The Bible Literally Calls One Place "The Gate of Heaven"

Jacob goes to sleep with a stone for a pillow.

This already suggests standards of hospitality were lower in the Bronze Age.

Then he dreams of a structure extending from Earth to heaven with angels ascending and descending upon it.

When Jacob wakes, he concludes that the location is the house of God and calls it "the gate of heaven."

Modern language immediately tempts us.

Gateway.

Traffic between realms.

Non-human beings moving up and down.

Specific geographic location.

Stargate.

But Genesis is not describing a mechanical portal with coordinates and an activation sequence.

Jacob's ladder is a religious vision expressing connection between the earthly and divine realms.

Still, the imagery belongs to an enormous human tradition.

Sacred mountains connect Earth and heaven.

Temples become cosmic meeting points.

Caves lead to underworlds.

Doors, ladders, bridges and gates separate realities.

We keep imagining the universe as architecture.

Perhaps that is because doors are one of the simplest metaphors humans possess.

There is here.

There is somewhere else.

And between them there must be an entrance.

Science fiction merely added glowing rings.