Biblical cosmology is the account of the universe and its laws in the Bible. The Bible was formed over many centuries, involving many authors, and reflects shifting patterns of religious belief; consequently, its cosmology is not always consistent.: "The canon of the Hebrew Bible [...] was formed of [...] diverse writings composed by many men or women over a long period of time, under many different circumstances, and in the light of shifting patterns of religious belief and practice. [...] Indeed, the questions under investigation in this book concerning the end of an individual's life, the nature of death, the possibility of divine judgment, and the resultant reward or punishment [...] are simply too crucial to have attracted a single solution unanimously accepted over the near millennium of biblical composition." Nor do the biblical texts necessarily represent the beliefs of all Jews or Christians at the time they were put into writing: the majority of the texts making up the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament in particular represent the beliefs of only a small segment of the ancient Israelite community, the members of a late Judean religious tradition centered in Jerusalem and devoted to the exclusive worship of Yahweh.: "The religious ideology promoted in a majority of the texts that now form the Hebrew Bible represent the beliefs of only a small portion of the ancient Israelite community: the late Judean individuals who collected, edited, and transmitted the biblical materials were, for the most part, members of a religious tradition centered in Jerusalem that worshipped the god Yahweh exclusively."
