6 of Retrobyter's analysis, is dead-on!.... And were reasons I was going to use to show that there is indeed a "New Earth". And the new earth is a totally separate entity from the New ( Holy ) Jerusalem. However, your 7th point is in error. There is only one river mentioned that feeds the Tree of Life. Where do you get multiple rivers? And why are you concerned about "earthly" concerns of "pumping water" and gravity? God can easily supply water anywhere, and anyhow, he sees fit, regardless of the shape of his holy city. Scripture certainly doesn't support that. Besides, the new earth has no seas ( Rev 21: 1 ).
Here's why I believe that there will be a division of the one river into twelve:
Rev 22:1-2
1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
KJV
Is there just one street? If you say no, the Bible says there was only one street, just like it said there was one river. If you say yes, then how does one get around within the city? There's one TYPE of street, and indeed they probably will join seamlessly at the intersections, but one street in an endless corkscrew doesn't make sense. IF there is just one street, then to which of the twelve gates would it go? OR, does it just go by all twelve gates one after another? No, as in any well-designed city, the street will branch throughout the city, serving all the buildings, parks, recreational areas, and ALL THE GATES.
Now where is the river? It is said to be in the midst (middle) of its (the city's) street! If the street branches, guess what happens to the river! And, if all the gates are serviced by the street, then all the gates are serviced by the river as well! See, in the Hebrew mindset, such a phrase as "water of life" means "living water" or "MOVING water!" It's life-giving water because it is not stagnant! It's like in the mikvah, the pools for Jewish baptism before it was adopted by believers who call themselves Christians: One could not be cleaned in the mikvah if its waters were still; they had to be "living waters" or "moving waters." This is the main reason for Yochanan the Immerser (John the Baptist) to use Nehar haYarden or the Jordan River. Even in the dry season, it is constantly moving as it flows from Yam Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) at 702 feet below sea level to Yam ha-Melach (the Dead Sea) at 1,368 feet below sea level.
In a city that is 1,500 miles high, and if the throne is at the pinnacle, then the river would flow downhill throughout the city in a constant array of moving waters in cascades, and waterfalls and fast moving streams! Eventually the river would either pool at the bottom of the city, OR it would evaporate, OR it would flow out of the city onto the New Earth! Where else would God have it flow? GOD LOVES THIS EARTH!!! He CREATED it! He saw all that He had made after the first six days and what did He say?
Gen 1:31
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
KJV
If God thinks it was all "very good," and if God is PERFECT, then what does that say about the original Creation?
I once had a pastor who outlined the whole Bible very simply:
I. What ought to be - Gen. 1,2
II. What is - Gen. 3
III. How to get from what is to what ought to be - Gen. 4-Rev. 22
The river of the Eden was "parted into four heads." (Gen. 2:10-14) Why shouldn't the River from Paradise be "parted into TWELVE heads," all going in FOUR compass directions? Gan-Eden, the Garden of Eden, is a garden of trees, a "
pardeec" in Hebrew. This is the word from which the Greek word "
paradeisos" comes! And, we get our word "Paradise" from this Greek word! Therefore, the New Jerusalem will also be a garden of trees, just as Gan-Eden was!
Sure, "God can easily supply water anywhere, and anyhow, he sees fit, regardless of the shape of his holy city," but isn't that true about all our cities and our earth, now? And yet, He sees fit to allow for a hydrological cycle of precipitation, running off into streams and rivers, and lakes and seas, and evaporating back into clouds that then will precipitate once again! He doesn't have to allow gravity to work at all; yet, He saw fit to give us mass and the force of gravitational attraction between bodies of mass! God can always do anything that He wants to do, but He USUALLY does things through the laws of physics He has already put in place! And, since when or who says that Scripture doesn't support the laws of nature God has instituted?! Finally, while Yochanan said that he saw the new earth without a sea, that doesn't mean that it will NEVER have seas! Furthermore, he may have just been talking about the Mediterranean Sea that was separating him on the Isle of Patmos from his loved ones on the main land!
THINK BIGGER and respect the earth that GOD CREATED!
Your pyramid idea is interesting, and could possibly be so, being it looks more like a "mountain" than any cube does. However, you are merely speculating because the scriptures simply don't support enough detail to really assign New Jerusalem as anything other than a cube. Furthermore, John would have had to move to the central point of the city, and measure directly straight up from that central point, to verify the height, if it were a pyramid. Not saying he couldn't, or didn't do it, but it's simply not documented that he did. He merely records that the length, width and height were identical in measurement. He is describing a cube by any other name.
Well, THAT'S wrong! He isn't describing a cube! Yochanan merely said that it "lieth foursquare." That means that it covers a square plot of ground, and nothing is said about the walls or a roof! The Greek word is "tetragoonos" and literally means "four-cornered" or "four right-angled" or simply "square." It has a square footprint, and that's ALL you can deduce about the city's shape from that verse. The additional information that the verse supplies, i.e., that each side is 12,000 furlongs (stadia) long and wide and that the city is 12,000 furlongs high, just give us the dimensions of the city, not its shape.
Now, how would you measure a city that is 12,000 furlongs or 1,500 miles long? with a yardstick?! I should hope not! Yochanan didn't do the measuring; the messenger to whom he was talking did. (I think you're confusing this passage with chapter 11:1-2.) And, the messenger didn't use a yardstick, either. He used a "
kalamon chrusoun," a "golden reed," a "golden TUBE!" He used a surveyor's theodolite! He did it with angles and trigonometry, same as we do today, same as the Egyptians and the Greeks did before Yeshua` was born!
There is no question though, that the New Jerusalem is simply not a sphere. We know this by the descriptions of it by John in Rev 21. Furthermore, one cannot "measure" a circle, or sphere, as simply geometry requires that you need a mathematical calculation using the radius, the circumference, and the mathematical Konstant PI ( the # 3.14 ). To measure it any other way would require an infinite number of axes in all 3 planes of revolution. If John was looking at a sphere when he was told to measure it, I'm sure he would have looked at the angel and said, "How?".
While I would tend to agree with you here, remember that chords that pass through the center of a sphere define the diameters of a sphere, and every three-dimensional object has three, orthogonal dimensions. Therefore, it is possible to measure the east-west diameter, measure orthogonal on the same plane and get a north-south diameter and then, measuring orthogonal (at right angles) to each of those directions (defining the plane surface), get a diameter from the highest point to the lowest point. Also, 3.14 may not be precise enough for this structure. Just for fun, there's a little poem I've memorized for pi, although it is technically a transcendental number. Be sure to use the Brittish spelling for "endeavour":
Now I will a rhyme construct
By chosen words the young instruct
Cunningly devised endeavour
Con it and remember ever
Widths in circle here you see
sketched out in strange obscurity...
By counting the number of letters in each word, you get another number for pi. This takes the number out to 30 places past the decimal, namely...
3.141592653589793238462643383279....
The number four ( 4 ) has been used by God in scripture to denote "spiritual and geometric completeness". There are 4 gospels, 4 beasts before the Throne, 4 Horsemen, 4 beasts of Dan 7, the 4 heads of Dan's 3rd beast, 4 corners of the earth, 4 winds of heaven....and I could go on, but it is much more likely what we are given a description of, in Rev 21, is likely a CUBE.
Actually, you are using Hebrew Gematria, called Kaballah - a form of Jewish mysticism, and the number four ( 4 ) is the number of the earth!
Who really cares what shape it is really? Fact is, my point all along was to point out the shear expanse of it. To look upon this city from ground level, one would not be able to see to the end of the walls in any direction. Something that big would "take my breath away" to try and gaze at it. It would cover a footprint of the earth equal to looking from Colorado to the Atlantic ocean - west to east - on one side, and from Miami to New York in the other direction. And there is no skyscraper in the world that would even be more than a speck on the base of this monster, height wise. The shear size of this thing humbles ya....
I have to care. There are many interconnected facts that must add up. For instance, has it ever occurred to you that the walls are said to be of jasper as is the first foundation? There's no mention of a roof or ceiling. If the four walls are allowed to be triangles that come to a common point, the pinnacle, do you realize that the entire city would be encased in jasper? Did you know that jasper is the BLOODSTONE? In point of fact, the jasper is actually the red flecks within the green chalcedony of the bloodstone; it's the "blood" of the bloodstone! That means that you can't get into the New Jerusalem without going through the "blood!" Furthermore, you can only get into the city through one of the gates where the round, pearl gate has been rolled away from the opening, attended by one of the angels or messengers! Each and every gate is a commemoration of our Lord's RESURRECTION! Thus, it is only through His Resurrection that we gain access! No, I have to care.
There is a new earth and new heaven.
There is a huge City that sits on the new earth's surface.
God will live in that city, and dwell with us on this earth.
And the new earth has no seas.
And what is even more humbling, is that this huge, expansive city, Holy Jerusalem, IS MOBILE AND CAN MOVE AS ONE UNIT, ascending or descending into the heavenly realms at the whim of God.!!!!!!!!
I hate using the term, but this Holy City fits all the descriptions of an intergalactic spaceship of uncomprehensible size and complexity...... fitting for the God of our fathers.
Shalom, Retro....
No, again, the new earth WHEN YOCHANAN SAW IT IN REV. 21:1-2 had no more sea. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that it had no water or that it would NEVER have any water or sea! I believe that part of the creation of the New Earth and New Sky will be rebuilding its water system! Imagine twelve new rivers, each one pouring out of each of the gates of the city to water the New Earth, a complex watering system to water the face of the ground! It will be very similar to the Creation of the first Earth and its first Sky in Genesis 2:10-14.
And, no. Once that foundation is sunk into the ground, that city is not going anywhere ever again! It will be our home - God's House, literally, His "tent" - and the whole earth will be our backyard in which to play! We don't need to go anywhere! GOD IS WITH
US! The earth is sufficiently big for all of us, especially after it is renovated and rejuvenated! In addition, we'll have the entire Yerushalayim Chadashah to explore and live within! There is no "Heaven" to go to; no "heavenly realms" to visit! The word "heaven" comes from "ouranos" which means "THE SKY!" The New Heaven is the NEW SKY, the NEW ATMOSPHERE around the New Earth! If you will, "Heaven" will have come to US! We don't go to "Heaven!"