Evad

I don't agree with you. I think that the simplist solution for me to express my opinion on the subject is my own Academic Annotated Bible - Genesis Chapter 1

The waters above were a water vapor canopy. Not held with a solid dome. Augustine, with his "fusion of Platonic philosophy*" doesn't exactly convince me otherwise.

* The Catholic Encyclopedia

spin

That's your problem. I have given you the philological issues, which you haven't responded to. Then I showed you the claim about a solid firmament coming from the dark ages is false, as Augustine held the view.

Perhaps that makes some sense to you, but the Raqia was not water, it separated water from water according to Gen 1:6 and was distinct from it.

stephan huller

I came across this at a blog which I think settles the issue. Natan Slifkin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natan_Slifkin) proves that all rabbis of all periods believed the rakia to be a solid firmament, that the Malbim (= Meïr Leibush ben Jehiel Michel Weiser b. Volochysk, Volhynia Mar. 7, 1809; d. Kiev Sept. 18, 1879) was the first to interpret rakia differently. Slifkin also notes that the real reason he did so was not because of an objective study of scriptures and tradition (= chazal = Ḥakhameinu Zikhronam Liv'rakha = Our Sages, may their memory be blessed") but because, despite what these taught, modern science forced him to do.

A statement from his blog:

I guess this demonstrates that Jews are just as likely as Christians to manipulate the obvious meaning of terms in order to make them seem relevant to modern science

Evad

Most skeptics would claim to do so would be an attempt to appease science, but that isn't the case. A literal interpretation doesn't fit.

The "firmament," more accurately, the expanse, we are talking about is the heavens in which dew and frost form (Genesis 27:28 / Job 38:29), the birds fly (Deuteronomy 4:17 / Proverbs 30:19 / Matthew 6:26), the winds blow (Psalm 78:26), lightning flashes (Luke 17:24), and the clouds float and drop their rain, snow, or hailstones etc. (Joshua 10:11 / 1 Kings 18:45 / Isaiah 55:10 / Matthew 16:1-3 / Acts 1:10-11; 14:17)

These people knew how metal solid structures worked and how the heavens worked and it is nonsense to think that they were confused by it.

Afterward there were some pretty bizarre scientific interpretations of the heavens, but those shouldn't reflect upon what preceded when the two don't agree.

stephan huller

This is getting ridiculous. You aren't even putting up linguistic arguments. The only two ways to determine what the term meant is to look at the use of the term in the Hebrew Scriptures and how these were interpreted by the earliest sources. I have put forward that the Jews always interpreted the term as 'firmament' (= a solid substance) because that is what anyone with a knowledge of Hebrew would be led to believe from the word itself. If you have nothing from your Church to contradict those who actually spoke Hebrew, why don't you just give it a rest.

GakuseiDon

So you are saying that the scientific explanation about God being in the heavens above the firmament is that Heaven (with its thrones and dancing angels) is literally located above the stratosphere rather than literally located above a solid dome?

I think "firmament" referred to both a solid dome and an expanse. But as "expanse", it meant the area bounded by the solid dome.

Theophilus of Antioch, for example, wrote about birds flying "in the firmament of heaven" while at the same time implying that the firmament was a solid structure separating the waters above from the waters below.

An equivalent today might be when we say "the gold fish is in the fish bowl". We don't actually mean the golf fish are physically stuck in the glass of the fish bowl itself, but rather within the water bounded by the glass.

I've often wondered how this affected our mindset and mythos over the centuries. Imagine living in a universe that is a spherical world 'closed in' by a solid dome. When you look up, you are looking at Heaven in some way (even if the true Heaven is hidden above the dome). How would that impact our beliefs, the stories we tell ourselves? Such a universe feels kind of claustrophobic to me. Or would it be comforting?

Now imagine looking up and knowing that there is no effective boundary, that you are looking back to the start of time itself. How does that affect our beliefs, the stories we tell ourselves? Anyway, that's what I think about when I should be doing something else, like right now.

Evad

Yes, odd, that . . . I didn't think it added anything to my original post. I said raqia means spread out as expanse from the root raqa which means beaten out. I thought you must not have read my post so I didn't respond.

Was Augustine not a product of the very Dark Ages of which we speak?

The implication I make is that the atmosphere surrounding the earth wasn't thought of as having been literally beaten out of something metallic. The mixture of said atmosphere holding back gases, dust, debris, rock and countless solid material weighs 5,200,000,000,000,000 metric tons.

It holds back meteors and you think it had to have been thought of as solid metal in order to keep the water vapor canopy in place until the flood? (2 Peter 3:5-6)

And I'm the one trying to appease science? I don't see you as having anything remotely resembling an argument.

Evad

Show me . . . with your superior connections to the ancient Hebrew language . . . where the term raqia is applied literally to the idea of a solid structure surrounding the earth.

I have given half a dozen or more to the contrary.

ApostateAbe

I would go with the literal translation in large part because it is contextually credible--it seems to fit well with what many of the ancient people of the time and region believed. They believed that the sky was solid, not because they were stupid, but because they were intelligent. Otherwise, how else would they explain the heavenly bodies staying up in the sky, whereas everything else falls to the earth? How else would they explain the stars being fixed relative to each other? They explained things in terms of what they themselves knew. They had no knowledge of the physics of outer space. They didn't even know about outer space.

I would go with a metaphorical interpretation only if it is the best way to make ancient sense of it. The metaphorical interpretation is always available as a convenient excuse to make the scriptures fit your existing beliefs. Almost everyone does that. There are a bunch of atheists in this forum who believe or suspect that the New Testament was metaphorical whenever it claimed anything about the earthly human existence of Jesus. They take the spiritual statements of Jesus literally and the earthly statements of Jesus metaphorically. Sounds bizarre, right? Well, I think that is what happens when you have metaphorical interpretation on hand to fix the Bible according to your beliefs. I say: If plain sense makes ancient sense, then seek no other sense or it will result in nonsense.

spin

Once again, you are not reading what is said to you. My first comment was pretty plain:

Raqia (רקיע) comes from the verb (רקע), which means to beat (to shape) as a goldsmith does. רקיע is formed by adding a yod into the verb, as in the case of messiah (משיח) from the verb (משח). Messiah indicates that which is anointed, as Raqia means that which is beaten. The Hebrew is quite explicit as to the solid nature of the Raqia. Its task in the Genesis context is to separate the waters, ie it is something solid. The choice of word and the purpose it is used for makes the writer's intention clear.

Note the comment, "beat.. as a goldsmith does".

See Isa 40:19 for the base meaning, as well as Num 16:38, "beaten plates", Jer 10:9 "beaten silver". The formation of the noun from the verb went over your head. The Raqia, by its word form, is the thing that is beaten. This means a solid thing.

If you look at Eze 1:22 there was something like a Raqia that was the color of crystal. Perhaps you can imagine something that is not solid having the appearance of crystal.

Job 37:18 tells us that god has beaten out (רקצ) the sky (שחק) strong or hard (חזק) as a mirror.

Ps 19:1 describes the Raqia as the work of god. It is a product of his endeavors.

Gen 1:20 talks of birds flying in the face (פנים) of the Raqia of heaven. The birds don't fly in the Raqia, but in its face, ie before it. That which has a face is solid.

Crystal, mirror, beaten silver. These are all the ideas directly connected with the word we are trying to understand. They make it abundantly clear that the Raqia is solid.

Don't act dumb.

Yes, you're trying to appease science, not read what the text says. You are confusing your desires to conform the bible to your need for science and the necessities of reading a text for itself. You are simply mystifying the text.