Firmament and waters above: time to choose

[jereth]

From Genesis 1:
Then God said, "Let there be ahttp://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis 1&version=49#cen-NASB-6M firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." God made the firmament, and separated the waters which were below the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. God called the firmament heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth.

What are these waters above the firmament? Here are several interpretations:

A. Water Vapour Canopy - Morris & Whitcomb (1961)
B. Orbiting ice rings - suggested by Glenn Morton in 1979 (Morton is no longer a YECist), and re-considered by Vardiman and Bousselot (1998)
C. Cosmic material - James P. Holding (1999) "Rather, it is our suggestion that these ‘waters’ were the originally-created, basic building blocks of matter that ... became all that was created outside of our atmosphere and/or our solar system ... [namely] stellar matter, methane gas, asteroids, comets, etc."
D. Ice wall at the edge of the universe - Russell Humphreys (Starlight and Time)
E. Clouds

And finally,
F. MYTHOLOGICAL. The waters existed in the Hebrew picture of the universe, but not in the modern scientific understanding.

 

[ChetSinger]

It was a tough call for me, choosing between Humphreys' ice wall or Holding's cosmic material. I eventually went with Humphreys, although I'd guess that it's not a wall any more, but just pieces of ice.

 

[Willtor]

I like your whale, Jereth. You need a caption: "Not to scale"

 

[Melethiel]

I've generally seen it as clouds, although the "don't know, don't care" option also appeals to me.

 

[Battie]

Because a solid firmament in which the stars are set is consistent with the cosmologies of other ancient near eastern cultures and with the cosmology of the ancient Hebrews themselves, I believe that's what this passage refers to.

The waters above the firmament in ancient mythology were typically the source of rain, not the clouds. For example, the Canaanites believed Baal opened the windows of heaven to let rain on the earth. This is similar to the reference to the floodgates of heaven in Genesis 7:11

 

[Jadis40]

I voted for clouds.

Seems to make the mostsense given what we know of the hydrologic cycle. I can see how the mythological interpretation would be viable too.

 

[Assyrian]

I think TEs can be in as much danger from an over literal misreading poetry and metaphor as YECs. Did the ancient Hebrews really believe there were windows in heaven? We can take it as a 'literal' description of their cosmology, instead of a literal scientific description of meteorology, but in doing so we forget what wonderful poets they were. They did understand rain came from clouds.

Job 36:27 For He draws up the drops of water; they distill rain into mist,
28 which the clouds drip down, and drop upon men plentifully.
29 Also can any understand the spreading of the clouds, the crashing of His canopy?
2Sam 22:12 He made darkness around him his canopy, thick clouds, a gathering of water.
Eccles 11:3 If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth
Isaiah 5:6 I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

 

[jereth]

I think TEs can be in as much danger from an over literal misreading poetry and metaphor as YECs. Did the ancient Hebrews really believe there were windows in heaven? We can take it as a 'literal' description of their cosmology, instead of a literal scientific description of meteorology, but in doing so we forget what wonderful poets they were. They did understand rain came from clouds.

Good point, Assyrian. I agree with you that the phrase "windows of the heavens" may be poetic, and not reflective of actual hebrew belief. It is also undoubtably true that the Hebrews understood that rain falls from clouds.

However, it remains the case that ancient Hebrew cosmology accepted the ANE view of the cosmos, with its upper sea of waters. This was the belief of the Egyptians, the Babylonians and most other cultures of the time. Genesis 1 (and many other passages) really only make sense in light of this cosmology.

Some exegetical issues to consider:
- On day 2 of Genesis 1 God creates a raqia (firmament) to hold up the waters. This word raqia implies a solid ceiling or vault (cf. Ezekiel 1) and cannot be applied to the atmosphere.
- On day 4 of Genesis 1 God places sun, moon and stars in the raqia of the heavens. This clearly invalidates the view that the upper waters are merely clouds, because then the heavenly bodies would be situated above the waters rather than beneath them, contradicting Genesis 1.
- In Psalm 148 we again encounter waters above the heavens, even the highest heavens (including sun, moon and stars).

So whilst it is likely that the Hebrews had some basic understanding of the hydrolic cycle, we can't escape the fact that they also accepted the cosmology of ANE cultures, with the waters above the heavens being the ultimate source of the earth's water.

 

[Assyrian]

The problem is heavens and the firmament seem to have a range of meanings, the simplest being the expanse of atmosphere between us and the clouds. Now you can read Psalm 148 as a progression getting higher and higher with the waters above the heavens as the highest level, but the phrase in itself 'waters above the heavens' can simply refer to the clouds high in the atmosphere above them.

A question I have is did people in the ANE have a coherent cosmology, or was the dome shaped model constructed later from statements in their poetry and myths?

 

[IisJustMe]

Creation science is backing off the huge water canopy concept that has been a centerpiece of the Flood Theory for years. A problem developed when scientists tried to rectify a potential 40-foot rain equivilent that had been proposed for the canopy. It created far too great a greenhouse effect, making temperatures at the surface of the earth intolerable. Adjustments down to 20 inches had to be made before the temperature models came down to liveable levels. Under the best of simulated conditions, only six and a half feet of rain equivilent could be allotted to God's atmospheric storehouse, and even that wouldn't provide much in the global rains that the biblical account demands.

Of course, there were other proposals, that the "firmament" was 1) just beyond the atmosphere, 2) in ice rings around the planet, as were discovered around Venus several years ago, 3) beyond the lunar orbit, or 4) at the edges of interstellar space. Most of these theories have been rejected because as flexible as Hebrew prepositions for the concepts of "in," "under," "above," etc. are (just as flxible as those English words) they do not allow for the canopy to be much beyond the atmosphere, if that.

Creation science is turning to the "fountains of the great deep" (Genesis 7:11) as the more likely source of the vast majority of the water that created the Flood. The Hebrew te`howym is used in ancient writings for subterranean waters, and it is proposed that when God formed the land on the surface of the waters on Day 3 of Creation, much of the water was trapped beneath.

The Genesis passage gives a vision of fissures opening up, perhaps in the sea floor, perhaps in what we now see as fault lines on the surface. This would have activated rapid movement along the geological plate interfaces, volcanic activity, and catastrophic plate techtonics models show the ocean floor could have rapidly risen 6,500 feet before giving into the pressures below and bursting wide open. That would have released great torrents of water under pressure and formed steam, which would have further rent the fissures, throwing mantle materials, magma and lava into the oceans and onto the now-greatly stressed land masses with which this superheated material came in contact. We are talking a violent release of unimaginable proportions.

Steam, volcanic eruptions, lava, magma and other materials being ejected into the atmosphere would have rapidly caused most of the water vapor around the eruptions to instantly condense and fall in torrents of rain. Assuming worldwide occurance, it certainly would appear as though "the windows of heaven" (i.e., via poetic license) had opened.

Keep in mind, there was no one alive at the time Moses recorded this event who had seen the Flood. It was 800 years later, and what Moses was writing was undoubtedly a mixture of divine inspiration and oral tradition. Moses was an educated man, schooled by Egypt's finest royal tutors, and the Egyptians were not superstitious ninnies who hid at the sounds of thunder, thinking "the gods" to be angry. Moses knew this account, both from his own people and from the perspective of the Egyptians, who after all were direct descendants of Noah also.

So I didn't vote in the poll above, because I don't think it responds to this viewpoint. Its plausible that "Clouds" could have been a valid answer in light of what I posted, or "I have another interpretation" but that's neithe here nor there in the final analysis. I endorse the intelligent discussion thus far, and I hope it remains in this vein, and doesn't degenerate into name calling and haughty superiority like so many other threads do.

A lot of this post, by the way, comes from www.christiananswers.net, which provides a lot of good info on true creation science. Here's the link I paraphrased and condensed.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c010.html

 

[shernren]

A question I have is did people in the ANE have a coherent cosmology, or was the dome shaped model constructed later from statements in their poetry and myths?

To be honest, I don't know. It's a question one must ask the specialists in the field about. I suspect that a lot of their "structured cosmology" may really be a modern projection onto their worldview. In today's scientific world, it would make sense that any description of the world, even a poetic one, would be keyed to a particular scientific description of the world. A poet who writes, say, "I love you with every atom of my heart!" (puke) has known roughly what an atom is for probably his entire life, has probably learned it in a uniform manner alongside the rest of the people in the same education system as him, and will continue knowing that all matter is made of atoms well into his old age.

Do we know that this is true of the Psalmist? What if he was just someone who woke up one day and thought "Hmm, I'll call the sky a firmament. That sounds pretty!" and forgot all about it once he wrote his piece? Do we know that the raqia of the Psalmist is intended to be consistently identified with the raqia of Genesis?

The Genesis passage gives a vision of fissures opening up, perhaps in the sea floor, perhaps in what we now see as fault lines on the surface. This would have activated rapid movement along the geological plate interfaces, volcanic activity, and catastrophic plate techtonics models show the ocean floor could have rapidly risen 6,500 feet before giving into the pressures below and bursting wide open. That would have released great torrents of water under pressure and formed steam, which would have further rent the fissures, throwing mantle materials, magma and lava into the oceans and onto the now-greatly stressed land masses with which this superheated material came in contact. We are talking a violent release of unimaginable proportions.

I'm assuming that this catastrophe must have left some geological evidence. Right?

 

[IisJustMe]

I'm assuming that this catastrophe must have left some geological evidence. Right?

And rather than do a huge disservice to the work done by Dr. John Baumgardner regarding it, I'm going to refer you to this Q&A page on plate techtonics and other subjects regarding the global flood he has researched and done computer modeling on. Here is the link:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/tectonics.asp

 

[shernren]

One unannotated link deserves another.

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/subduction.htm

 

[Mallon]

What is ‘catastrophic plate tectonics’? Is it consistent with the Scriptures?

Possibly.
Is it consistent with everything else we know about geology? Definitely not.

 

[IisJustMe]

Possibly.
Is it consistent with everything else we know about geology? Definitely not.

"Definitely not" only if you insist that the geological effects had to be over the long-term (i.e., "millions and millions of years") rather than the extremely short term -- ranging from hours to days for some, up to a few hundred years for the waters of the earth to settle themselves out by eroding the soils and "soft" geological formations that temporarily created inland seas, lakes, etc. I think, for example, of the controversial concept of the Grand Canyon creation by a lake -- dubbed by creation science researchers as "Hopi" along the Arizona/New Mexico/Colorado/Utah borders -- that eroded its natural dam and carved out, in a matter of days if not mere hours, the magnificant structure we see today. Not to debate the issue with you, except to say it is plausible. I realize the problems with it, but I could also point out the problems with the "millions and millions of years" theory that that pitiful little river did all that damage.

For a very intelligent discussion of the science involved in plate techtonics as applied to the Noahic Flood, click here

 

[Mallon]

"Definitely not" only if you insist that the geological effects had to be over the long-term (i.e., "millions and millions of years") rather than the extremely short term

Regardless of whether a few geological features, such as the Hopi lake you mentioned, can be explained in the "catastrophic" framework (which most geologists are willing to accept, by the way), there are still many features that simply cannot be explained in the same framework. We know that varves are not deposited in a matter of minutes, hours, or days. We know that sequenced fossil forest communities cannot represent deposition over courses of less than thousands or millions of years. We know that community turnover as preserved in the fossil record does not happen overnight.
That said, the earth can only be as young as its oldest preserved events, and many, if not most, of these events cannot fit within the "catastrophic" framework. In such instances, only a gradualistic model fits the bill, which is why we still hold to the idea that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. A dog sled can only move as fast as the slowest dog.

 

[IisJustMe]

We know that varves are not deposited in a matter of minutes, hours, or days.

That is the very question at the heart of the rather heated debate over the implications of Mt. St. Helens' eruption, and the subsequent buildup of sedimentation in a blast-zone lake in the vicinity of the volcano. Already, the sedimentation materials are on an order of two magnitudes greater than those found in basins with similar vegetation and runoff.

We know that sequenced fossil forest communities cannot represent deposition over courses of less than thousands or millions of years.

Similarly, debate continues over the same deposits of multiple layers of forests in ongoing cataclysmic flood events resulting from the kind of natural dam failure you acknowledged as plausible in the creation of the Grand canyon. In fact, there are discussions among some creation scientists that the forests were actually deposited in such sequenced layers by the Flood itself, tidal forces and their ebb and flow alternately depositiing debris, then sediment, then debris, then sediment, etc. until we arrive at the evidence visible today.

We know that community turnover as preserved in the fossil record does not happen overnight.

That assumes the fossil record is uniform and accurate, and proves what geologists and archeologists claim it proves, an assumption I'm not willing to make. The fossil record appears wholly unreliable in proving anything beyond the obvious fact that something died.

That said, the earth can only be as young as its oldest preserved events, and many, if not most, of these events cannot fit within the "catastrophic" framework.In such instances, only a gradualistic model fits the bill, which is why we still hold to the idea that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. A dog sled can only move as fast as the slowest dog.

And so we get back to my original request for a clarification, because whereas your viewpoint demands "millions and millions of years" my viewpoint says the evidence also speaks to a young earth.

 

[Mallon]

That is the very question at the heart of the rather heated debate over the implications of Mt. St. Helens' eruption, and the subsequent buildup of sedimentation in a blast-zone lake in the vicinity of the volcano.

Volcanos don't deposit varves. For that matter, they don't deposit sediment. They deposit ash. A volcano is a pretty lousy analogue for studying the deposition of, say, a giant worldwide flood. The mechanisms are completely different. For example, I would be willing to be that if you carefully examined the deposits of the Mt. St. Helen's blast, you could find a predictable fining-upwards pattern. Such a globally-correlated pattern is not found in the rock record, yet we would expect to see this given a world-wide flood.

In fact, there are discussions among some creation scientists that the forests were actually deposited in such sequenced layers by the Flood itself, tidal forces and their ebb and flow alternately depositiing debris, then sediment, then debris, then sediment, etc. until we arrive at the evidence visible today.

Except you can't explain these sequenced forests in such a way. Take the lycopod forests in Joggins, NS, for example. These 'trees' are rooted in the ground, with their rootlets still intact. They are in situ. Not only that, but the area shows signs of immature paleosols occuring at the levels of the different paleoforest floors. These kinds of features cannot be deposited in the midst of a flood. Nor can the sequenced layers of terrestrial animal footprints found there. Only a gradualistic framework explains ALL the data.

That assumes the fossil record is uniform and accurate, and proves what geologists and archeologists claim it proves, an assumption I'm not willing to make. The fossil record appears wholly unreliable in proving anything beyond the obvious fact that something died.

That's a little disheartening, considering I plan to spend the rest of my career studying the fossil record for things like faunal turnover, resource paritioning, sexual dimorphism, etc. As someone who has actually done work with the fossil record, I can honestly tell you that it can tell us much more than you think.

And so we get back to my original request for a clarification, because whereas your viewpoint demands "millions and millions of years" my viewpoint says the evidence also speaks to a young earth.

And myself and pretty much every other scientist out there have shown you to be misled. You can continue to disagree all you like, but it obviously won't be on scientific grounds.

 

[IisJustMe]

Volcanos don't deposit varves.

Please point to the place where I said they did. The statement was in relationship to the sedimentation that has occured since the original eruption in 1980, again a magnitude of two in comparison to other basins with similar similar vegitation and runoff. Nothing in that indicates the volcano caused the varves. Therefore, the rest of your response here is irrelevant.

Except you can't explain these sequenced forests in such a way.

You can't -- or more appropriately, won't. There are scientists who do, as I explained. Because you dont' believe it doesn't make the hypothesis plausible.

That's a little disheartening, considering I plan to spend the rest of my career studying the fossil record for things like faunal turnover, resource paritioning, sexual dimorphism, etc. As someone who has actually done work with the fossil record, I can honestly tell you that it can tell us much more than you think.

Again, you've been taught to depend on the fossil record. Others have examined it and found it inconsistent, anomolous, and misinterpreted. There is a great deal it can tell us, relative to specific species, perhaps even past climatological conditions, and the like. But as an historic record, its value is highly questionable.

And myself and pretty much every other scientist out there have shown you to be misled. You can continue to disagree all you like, but it obviously won't be on scientific grounds.

What you have shown is that I disagree with your viewpoint. That doesn't make me "misled," it just makes me in disagreement with you,. My agreement is not necessary to your viewpoint because you will continue to espouse it no matter what I say. But just because you decline to explore alternatively valid scientific explanations for origins and geology doesn't mean the science is bad. It just means you won't explore it.

 

[Proselyte]

Please point to the place where I said they did. The statement was in relationship to the sedimentation that has occured since the original eruption in 1980, again a magnitude of two in comparison to other basins with similar similar vegitation and runoff. Nothing in that indicates the volcano caused the varves. Therefore, the rest of your response here is irrelevant.
You can't -- or more appropriately, won't. There are scientists who do, as I explained. Because you dont' believe it doesn't make the hypothesis plausible.
Again, you've been taught to depend on the fossil record. Others have examined it and found it inconsistent, anomolous, and misinterpreted. There is a great deal it can tell us, relative to specific species, perhaps even past climatological conditions, and the like. But as an historic record, its value is highly questionable.
What you have shown is that I disagree with your viewpoint. That doesn't make me "misled," it just makes me in disagreement with you,. My agreement is not necessary to your viewpoint because you will continue to espouse it no matter what I say. But just because you decline to explore alternatively valid scientific explanations for origins and geology doesn't mean the science is bad. It just means you won't explore it.

/high 5!