Sirach 16:18
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus13 The sinner will not escape with plunder, and the patience of the godly will not be frustrated. 14 He makes room for every act of mercy; everyone receives in accordance with his or her deeds. 17 Do not say, "I am hidden from the Lord, and who from on high has me in mind? Among so many people I am unknown, for what am I in a boundless creation? 18 Lo, heaven and the highest heaven, the abyss and the earth, tremble at his visitation! 19 The very mountains and the foundations of the earth quiver and quake when he looks upon them. 20 But no human mind can grasp this, and who can comprehend his ways? 21 Like a tempest that no one can see, so most of his works are concealed. 22 Who is to announce his acts of justice? Or who can await them? For his decree is far off."
2 Corinthians 12:2
1 It is necessary to go on boasting. Though it is not profitable, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows) was caught up to the third heaven. 3 And I know that this man (whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows) 4 was caught up into paradise and heard things too sacred to be put into words, things that a person is not permitted to speak. 5 On behalf of such an individual I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except about my weaknesses. 6 For even if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I would be telling the truth, but I refrain from this so that no one may regard me beyond what he sees in me or what he hears from me,
Notes and References
"... In his work On the Heavens, Aristotle sets forth his cosmology, based upon astronomy as he knew it. The universe is eternal, and the farthest heavenly bodies, moving in majestic cycles, are likewise eternal and unchanging. Influenced by geometry and astronomy, both Plato and Aristotle understood the universe to be a gigantic sphere (actually, for Plato, it is a dodecahedron). At the center of the sphere is the earth, a place of change, generation, death, and corruption. The earth is at rest in its center and spherical in shape ... This natural philosophy became the common stuff of Hellenistic culture, and the foundation for the development of Greek, Roman, and medieval science (including Islamic science). The greatest classical astronomer, Ptolemy, held an Aristotelian cosmology. Aristotle finished his work almost four hundred years before Paul. By the time of Jesus, this Greek cosmology was the common stuff of the intellectual world. Of course, there were opponents, such as the Epicureans, but they did not gain the imagination of the majority. Jews and Christians added to this basic Greek cosmology a further heaven, the “heaven of heavens” or “highest heaven” or simply “the highest” where God and the angels dwell (Deuteronomy 10:14; 1 Kings 8:27; Psalm 148:4-6; Sirach 16:18; Luke 2:14; 19:38; Revelation 4:1-2; compare Luke 10:18; 2 Corinthians 12:2-4). But their cosmology below the highest heaven was much the same as that of the Greek natural philosophers ..."
Padgett, Alan G. The Body in Resurrection: Science and Scripture on the “Spiritual Body” (pp. 155-163) Word & World Volume 22, Number 2, 2002