>>733641
Jewish cosmology takes the literary form of myth. Or you expected God to dictate precise physics with the laws of gravity and equations to a nomadic tribe?
The Bible also describes non physical realities (heaven and earth) that are outside of our physical universe, we are not able to grasps these ideas today and ancient jews were even less able. There is no other way to describe these except to call them as if they were geographical places.
Mythological language expresses truth but in a different, simbolic way.
Earth is the material world, it's in the middle between heaven and the abyss of water. Just below Earth is Sheol, the realm of the dead. Abyss is the realm of the marine serpent (representing evil).
Above the stars, meaning outside the physical sky, is heaven, the residence of God and blessed souls.
As for the non trascendant God I think you are mistaken. As I explained above Heaven is not a physical place in our physical universe, just like Sheol isn't actually a place in the middle of Earth.
Jesus told us to pray "Our Father who are in heaven" and this is literally true and not contradicted by the OT, except some primitives understood heaven as the physical sky, but this do not concern us.
We also know the Temple, more precisely the Tabernacle in the Sancta Sanctorum was also called "residence of God". So if the Jews considered the Tabernacle and the Temple the "house of God" do you think they believed in God being in heaven as if in a physical place or in a more trascendant way? It seems to me it imply the second one.