Firmament or Fairytale, I expect the latter...

<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">The Firmament... The most damnable term to the authority of sciptures in creationism. It kills creationism flat out DEAD!!! Couple this with the flat-earth model of the universe that the bible preaches and you have a no win situation for creationism. Now lets have a look at what the bible says shall we? <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Oh, and as a side note, references to “waters above the the heavens” which later appear in the old testament sort of out right nukes the vapor canopy ‘theory”… But than again, so does our space program (which is all obviously a hoax).<o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Firmament- HEBREW- RAQIQ (Raw keek): An expanse, i.e. firmament or visible arch of the sky.<o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<H1>Genesis Chapter One</H1><B>6</B> And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

<B>7</B> 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.

<B>8</B> And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

<B>9</B> And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so.

<B>10</B> And God called the dry [land] Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that [it was] good.

<B>11</B> And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, [and] the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed [is] in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

<B>12</B> And the earth brought forth grass, [and] herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

<B>13</B> And the evening and the morning were the third day.

<B>14</B> And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

<B>15</B> And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

<B>16</B> And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.

<B>17</B> And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

<B>18</B> And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that [it was] good.

<B>19</B> And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

<B>20</B> And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

<B>See Psalms 148:4 and Jeremiah 10:12,13</B>

..."The writer of this believed in a solid firmament the floor of Jehovah's house. He believed that the waters had been divided, and that the rain came from above the firmament. He did not understand the fact of evaporation -- did not know that the rain came from the water on the earth.

Now we know that there is no firmament, and we know that the waters are not divided by a firmament...”
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Foundations of Faith, Chapter 2: The Old Testament (Robert Ingersoll 1895)<o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">"...We are next informed by Moses that "God said let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters;" and that "God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." <o:p></o:p></SPAN>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">What did the writer mean by the word firmament? Theologians now tell us that he meant an "expanse." This will not do. How could an expanse divide the waters from the waters, so that waters above the expanse would not fall into and mingle with the waters below the expanse? The truth is that Moses regarded the firmament as a solid affair. It was where God lived, and where water was kept. It was for this reason that they used to pray for rain. They supposed that some angel could with a lever raise a gate and let out the quantity of moisture desired. It was with the water from this firmament that the world was drowned when the windows of heaven were opened. It was in this firmament that the sons of God lived -- the sons who "saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took them wives of all which they chose." The issue of such marriages were giants, and "the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." <o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Nothing is clearer than that Moses regarded the firmament as a vast material division that separated the waters of the world, and upon whose floor God lived, surrounded by his sons. In no other way could he account for rain. Where did the water come from? He knew nothing about the laws of evaporation. He did not know that the sun wooed with amorous kisses the waves of the sea, and that they, clad in glorified mist rising to meet their lover, were, by disappointment, changed to tears and fell as rain. <o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">The idea that the firmament was the abode of the Deity must have been in the mind of Moses when he related the dream of Jacob. "And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it; and behold the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God." <o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">So, when the people were building the tower of Babel "the Lord came down to see the city, and the tower which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and nothing will be restrained from them which they imagined to do. Go to, let us go down and confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech." <o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">The man who wrote that absurd account must have believed that God lived above the earth, in the firmament. The same idea was in the mind of the Psalmist when he said that God "bowed the heavens and came down." <o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Of course, God could easily remove any person bodily to heaven, as it was but a little way above the earth. "Enoch walked with God" and he was not, for God took him." The accounts in the Bible of the ascension of Elijah, Christ and St. Paul were born of the belief that the firmament was the dwelling place of God. It probably never occurred to these writers that if the firmament was seven or eight miles away, Enoch and the rest would have been frozen perfectly stiff long before the journey could have been completed. Possibly Elijah might have made the voyage, as he was carried to heaven in a chariot of fire "by a whirlwind." <o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">The truth is, that Moses was mistaken, and upon that mistake the Christians located their heaven and their hell. The telescope destroyed the firmament, did away with the heaven of the New Testament, rendered the ascension of our Lord and the assumption of his Mother infinitely absurd, crumbled to chaos the gates and palaces of the New Jerusalem, and in their places gave to man a wilderness of worlds. <o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">We are next informed by the historian of creation, that after God had finished making the firmament and had succeeded in dividing me waters by means of an "expanse" he proceeded "to gather the waters on the earth together in seas, so that the dry land might appear." <o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">Certainly the writer of this did not have any conception of the real form of the earth. He could not have known anything of the attraction of gravitation. He must have regarded the earth as flat and supposed that it required considerable force and power to induce the water to leave the mountains and collect in the valleys. Just as soon as the water was forced to run down hill, the dry land appeared, and the grass began to grow, and the mantles of green were thrown over the shoulders of the hills, and the trees laughed into bud and blossom, and the branches were laden with fruit. And all this happened before a ray had left the quiver of the sun, before a glittering beam had thrilled the bosom of a flower, and before the Dawn with trembling hands had drawn aside the curtains of the East and welcomed to her arms the eager god of Day."<o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">-Some Mistakes of Moses, Chapter 5: the pentanteuch (Robert Ingersoll 1879)<o:p></o:p></SPAN>
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ZiSunka

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I submit that your understanding of this passage is flawed, not the actual passage.

Suppose you were trying to explain reproduction and conception to your two year old. You would use over-simplified language because your two year old couldn't understand scientific terms. That is why God explained the Creation this way. In comparison, WE are the two year olds.
 
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Sinai

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Zadok, you might wish to note that the Hebrew words you mentioned from the first chapter of Genesis have several valid meanings.

For example, the Hebrew hammayim most commonly is translated as water, which is the way the KJV translates it. However, it can also mean a chaotic mixture--and you will find that some of the most respected Jewish biblical scholars (writing 700-1200 years ago, which is well before modern scientific discoveries) believed that chaotic mixture was probably the better meaning of the term as it is used in the first eight verses of Genesis.

The KJV's translation of the Hebrew raqia as firmament is probably not as justifiable, since the more common usage of that term is expanse, though the word has a number of other possible meanings as well.

Thus, the scriptures could be describing the separation of continents and oceans on the second yom--but then it appears that God may repeat the action one yom later. Or it could be a division between sky and sea. Or it could be the formation of the heavenly firmament (the stars and solar systems of the Milky Way could be formed at this time), which would have a more cosmic meaning.

The Hebrew could support any of these interpretations.
 
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Nathan Poe

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Originally posted by lambslove
I submit that your understanding of this passage is flawed, not the actual passage.

Suppose you were trying to explain reproduction and conception to your two year old. You would use over-simplified language because your two year old couldn't understand scientific terms. That is why God explained the Creation this way. In comparison, WE are the two year olds.

So it's not literally true and we shouldn't take it word-for-word? I'm all for that.
 
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Sinai

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Originally posted by SQ
An interetsing side thought:

Beginning of John (don't ask me chap/verse), direct translation from the origanal language :

"In the beginning there was the Word, and She was made flesh..."

I kid you not.

John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The Greek for "the Word" is ho logos. Ho is a singular masculine article, while logos is a singular masculine noun.

John 1:14: And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory, a glory as of an only begotten with a father, full of grace and truth.

Again, the Greek for "the Word" is ho logos. Ho is a singular masculine article, while logos is a singular masculine noun. What you may be referring to is that the Greek word for "flesh" is sarx, which is a singular feminine noun. But the word stating gender is the masculine pronoun autou, which is translated as "his."
 
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