What are the "Waters"?

ChetSinger said:

Physicist Russell Humphreys, who reads the text very literally, has proposed a cosmology where the waters really are waters. He begins the cosmos with a ball of water containing the mass of the universe. It's about 2 light-years across, and begins to collapse under it's own weight. It then ignites and flies apart. In his model there remains ice at the edge of the cosmos (waters above the expanse).

Fascinating stuff, imo. I studied physics in college but not far enough to critique cosmologies.

His first model had holes in it, but he's been working to plug them here.

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inthec said:

We first read of them in Genesis, before the Earth was even made. Also notice that the "heavens" were created in this same chapter as the "waters" are being organized. Sometimes I think the term "waters" has another meaning, maybe something like strings or the Higgs-boson. Something that all matter has in common. If we glean information from the rest of the bible, we see the elements will be destroyed with fervent heat and dissolve, if this is the case, then there must be something common throughout the heavens that can be effected at once.

I know scientists are looking for the "God particle", but that only explains a "unified theory", not necessarily a "common denominator" throughout the universe.

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inthec said:

We first read of them in Genesis, before the Earth was even made. Also notice that the "heavens" were created in this same chapter as the "waters" are being organized. Sometimes I think the term "waters" has another meaning, maybe something like strings or the Higgs-boson. Something that all matter has in common. If we glean information from the rest of the bible, we see the elements will be destroyed with fervent heat and dissolve, if this is the case, then there must be something common throughout the heavens that can be effected at once.

I know scientists are looking for the "God particle", but that only explains a "unified theory", not necessarily a "common denominator" throughout the universe.

Click to expand...

Mr.Waffles said:

Something that always fascinated me, which is why at one point I had put together a study. The firmament is what separated the waters, we read about the waters above and below the firmament. The firmament is obviously the physical universe.....

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inthec said:

We first read of them in Genesis, before the Earth was even made. Also notice that the "heavens" were created in this same chapter as the "waters" are being organized. Sometimes I think the term "waters" has another meaning, maybe something like strings or the Higgs-boson. Something that all matter has in common. If we glean information from the rest of the bible, we see the elements will be destroyed with fervent heat and dissolve, if this is the case, then there must be something common throughout the heavens that can be effected at once.

I know scientists are looking for the "God particle", but that only explains a "unified theory", not necessarily a "common denominator" throughout the universe.

Click to expand...

Calminian said:

Yeah, i think your'e right on the money. Creationists always tended to define the firmament in atmospheric terms, but Russell Humphreys was really the first to introduce (or at least popularize) the concept of it being cosmological.

Looking at the text exegetically, that makes a lot more sense to me. After the waters were divided, our land and sea were formed out of the waters left below. The waters above where left at the edges of the universe and we are never told what happened to them. I've speculated that perhaps God will use those to created the new earth? But I can only speculate.

But yeah, the firmament is the heavens. "And God called the firmament, heaven." The heavens in scripture is that which contains the sun moon and stars. I think that's the proper way to understand the rayqia. It's not an atmospheric expanse, it's an cosmological expanse. The entire space of the cosmos was made on day 2.

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GUANO said:

You're reading all of this from outside the perspective of the ancient Mesopotamians. It's nice to see open minds but I think it's important to understand it as they did.

It's controversial to say, but it seems highly likely that the Torah was written during the Babylonian Captivity which is why the creation account is so similar to the Babylonian mythos. It wasn't just Babylonian either. Most all Mesopotamians believed in the Creation myth as well as Adam, Eve, Cain, Seth, the Watchers, etc...

From their viewpoint, the elements of creation and the days they were created is more important for their religious cosmology than it is 'literal fact'. They believe(ed) that all physical elements have a spiritual, symbolic counter-element. This is also what the Jewish kabbalists and mystics believed (because Kabblah is rooted in the Chaldean mysteries). Just my .02.

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inthec said:

We first read of them in Genesis, before the Earth was even made. Also notice that the "heavens" were created in this same chapter as the "waters" are being organized. Sometimes I think the term "waters" has another meaning, maybe something like strings or the Higgs-boson. Something that all matter has in common. If we glean information from the rest of the bible, we see the elements will be destroyed with fervent heat and dissolve, if this is the case, then there must be something common throughout the heavens that can be effected at once.

I know scientists are looking for the "God particle", but that only explains a "unified theory", not necessarily a "common denominator" throughout the universe.

Click to expand...

inthec said:

We first read of them in Genesis, before the Earth was even made. Also notice that the "heavens" were created in this same chapter as the "waters" are being organized. Sometimes I think the term "waters" has another meaning, maybe something like .....

Click to expand...