What is the biblical basis for the belief that some people will live eternally on earth? In a well-known passage, the Apostle Paul writes:


  For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, emphasis added)


This suggests that Paul was thinking in terms of an older cosmology, in which angels were believed to live in the sky (the New Testament Greek word for "sky" is the same as the word for "heaven"), and that he is here saying that those who are saved would live forever with the Lord "in the air," like the angels, and therefore not on earth.

The final two chapters of the Book of Revelation, about the New Jerusalem, begin:


  Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:1–2)


Here there is mention of a new heaven and a new earth. However, although the New Jerusalem is seen as coming down out of heaven from God, there is no mention of the New Jerusalem actually touching down on the earth. And its description of being just as high as it is wide and long (Revelation 21:15–16), suggests a city that is seen high above the earth rather than one built on the surface of the earth as the original Jerusalem was.

However, some groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, believe that many or all of those who are saved will live on earth rather than in heaven after the resurrection.

What is the biblical basis for this belief?

I am especially interested in any Bible passages stating in an unmistakable way that any resurrected people will live on earth. Failing that, I am interested in Bible-based arguments that some or all people will live forever in their resurrected bodies on earth rather than in heaven.
Jehovah's Witnesses draw the belief of living forever on Earth for a few reasons.

The first of which was God's original purpose for mankind when he placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. While this original purpose has been postponed by sin and Satan's challenge to God's sovereignty, it is still God's will for mankind.


  Further, God blessed them, and God said to them: “Be fruitful and become many, fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving on the earth.”
  —Genesis 1:28
  
  For this is what Jehovah says,
  The Creator of the heavens, the true God,
  The One who formed the earth, its Maker who firmly established it,
  Who did not create it simply for nothing, but formed it to be inhabited:
  “I am Jehovah, and there is no one else.
  —Isaiah 45:18
  
  9 Remember the former things of long ago,
  That I am God, and there is no other.
  I am God, and there is no one like me.
  10 From the beginning I foretell the outcome,
  And from long ago the things that have not yet been done.
  I say, ‘My decision will stand,
  And I will do whatever I please.’
  11 I am calling a bird of prey from the sunrise,
  From a distant land the man to carry out my decision.
  I have spoken, and I will bring it about.
  I have purposed it, and I will also carry it out.
  —Isaiah 46:9-11


Psalm 37 tells us of a time when the righteous ones will possess the earth forever.


  9 For evil men will be done away with,
  But those hoping in Jehovah will possess the earth.
  10 Just a little while longer, and the wicked will be no more;
  You will look at where they were,
  And they will not be there.
  11 But the meek will possess the earth,
  And they will find exquisite delight in the abundance of peace.
  —Psalm 37:9-11
  
  The righteous will possess the earth,
  And they will live forever on it.
  —Psalm 37:29


Finally, Revelation 21 tells us that "death will be no more." Since death has never existed in heaven, this must refer to the earth.


  3 With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them. 4 And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”
  —Revelation 21:3, 4


(For a complete article, there's "What Is God's Purpose For the Earth?")