Define firmament in the bible full#

Д¬ultural legends describing the dome are abundant enough to include arrows being shot into the firmament and lodging there (Japan, Native America, Chuckchee), adventurers climbing up to the sky (India), people climbing up through a hole in the firmament (Navaho) or tumbling down through one (Seneca), and heroes sailing a ship to the place where the sky meets the earth (Buriat), and where the firmament is so low that ship masts can end up scraping it. This understanding is so ubiquitous that some anthropologists consider it a вЂњgeneral human belief.вЂќ As Paul Seely, a Bible scholar who works on the intersection of ANE literature and science, writes: Apart from a scientific education, it is just too natural for people to think of the sky as something solid. This barrier is dome shaped, since we see the heavens above curving into the horizon and meeting the flat earth. Water doesnвЂ™t fall on us because something is holding it up, and that something is transparent, since we can see the blue hue of the liquid behind it.

Define firmament in the bible full#

The sky is blue because it is full of water, like the sea. It is best understood as a product of the pre-scientific mind, attempting to make sense of what it sees and offering an intuitive, though factually incorrect, account. The idea of the sky above us as a solid structure is shared by almost all pre-modern human cultures.

The idea of a firmament is entirely contradictory to modern planetary science yet there God is, in our Torah, spending all of creation day number two fashioning it. Gen 1:6 God said, 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.' 1:7 God made the firmament, and it separated the water which was below the firmament from the water which was above the firmament. If you can entertain this notion, and feel yourself underneath this massive curved wall of heaven, straining under the weight of the rainwater it holds back, then you are living on the earth our sages knew, for this is the world, the universe, of which the Bible conceived: Ч‘ЧЁЧђЧ©Ч™ЧЄ Чђ:Ч• Ч•Ц·Ч™Ц№ЦјЧђЧћЦ¶ЧЁ ЧђЦ±ЧњЦ№Ч”ЦґЧ™Чќ Ч™Ц°Ч”ЦґЧ™ ЧЁЦёЧ§ЦґЧ™ЧўЦ· Ч‘Ц°ЦјЧЄЧ•Ц№ЧљЦ° Ч”Ц·ЧћЦёЦјЧ™ЦґЧќ Ч•ЦґЧ™Ч”ЦґЧ™ ЧћЦ·Ч‘Ц°Ч“ЦґЦјЧ™Чњ Ч‘ЦµЦјЧ™Чџ ЧћЦ·Ч™ЦґЧќ ЧњЦёЧћЦёЧ™ЦґЧќ. This is what the Bible is describing when it refers to Ч”ЦёЧЁЦёЧ§ЦґЧ™ЧўЦ·, traditionally rendered in English Bibles as вЂњthe firmamentвЂќ (from the Latin firmamentum meaning вЂњsupportвЂќ). Only try and picture it as a connecting point between two solids: a flat plate like earth, and a rigid dome like an upside down bowl that vaults it, blue as ocean, from the vast stores of water it contains. If you are unfamiliar with the firmament, then imagine for a moment the horizon, where the earth appears to meet with the sky. Of all the vexing problems modern cosmology poses for the first chapter of Genesis, such as the insufficient biblical timeline of 6 days (as opposed to billions of years) until the appearance of humans, or vegetative bloom before the sun and photosynthesis, the most acute for me is GodвЂ™s creation of the firmament (ЧЁЧ§Ч™Чў rakia) on the second day.