spin

There's little wrong with "firmament" other than that it's archaic English. It reflects the Hebrew well enough. It's just people who don't want to deal with the Hebrew who have problems. I think that includes you.

And sorry, I should have given you a welcome to the forum. I see that you are new here, so I hope you get into the swing of things and that you enjoy polemic. There's a lot here. None of it is personal, despite the fact that people get hot under the collar defending some position or another. We tend to like evidence better than authority and you'll find enough that's way out to get a laugh. There might be things that you'll learn and you may help others. Enjoy yourself and be prepared for anything.


spin

spin

Oh and there's nothing wrong with "expanse" as long as it isn't an empty expanse. An expanse of sand, an expanse of metal, whatever. The important thing is that raqiya is tangible. It holds up the water. Forget silly modern ideas of the world. They're irrelevant to the significances in the text.


spin

Wandering Traveller

Jack the Bodiless:

You were relying indirectly on the King James Version when you said "All 17 uses in the Bible refer to the Firmament dome." It is only the KJV that translates every occurrence of raqiya' as 'firmament.' Examining those occurrences, we find that in each case 'expanse' makes either (1) as much sense as, or (2) more sense than, 'firmament' as a translation. So with respect to Genesis 1, the contextual evidence from the rest of the Bible that you think points towards 'firmament' actually points to 'expanse' as a translation.

I grasp that point, but shamayim is the name given to the raqiya', so in Genesis 1 the words refer to the same thing. If shamayim is the name given to a firmament, then speaking of "birds of the shamayim" makes no sense because it means, by implication, "birds of the firmament."

I have no interest in what apocryphal literature says, or even what it indicates about the beliefs of the ancient Hebrews. The "fundies" you mention in your opening post do not consider the Book of Enoch, etc. to be the word of God. Nor do they claim that the ancient Hebrews had modern cosmological knowledge. The only useful question is what was actually written in the Book of Genesis (which is seen as divinely inspired); needless to say, it does not describe stars as little lamps or set up a system of gates.

Fair point.

I know the word is raqiya'. That is why I mentioned that verse, along with the others. You claimed that raqiya' always means 'firmament' in the Bible. I went through the uses of the word raqiya' in the Bible in my first post, and we saw that while the KJV does indeed translate the word as 'firmament,' translating it as 'expanse' makes at least as much sense.

To be clear: in all the 17 uses of the word raqiya' in the Bible, not one makes more sense translated as 'firmament' than translated as 'expanse.' And in several cases 'expanse' makes a great deal more sense.

spin:

Thank you for your kind welcome. And yes, I enjoy polemic all too much.

The purpose of the raqiya' (expanse) is to separate water from water. That is entirely consistent with modern ideas of the world. There is water down below (the sea) and water up above (the clouds). An expanse separates them, and birds fly around in it.

spin

This I have clearly shown earlier is wrong. As I said, according to the Hebrew text the birds fly across the face of the raqiya of heaven. They don't fly in the raqiya. That would be difficult. But you are confusing air with raqiya. Genesis 1 doesn't talk about air. 1:20 talks of the birds flying above the earth and across the face of the raqiya of heaven. The gap between the earth and the raqiya would be what we call the air, but it's not in the text.

And don't try this fudging about all the references being figurative. Those so-called figurative references clearly make sense with a solid raqiya. Live with it, don't try to sweep it under the carpet. Science didn't exist at the time. The world had pillars. You could see the whole world from the top of a high mountain. It's no problem to the text if the raqiya is solid.

Stop depending on translations, when the significance of the original is at stake.


spin

Gudjonsson

page 237 in this article by Paul H Seely in the Westminster Theological Journal 53 (1991)

Jack the Bodiless

Then all you're saying here is that (on this issue) only the KJV is an accurate literal translation: only the KJV directly susbstitutes one specific Hebrew word for what it has deemed to be the English equivalent. But I got the information about the 17 occurrences from a concordance, not the KJV.
If you're using "expanse" in the sense of "a big empty space", it only "makes more sense" if you impose a modern understanding of astronomy. All the contextual evidence from the rest of the Bible (and other Hebrew texts) indicates that the firmament is solid.
Nope, you still seem to be forcibly combining two different words. As I understand it, "shamayim" means "the sky" or "the heavens", part of which is the Firmament dome.
Why do you "have no interest" in texts which give more information regarding the worldview of the ancient Hebrews? I have "no interest" in what modern Christian apologists imagine to be "inspired" or "uninspired". Also, what about the rest of the books in the Bible which describe the stars as small lamps attached to the Firmament?
You have not yet found a single instance where raqiya as a solid firmament doesn't "make sense", and your notion that an empty void makes "more" sense appears to be based purely on modern notions. Meanwhile you are still ignoring all other texts that clarify this issue.

spin

I missed this pronouncement. This is a palliative for you, not an approach to the text. You are using the term "expanse" to imply "empty expanse", otherwise you'd have no trouble with "firmament". You cannot fly in the face of the raqiya. It doesn't make any sense. Now which examples of raqiya require any understanding in the text other than "firmament"? Having looked at all 15, I don't see one. But then neither did the ancient Greek and Latin translators who each used a term that indicated a solid raqiya, sterewma and firmamentum. They didn't have modern science to pervert their reading of the text.


spin

Jack the Bodiless

If (for some reason) we limit this to "inspired" texts, then Jude's endorsement of Enoch still leaves a problem (and there's the ongoing canonicity of Enoch in the Ethiopian Bible). Plus the verses elsewhere in the Bible, of course:
I'm aware of the gymnastics that apologists attempt to use when "explaining" some of these verses, but the overall context is abundantly clear: a solid Firmament is by far the clearest and most straightforward explanation, and there is no justification for any other explanation.

Wandering Traveller

spin:

Fudging?! 'So-called' figurative references?! Let's examine Psalms 78 and 104 and see what else you insist on interpreting literally.

• God is a rock (Psalm 78:35)
• Men are a passing breeze (Psalm 78:39)
• The clouds are a chariot which God rides in (Psalm 104:3)
• The wind has wings, which said chariot rides on (ibid.)
• The waters hear God's thunder and consciously take flight (Psalm 104:7)
• The sun consciously knows when to go down (Psalm 104:19)

Need I go on? The Psalms (including these two) are obviously rife with figurative references. (By the way, with reference to the 'four pillars' idea, cf. Job 26:7 - "he suspends the earth over nothing," NIV.)

Jack the Bodiless:

Could you provide details? And are you sure the concordance isn't simply relying on the KJV? Excuse me if I've made an unfounded assumption here. But even so, taking each of the occurrences in context, 'expanse' seems to be an equally good or better fit. Have you actually looked at the 17 occurrences individually?

No. I contend that in the uses of raqiya' outside Genesis 1, 'expanse' makes more sense than 'firmament' as a translation even from the perspective of an ancient world-view.

Then why is the raqiya' called shamayim in Genesis 1:8?

Because the subjective cosmological beliefs of the ancient Hebrews are a different question to what Genesis 1 actually says.

I would be very interested indeed to see you point them out.

Now then, the Bible verses you cite in your subsequent post (with the exception of Genesis 7:11 and 8:2, see below)...

"the construction of a tall tower to reach Heaven in Genesis 11:4"
The NIV translates this as "a tower that reaches to the heavens." Other translations (e.g., Young's Literal) give a similar rendering. And there is nothing in the context that indicates the men were literally trying to reach heaven (in the sense of God's dwelling place, rather than a position high up in the air).

"celestial warehouses for snow and hail in Job 38:22"
Obviously figurative. Verse 23 continues: "which I reserve for times of trouble / for days of war and battle" (NIV). Clearly, snow and hail don't only come in times of war and battle. If we're interpreting Job 38 literally, then according to it the sea burst forth from a womb (verse 8), there are literal gates of death (verse 17), darkness and light have dwelling places (verse 19), drops of dew are fathered (verse 28), and frost is given birth (verse 29). Quite obviously, imagery is being used here.

"the sky as a strong crystalline material in Job 37:18 and Ezekiel 1:22"
Beyond 'it is figurative' I really don't have much further to say. Ezekiel is a prophetic book and full of imagery (e.g., in Ezekiel 3:3 the narrator eats a scroll which tastes as sweet as honey).

"the sky as a tent in Isaiah 40:22"
The wording (again, NIV) is "He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in." It's a simile: "like a tent." It does not say the sky is a tent.

"stars as small objects attached to the Firmament (which can fall off) in Daniel 8:10, Matthew 24:29, Mark 13:25, Revelation 6:13, Revelation 8:10, Revelation 9:1 and Revelation 12:4"
Firstly, Revelation is the most symbolic of all the books in the Bible, so we can dismiss those verses as imagery straight away. Same with Daniel 8:10 - verse 8, immediately preceding, describes a goat having its horn broken off and having four growing up in its place. That leaves the verses from Matthew and Mark, which (so far as relevant) quote Jesus quoting Isaiah 34:4. And once again, in context, that is clearly figurative. Otherwise we have the text referring literally to a sword which can drink (Isaiah 34:5), the sky being rolled up like a scroll (Isaiah 34:4), which certainly isn't easy to do with a domed metal firmament, and mountains being literally soaked in blood (Isaiah 34:3).

With regard to Jude 1:14-15, quoting a prophecy from Enoch approvingly hardly counts as an endorsement of the whole book of Enoch - any more than Gudjonsson's reference in this thread to an article by Paul H Seely concluding, at the end, that Genesis 1:7 "is still infallibly true" means that Gudjonsson accepts the doctrine of divine inspiration.

The award for gymnastic excellence must go, rather, to those who insist on forcing literal interpretations on obviously figurative texts.

I'll comment on Genesis 7:11 and 8:2 as well as Gudjonsson's post in my next message.

Lord Emsworth

The Birds fly on the face of the skydome. As spin has shown. But the sun, the moon, and the stars do not. They are set into the firmament: http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=60079366

Gen 1:17
God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth,

http://www.ibs.org/niv/passagesearch...&submit=Lookup

Gen 1:17
God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth,

When I take this, and add it to your claim that the waters above refer to the clouds () I end up with the conclusion that somehow, if the stars et al are in the "expanse," and the clouds are above the "expanse," well, ... Then I end up with the conclusion that the sun, the moon and the stars are below the clouds. And that birds, presumably, fly around them. 'kay

Or, I could simply reject your claim about the waters above being the clouds and instead stick to an ancient cosmology when reading ancient texts, such as the P-creation. Then the problem goes away.


Why that? Rolled up like this:


The simile makes perfect sense with a solid, tangible (I do not think it is metal) layer that functions as a dome. It does not make sense with an empty space kind of sky.