Genesis 1: What is a 'firmament'?

[Ken]

Whether Greek “scientists” believed this cosmology is another question (I put scientist in air quotes, because while people have always attempted to understand the physical world, science as its own discipline didn't exist until the 17th century). By the 4th Century BC, the Greeks knew the world was a sphere, not flat. Plato and Aristotle believed in a geocentric model, in which earth was at the center of the universe:

The spherical earth was actually demonstrated by the Greek scientist Eratosthenes around 240 BC. Eratosthenes was a Greek scientist living in Alexandria, which was a Greek colony at that time due to its conquest a century earlier by Alexander the Great. Eratosthenes famously calculated the circumference of the earth at the equator to be 39,375 km which is remarkably close to the correct measurement of 40,076 km. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

Greeks knew that the earth was a sphere before Eratosthenes, but he was the first to accurately calculate its circumference by measuring the difference in the elevation of the sun at noon at different known locations using this clever method

[Bootstrap]

The Church Fathers made some assumption that don't seem to be explicit in the Hebrew Bible. I think this is a useful diagram that focuses on the Hebrew Bible:

https://bibleproject.com/blog/creation- ... cosmology/

These study notes are also useful:

https://d1bsmz3sdihplr.cloudfront.net/m ... _final.pdf

[Ken]

So I haven't thought about this before. But did the ancient Hebrews believe that rain was God letting out some water from the "waters above" that is stored above the firmament or vault of the sky?

I assume they would not have had a modern understanding of the water cycle and that all precipitation came from water on earth that entered the atmosphere through evaporation and transpiration and becomes rain through condensation.

[ohio jones]

I suspect they believed that "a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground."

[Ken]

I suspect they believed that "a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground."

Well yes, that is part of the creation story. But is that a description of the process of creation where the entire earth is watered at once to provide for the creation of vegetation? or is that a description of ordinary rainfall?

[Neto]

Just another thought here - I think that it is one thing to say that I do not understand a given Scripture, or, for that matter (and perhaps in a more real sense), that I do not understand WHY God does or allows the things that happen here in our families and in the lives of others close to us. It is quite another to say that I do not believe a given Scripture, or that God either has no control over events which bring sadness and disappointment, or that he doesn't even care. I'm not suggesting that anyone here is saying anything like the latter, but it is something that has touched many of us our lives on this earth so far.

[Bootstrap]

Just another thought here - I think that it is one thing to say that I do not understand a given Scripture, or, for that matter (and perhaps in a more real sense), that I do not understand WHY God does or allows the things that happen here in our families and in the lives of others close to us. It is quite another to say that I do not believe a given Scripture, or that God either has no control over events which bring sadness and disappointment, or that he doesn't even care.

I agree.

But with Genesis 1, I think we are looking at something different. Genesis 1 does not talk about the universe the way we understand it today in our culture. But it was written to people who do not understand the universe the same way we do. If a 4-year-old child asks where babies come from, the parents may say something like "babies come from Mommy's tummy" or even "babies come from the love between a Mommy and a Daddy". That's not really a scientific explanation, but it's not a lie either. And it is trying to tell the child something important at the level that the child can grasp.

When I think about the universe, I think about planets in our solar system revolving around the sun, and many solar systems and other systems in the universe. I do not think of waters above and waters below and a firmament in between. But I do think of an all-powerful creator who brings order out of chaos and creates what is good. To really grasp Genesis 1, I think I have to read it carefully, see it in terms of the imagery it contains even if it is old and strange to me, and see what it is saying to them in their cosmology. I don't have to force-fit the narrative to modern science, it is not written in those terms. Genesis 1 does not prove God scientifically, that's not what it was written for.

[Falco Underhill]

That's not really a scientific explanation, but it's not a lie either. And it is trying to tell the child something important at the level that the child can grasp.

When I think about the universe, I think about planets in our solar system revolving around the sun, and many solar systems and other systems in the universe. I do not think of waters above and waters below and a firmament in between. But I do think of an all-powerful creator who brings order out of chaos and creates what is good. To really grasp Genesis 1, I think I have to read it carefully, see it in terms of the imagery it contains even if it is old and strange to me, and see what it is saying to them in their cosmology. I don't have to force-fit the narrative to modern science, it is not written in those terms. Genesis 1 does not prove God scientifically, that's not what it was written for.

I do not agree that mythological language is "baby talk". This language is the only language suitable for the purpose of expressing the experiences and truths they express. There is no other. Trying to restate it "scientifically" or pretend it's something of the past to be surpassed by more mature language was the mistake of Hegel and all modern ideologies. As long as we keep talking like that we continue the enlightenment misunderstanding of reason/symbols.

It still speaks on a level we can ALL understand, it's not just for babies. We don't outgrow it. When you say God brings order out of chaos that an exegesis of the text. You didn't improve on it "scientifically" you learned from it. See what I mean?

[Bootstrap]

I do not agree that mythological language is "baby talk".

I do not believe it is baby talk either - and I didn't say that. But God is communicating to people who do not understand all that he understands. And yes, I think it's fair to call this mythological language, it is grand, poetic, and vivid.

This language is the only language suitable for the purpose of expressing the experiences and truths they express. There is no other. Trying to restate it "scientifically" or pretend it's something of the past to be surpassed by more mature language was the mistake of Hegel and all modern ideologies. As long as we keep talking like that we continue the enlightenment misunderstanding of reason/symbols.

It is the language God chose. God knows what he is doing. We cannot improve on it. But we need to be comfortable reading it as it was written.

It still speaks on a level we can ALL understand, it's not just for babies. We don't outgrow it. When you say God brings order out of chaos that an exegesis of the text. You didn't improve on it "scientifically" you learned from it. See what I mean?

I think you are agreeing with me and approving of the way I read the text. I think the right way for us to approach any biblical text is to read it closely in order to learn from it and to pay attention to the details of how it was written. I agree that we can all understand the text, but sometimes we can resist a text that is old and strange and different from the way we are used to thinking of things in modern America. And sometimes we can try to write our own concerns back into texts. Genesis 1 is not about the debates we sometimes read back into it.

[RZehr]

Waters above and waters beneath, could be demonstrated with a modern globe.