You are simply wrong!
God created outer space first in Genesis 1:1 on day one!
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Vse 6-8 is the formation of the atmosphere. on day two!
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Day four he populated space!
Day 5 he populated the atmosphere with flying creatures.
When stars fall- that is symbolic of angels. That is well known!
Even Paul knew of 3 heavens:
2 Corinthians 12:2
I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth
such an one caught up to the
third heaven.
This was a well established teaching!
Now I freely admit that the ancient people of God did not have the same level of knowledge of science as we do. Things were often murky and fuzzy and people could totally misunderstand what they were inspired to write.
You: "The Genesis clearly says that the heaven in the meaning of firmanent (stars, sun, moon) was created later, so the first verse means either place for birds (does not make sens) or the same thing - firmanent, i.e. its a prologue. Or, possibly, the spiritual realm for angels."
It doesn't make sense only to one who already has a bias against the simple reading of Scripture!
Verse one is a simple statement of creating space.
look at verse 6-8 carefully- He created a firmament and called that firmament heaven! Why would he need to recreate space!
verses 14-18 is god simply populating outer space with the sun moon and stars! on day 4
verse 20 then come the birds! on day 5
You: "But earth here does not mean a planet, they did not have such concept"
Well they did not have full understanding of what a planet is as we do- but as Job is the oldest book of the Bible , Job showed remarkable knowledge of astronomy. So they knew of a difference between what we walked on (eretz) and what we lived on (eretz)
God did not create a spiritual realm- He inhabited it from all eternity! When He created the angels they were placed in what Paul called the 3rd heaven.
I freely admit, that if we only had genesis 1 to go on in the bible, your argument would have some merit, but because the bible is an integrated whole- we know that the ancient people of God knew the difference (not in our modern sense) of the heaven (atmosphere) and heaven (space).
As for the firmament possibly being some translucent barrier? There are excellent arguments both for and against. Not just linguistically, but scientifically as well. But suffice to say of there was some form of barrier that kept the waters in heaven- it is now gone. I cannot stand absolute either way. I believe it was not a solid for the simple fact that elsewhere in Scripture (Psalms, Ezekiel, Daniel) firmament is a stretched out thinness of either the atmosphere or space.
also for the flood- remember no rain had fallen. IN order for rain to fall- water vapor needs a speck of something to adhere to to form a raindrop!
When we look at the order of the waters
1. The fountains of the deep were broken open first! this would involve great tectonic and volcanic activity.
2. As the flood was a global event- there would have been massive "stuff" thrown into the atmosphere for vapor to cling and form drops and then globally create one heck of a rainstorm!
