All the arguments you ever wanted to read about ANE raquia, firmament, sky, cosmology

Faith & Science Conversation
61

But one needs to take into account Job 36.27ff (in conjunction with 26.8), suggesting a more conventional mode of cloud replenishment (actually, equally phenomenologically possible over long periods of observation, when one sees mist rising from a body of water or wet grass - it must go somewhere “up there”).

Then we have the effect of Elijah’s prayer for rain from a clear blue sky, where the first appearance is a small cloud: where it comes from is only given as “rising from the sea”. I find it hard to map that to an account of clouds plugging into heavenly recharging points supplied by a (freshwater) ocean.

Of course, one could plead that there are different “theories” being illustrated in the various texts, and that some believed in trapdoors in heaven, others in a water cycle, but that rather demolishes any arguments about a “Hebrew cosmology”, still less an ANE one.

To me it makes more sense that there are different metaphors for what, in the absence of a developed science, was always going to be as mysterious as how clouds stay up when they’re full of water. “Storehouses in the shemayim” might be cupboards that supply the clouds with rain, snow or hail - but since the clouds are in heaven and store those things until they drop them, why multiply entities? The metaphor in that case would also be about God’s provision, for good or ill - for a reminder of all the other (dry) things coming through trapdoors in heaven, here.

62

Richard

Yes - we’ve not discussed the question of “separations” in the account, but they’re a crucial part of the organisation from disorder to a particular kind of order. This order, in my understanding, is reflected both in the phenomenological world and in the sacred space it represents, and by which it is represented, in tabernacle/temple imagery (contra Vern Poythress at this point!).

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Just as an aside, Basil, for example, uses the Temple of God imagery when discussing his approach to understanding Gen 1. :relaxed:

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Phil

As you say, they would be fully aware of the moon paying visits to the day - I remember (for various reasons) being surprised by noticing that at the age of 3! I’ve skimmed a section in Horowitz about the work the ancients did on deciding where the moon and stars went when invisible - which at least in later astrology they resolved by the correct deduction that the sun blinded them out - hence zodiacal sun-signs, which depend on that assumption.

Might it not simply be that, in a brief and somewhat stylised account, you don’t want to start inserting exceptions ("…of course, the moon isn’t always around at night…": “…of course, ostriches are birds but don’t fly in the heavens”). To which I might add, to strengthen my case about the clouds being the waters above, “…of course, you’ll have noticed that the waters aren’t there on really sunny days…”

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That’s interesting - do you happen to have a reference or quote for that, George?

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Basil has (I think) 7 or 8 Homily so there is a lot to read, and most of his rebuttals deal with Greek thought and science. The quote that caught my eye is this.

Homily II.-"The Earth Was Invisible and Unfinished."1

  1. IN the few words which have occupied us this morning we have found such a depth of thought that we despair of penetrating further. If such is the fore court of the sanctuary, if the portico of the temple is so grand and magnificent, if the splendour of its beauty thus dazzles the eyes of the soul, what will be the holy of holies? Who will dare to try to gain access to the innermost shrine? Who will look into its secrets? To gaze into it is indeed forbidden us, and language. is powerless to express what the mind conceives. However, since there are rewards, and most desirable ones, reserved by the just Judge for the intention alone of doing good, do not let us hesitate to continue our researches. Although we may not attain to the truth, if, with the help of the Spirit, we do not fall away from the meaning of Holy Scripture we shall not deserve to be rejected, and, with the help of grace, we shall contribute to the edification of the Church of God.
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67

Richard, here’s another snippet from Horowitz (amongst many I’d like to cite as I trawl through him) about the Mesopotamian scene (which may or may not reflect the Hebrew, of course. He cites the word “si” as a synonym for heaven, and then says:

Here si may be a name for heaven because si has a general meaning ‘light’. According to NBC 11108 (see p. 139), the heavens glow with their own light independent of the luminaries in the sky.

So there were some people in the ANE, at least, who shared the later Greek intuition about a glowing sky.

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@Richard_Wright1

The image wouldn’t transfer with the quoted text; and it is a little small… so let me paraphrase your text as a proxy:

In the Formless Column,
you have:
Day 1: out of darkness
God separates light from dark.

Day 2: then separate the
waters of chaos into the
waters above and below

Day 3: then separate the
waters from the land.

While on the Empty column:
Day 4: god fills the empty with
Sun, Moon & Stars.

Day 5: god fills creation with
flying and swimming creatures

Day 6: god fills the land with
terrestrial creatures & humans.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Well, I do think that is a pretty elegant presentation.
But there had to be a reason why the writer didn’t
create one thing, then fill it. Then, create the 2nd
thing, and then fill it. And so forth.

It certainly wouldn’t have caused the reader any
trouble to read that God separated the light from the
darkness - - by in fact, installing the Sun in the light side,
and the stars in the dark side … with the moon going back
and forth traveling to each side, which we know the moon
is prone to do.

But I would assume your point is that it was too important to
the writer to maintain his elegant columns than to report
the natural world in a (relatively) more correct way?

To me, such considerations are just more “six vs. half dozen”
arguments: to assert that the writer really knew his cosmology
but chose to abuse it because of poetic concerns is not much
of a justification … unless the whole thing is figurative, and he
was trying to accomplish something very different from reporting
on the natural world.

And this has been my position all along. Certainly from a naturalist
viewpoint, proposing flying beasts before terrestrial beasts is a pretty
big pill to swallow… as well as having light and days before there was
a sun to actually accomplish either.

But… if the Genesis writer really did think that the sky had a light of
its own … well, that would at least make his figurative approach more
accessible to the audience and less offensive to the natural scientist.

So if I say, you are “Right!” about the columns, but “Wrong” about
why that doesn’t change things much, could you live with that?

69

Sure. It also demolishes any argument that we should expect the Bible to have any useful scientific content.

Just to be clear, I expect the Bible to have useful content to remind the scientific community of the limits of their methodology, along with wonderful content regarding God’s love, His faithfulness in action, the meaning and purpose of life, the practice of faith in community, ethics, good relationships, prayer, and 101 other important things.

70

The moon ruling the night is probably since it’s the dominant light in the sky at night (when out). It may also be the governor since it gives a little light at night as well.

71

Hi George,

Of course I can live with it, it’s just that I don’t think that THAT is what the writer is trying to get across. It’s really an attempt at concordance, that you’re trying to find some, “scientific” sense in a text that is clearly not attempting to teach us science.

It’s not that the writer is trying to save his, "precious columns, it’s just that he is structuring his creation narrative in a way that shows God’s ordering and purposing of the world. The writer doesn’t know any, “cosmology”, he just describes a world that he sees, which includes luminaries in his raqia. The fact that it doesn’t make scientific sense to us is irrelevant, it didn’t make scientific sense to them either that the sun came on day 4 and light on day 1, they just understood that the writer stated it like that to promote the ordering narrative.

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72

@Richard_Wright1

I agree with what you are saying. Unfortunately, I cannot get the Creationists to agree with what you are saying.

They think what Genesis says is real.

73

@Marty

Ooops… I forgot something important. By your reference to the Van Allen Belt, I assume you mean to assert that a “glowing atmosphere” (like the Northern Lights) is what is at work here.

But that only works if there is a solar wind generated by - - yep - - I don’t even have to type " t.h.e. s.u.n. " do I …

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@Jay313

Hi Jon,

I’ve finished reading Poythress’ article. Nobody here knows, but I actually am an amateur screenwriter, writing mostly what I would call, “spiritually-based romantic dramas”. So my analysis of the article will be written in the form of the typical feedback that we screenwriters pay professionals for.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THE ARTICLE

I found it relatively easy to read for a journal article, and that it made for many thought-provoking moments. Beyond that, Mr. Poyress is obviously a talented writer and refreshingly displayed a gentle touch, and as well really tried to explicate views opposed to his. A lot, if not most of the time, you didn’t feel like he was trying to jam his views into your consciousness.

STRUCTURE

Mr. Poyress displayed a good sense of the common 3-act structure, which I’ve broken down below:

BEGINNING
He starts off with a nice introduction to the core thesis of his work, which is basically that, “vehicle-cargo” interpreters of Genesis 1 (and the bible), misread the text, and beyond that there are dangers to this view of scripture.

INCITING INCIDENT
The revelation that there are various, “myths” that, “vehicle-cargo” interpreters don’t realize they operate under, and consequently bring in unwarranted assumptions when attempting to interpret certain passages of scripture.

ACT ONE
The new world consists of the description of the 4 myths.

ACT TWO
Examples of the myths. Up to six types of analyses of various passages of scripture, showing how they are affected by the myths.

ACT 3
The writer tells us what problems the, “vehicle-cargo” approach to interpreting the bible bring to the faith.

CLIMAX
The claim that the, “vehicle-cargo” approach to interpreting the bible (presently referred to as, “limited inerrancy”), “truncates Christian discipleship of a genuinely biblical kind”.

ENDING
There’s a sequel!

TYPOS, FORMATTING AND CLARITY
The article was an extremely well written piece, except for one thing that confused me a few times. He used the word, “myth” in 3 different ways: One is to describe myths that some modern bible interpreters unknowingly ascribe to, another is to describe myths that make up one of those myths, and a third refers to ancient Near-Eastern origins traditions. There were one or two times that I didn’t know what type of, “myth” the writer was referring to.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE ABOUT THE ARTICLE
There’s nothing that I didn’t like, only that I don’t agree with its major points. The conflict in this piece stems from Mr. Poythress’ view of the truthfulness of scripture when using the vehicle-cargo (VC) approach to interpreting the bible. He states:

"It can be truthful if it does not speak about such false assumptions. It cannot be truthful if it actively endorses the assumptions or clearly presupposes them."

That seems to be too major of a statement to make with nothing to back it up, it’s simply a, “proof by fiat” and, obviously, one that many sincere believers don’t agree with. And what does he mean by, “truthful”? The whole idea of the VC approach to scripture is to validate the truthfulness of God’s message while believing that it at times is couched in a worldview renders it understandable to the intended audience.

Poythress later describes what he thinks are the consequences of the, “stronger” version of the, “vehicle-cargo” approach to scripture, which is encapsulated by the following:

"Following Christ involves submitting to him as master, which in turn
involves submitting to his teaching, teaching that includes affirmations of
the divine authority of the OT. So where are we? Are we following Christ
or not? Does the theory of limited inerrancy have the practical effect of
redefining Christian discipleship? I fear that it truncates Christian 
discipleship of a genuinely biblical kind, because it releases would-be 
disciples from a submissive attitude to the OT in selected spheres where 
modern people now experience desires to escape."

Well, I can guarantee Mr. Poythress that I am BIBLICALLY following Christ! AND, I hold that Genesis 1 contains a world-view that would be considered, “erroneous” to modern readers. I can also assure Mr. Poyress that I have not developed a, “submissive attitude” toward the OT just because I found that God used authors who expressed His message using worldviews that the original audience could relate to. And someone might also mention to him that it’s not only moderns who desire to, “escape” the struggle of living as a follower of Christ - people were leaving Jesus while he was still alive.

He also states:

Given the propensity of sinful human nature not to submit to any teaching whatsoever that it does not find pleasing to the flesh, readers armed with a sufficiently expansive view of the vehicle can simply excise anything they want by labeling it in their minds as merely a vehicle. By such a process, one may, for example, arrive at the conclusion that the real teaching of the Bible is the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man and the principle of love—old-fashioned liberalism.

Poythress obviously doesn’t realize how wrong-headed this argument is. The VC approach should be evaluated on its exegetical truthfulness, not whether it may cause a believer some faith/intellect angst.

What I think Mr. Poythress misunderstands is real discipleship itself and the believers who hold to the, “vehicle-cargo” approach (I prefer the, “message-incident” lexicon of Denis Lamoureux). Anyone who has done the legwork to come to that view obviously takes the bible and their faith very seriously, so they most likely won’t become any more prone to giving into temptation than anyone else. And that’s not even to state that the view could actually be the correct view, if there even is one. As well, in my opinion, based on experience, someone who truly understands that his or her sins crucified the Son of God, and wants to give their lives to Him as His disciple, typically don’t leave the faith for issues like these, and certainly won’t reduce the bible’s teachings to Father, Brother and love. Have some faith in your fellow believers, Mr. Poythress!

Poythress’ disgust with the VC approach, which he considers, “incoherent”, makes his analysis of it at times almost, well, incoherent. Around p. 34 he tries to make the claim that VC adherents want to have it both ways, in that it is only theological, so that the so-called, “errors” in the ancient science G1 aren’t errors since it’s not about science, but want to consider other ANE origin accounts about more than theology so as to claim that the Hebrews borrowed their cosmology. That’s just confused thinking. Why can’t it just be that the G1 and the ANE authors used the present world-view to couch their theologies, without it being about that cosmology?

Now that I’ve dumped all over the article, I want to note that it, in analyzing a few selections from the Enuma Elish creation story from different perspectives, Poythress really does make score some points when he attacks the confidence that many historical-critical bible scholars have in interpreting ANE works. If he had stuck to this track in the article, I feel he would have been much better off. But, overall, he mostly tries to prove the VC approach wrong by pointing out some inconsistencies it causes, as if other approaches don’t cause any, instead of tying to prove the central thesis of the work, that the VC approach is dangerous to Christianity. And by proving (or, more realistically, attempting to prove) I mean using polls, for example, to show that the VC approach really is harming peoples’ faiths.

It also should be noted that at one point, though his views on the VC approach are already made clear, Poythress does honestly submit that there are real questions in what is, “vehicle” and what is, “cargo” in interpreting passages like Genesis 1.

Poythress states that he prefers more, “modest” versions of the VC approach, that, "preserve Christian discipleship in a recognizable form. It says that we should accept whatever the Bible teaches on any subject, but that we need to be thoughtful in trying to interpret the Bible." But isn’t that what the VC approach does, that it distinguishes what the bible is actually trying to teach us from what is a remnant of the authors’ ancient world-views?

There were other items I could have brought up, including weaknesses in some of his interpretive, “myths” but for the sake of charity, (and length), I won’t. I will, however, point out that, concerning the, “weaker” forms of the VC approach, that Poythress apparently deems it acceptable to not take literally the G1 narrative, but if one takes the, “raqia” to be solid, which is arguably its most natural G1 state, then we are doing away with, “recognizable discipleship”, and on a slippery slope to rejecting the gospel. Well, to that, this, “Biologos-type” says phooey!

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75

Hi Marty,

I would be honored if you read my paper!

You’re right about Genesis 1:1. I actually really believe that it’s not stating that God created the universe from nothing, according to the Hebrew, not according to how it’s written in most English bibles. I just wish it did actually translate to that.

Good point about the age of the framework theory. But that’s our viewpoint. I think that the original audience, which probably heard it, not read it, would have understood the framework. And there are allegedly poetic elements in there as well that the ancient Hebrews would have picked up on. In the end, the overall structure seems, to myself anyway, to obvious for it not to have been deliberately written in.

Lastly, by, “honest and plain” reading of the text, I mean what is the author describing. What the actual, “meaning” of the text is, of course, a different story.

Look forward to your thoughts on my paper.

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Richard

You may be surprised to hear that I agree with some of your critique of Poythress’s argumentation.

The confusion of a word like “myth” makes me smile, since it’s one of those words (like “evolution”, or “chance”, or “freedom”?) whose meaning habitually slips around in the same piece of prose, and he should have known better. Most often (in other authors) a token agreement that myth is a powerful and potentially truthful genre slips imperceptibly into saying that X is clearly mythical, and therefore untrue.

Yes, I agree that’s too sweeping, because it prejudges “exegetical truthfulness” by (in the context) prejudging the genre. In another article of his, for example, I felt he was overly down on John Walton, a writer I know pretty well, through what I felt was an inadequate understanding of Walton’s positive approach to Scriptural authority; yet he was also partly right in showing where John seems to have ignored his own principles. There are genres in which one may well “presuppose false assumptions” in order to tell truth - such as by saying a large desert is absolutely flat (to show there are no hills or valleys) whilst knowing full well it follows the curvature of the earth.

So, if the Genesis author’s concern is to present creation in terms of some priority like temple imagery, or (Poythress’s own acute observation in a third article in the series) to account for the things habitually experienced as providence, then the appearance of the sea before the land, or even the light before the sun, are not false assumptions, even though they are not in accord with “the scientific facts”.

At the same time, I think he makes valid points in distinguishing genre and phenomenology from “error”, and in pointing out the course that many take in attributing error to the text in “scientific” matters before then generalising it to historical, and even theological matters (essentially by constructing a theory of inspiration that practically ignores the divine authorship of Scripture). I believe he is right to call that incoherent, because it ends up being entirely subjective.

I also think he is right about his categories of “modern myth” approaches to Scripture (using his first sense of “myth”!), so the article is worth reading for that alone.

I didn’t link the article so much for the detailed treatment of Genesis, as for its discussion of why that matters. Nevertheless he scores some points, as you concede, particularly with respect to phenomenology. And he scores rather more in his following detailed papers on the heavens containing rain, rather than ocean, and on the providential importance of the phenomena decribed on Gen 1, which is an original and important observation.

Having now engaged more with Horowitz on Mesopotamian Cosmology - now 19 years old - I’m more convinced than ever that the attribution of the common picture of “Hebrew Cosmology” as derived from a common ANE tradition has simply been rendered obsolete by greater knowledge, which in turn casts new light on what Genesis is describing.

Where one can pick through the polytheistic assumptions of the cuneiform sources to what may well be a shared ANE core of “what the world looks like”, it seems even more clear to me that most of the common assumptions are plain wrong: a heavenly ocean and a vaulted solid heaven being the first things to vanish in a smoke of misinterpretation. For any interested, the first of my three review articles on his book is here, covering the cosmic ocean.

77

Hi Richard. First, that’s an extremely readable and thoughtful paper! I strongly encourage others to read it so I am also linking it here. It is an excellent criticism of potential weaknesses of Day Age Theory (DAT), and brief defense of the Framework view.

I won’t have time to do a full and proper review. But here are a few thoughts. (For others here, I summarize the flow a bit further below.)

Bottom line on top: As I mentioned in my first post on this (and I think perhaps the most important part of my defense of my own view) that people seem willing to cut significant slack to the passage only after they have applied a truly rigorous and often intentionally conflicting scientific analysis, plus an adverse interpretation and translation. For example, translating v 1 as “When God began to create” forces it to not be about the Big Bang. But why do that? Only after chewing it up and spitting it out do people look for a softer way to approach it. Why not start with a softer approach?

Turning to the paper, after excellent summaries of various positions, you turn most of your paper to critique of the DAT.

For the first two “problems” with DAT, it doesn’t bother me that there are a couple of speed bumps in reconciling G1 with science, or that different people give different correlations. This is part of the overly rigorous approach that I don’t see a need for.

The apparently “literal 24 hour Days” argument can easily be attributed to the form, and to God’s intention to establish a seven day human work week. That can be co-opted, I think, from the Framework argument into a DAT position.

My strongest disagreement is with your fourth argument, the 3-tiered universe. That seems to me so clearly an imposed view of modern scholars, who then mine the Old Testament for quotes they can use to proof text it. Jon Garvey’s critiques above and on his site are better than I could do.

And Gen 1 followed by Gen 2 have for a long time by many people been considered as complementary accounts. The first has one set of objectives, the second has another set.

Your criticism of your professor’s book took courage, and you are to be commended for taking that on! Integrity matters, and you were obviously very careful and reasonable in expressing your position. It looks like he took it very fairly.

Your defense of the Framework view is very short, but to the point, partly, I think, because there’s not much to say. Most fundamentally, I like the Framework view for recognizing the beauty of the form in G1.

But as I mentioned before, musical form is best when the music is great. And here, I feel the form is cool and the music is amazing, and I don’t need to ignore the narrative to hold only the form. I think there are multiple objectives in the passage, the symmetry being part of the form of presentation. To me, it’s all of these.

What troubles me most about dropping DAT is how much G1 so clearly got right! Verse 1 smells way too much like the Big Bang, and the early Earth formless, void, and dark. The “vault” which protects us is truly essential for life. Continents, sea creatures, birds, some land animals, and us… too much is correct. If we want to apply rigorous standards to it, yeah, it can be criticized. Others want to do away with all literalism, often because of these criticisms. Perhaps because I don’t feel the need to be “rigorous,” I also don’t feel the need to abandon soft concordism.

But I want to end with kudos for your paper. Very well written. I recognized additional issues in the way I had been thinking about my view (though apparently I have settled them without changing views). Thanks for the link!

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Hey Marty,

I’m amazed that you read all 39 pages of my paper!. Especially since it didn’t tack toward your, “vibe”.

It’s funny how 2 sincere, bible believing people like us can look at the same passage of scripture and you state of it, " how much G1 so clearly got right!" while I think that it’s the poster child of why the bible can’t, and shouldn’t, be concorded with modern science.

Concordance doesn’t work because it wasn’t until 3,500 years after G1 was written that anyone had a whiff of a thought that the, “straight” reading of it could not be, “scientifically” true. That means, in your view, that God deliberately let people believe wrong things about the world all that time until, “science” came along and told us we need to, “interpret” it differently. So now people, who can’t accept that the world-view of G1 (I don’t like to use the word, “science”, since they didn’t even know what science was) is inaccurate is some way, try to figure out ways to make it work with the science of the day.

So, bringing up points in my paper, concordance doesn’t work because of the above, and:

  • No two G1 concordances have ever been the same, and over the centuries they have been wildly different, and many have had outrageously, “creative” elements.

  • Leviticus 20 makes clear that the days in G1 are to be understood as literal, 24 hour days.

  • Discrepancies between the 2 Genesis creation stories. The 2nd has God creating Adam before the garden, while G1 has plants before man. Also, G1 has animals before while G2 has man first.

  • The interpretive gymnastics that are necessary at even attempting to concord G1 with science.

To answer your specific points, actually, Genesis 1:1 _doesn’t a_llude to the Big Bang, and it took me awhile to accept that, but the Hebrew, unfortunately, doesn’t allow it. That’s OK, though, there are other passages that talk about the universe coming from nothing.

The vault doesn’t protect us from anything according to G1, other than the waters above - that’s your modern interpretive interpolation!

You don’t have to be that, “rigorous” to see the the scientific errors of G1. The plain description of G1 is of God, at some indefinite point in the past, shaping the world by creating and separating that took place over 6 literal days and included a sky holding up water and 3 days of daylight before the sun. Also in G1, land plants come before animals and birds when we know animals came before land plants. IMO God has made it obvious to people with a modern knowledge of the universe that this is not about how the physical world came to be. As for the earliest audience of G1, I think they as well understood that with 3 days of daylight before the sun that this is a theological narrative, and as well were probably more in tune with the structural and poetic elements than a modern, non-Hebrew audience would be.

You seem to think that the water receding to make land is in striking concordance with science. However, for a people who thought the early land (they didn’t think in terms of an, “earth” like we do) was covered in a primeval water (the earliest earth wasn’t), of course at some point the water had to recede to make land.

Some thoughts to ponder!

(Also, I agree that my apologetics teacher was nice to put my paper on his sight. We actually disagree on a lot of things, but he doesn’t let it affect how he grades me - I got an, “A” for the paper)

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Richard, just a brief comment on this: on any current understanding of the ancient Hebrew worldview, quite a lot of accommodationism had to go on in the second temple and Christian periods to make it fit the Hellenistic view of a spherical, geocentric universe.

It might make an interesting study for someone versed in both, but I can think of, directly, the Septuagint translators use of στερεομα and the Latin firmamentum for raqia as a direct acccomodation to the Greek crystal spheres, the assumption that eretz means the whole world, and “heaven and earth” a bounded ptolemaic-style cosmos.

I’m not sure what problems this caused interpreters, but there was certainly a dysjunction if they interpreted Gen 1 in terms of a cosmic ocean, since that doesn’t map to a series of crystalline spheres at all. Without researching it, I suspect it was not much of a problem because the natural tendency was to treat any discrepancies as spiritual or allegorical, rather than as bad science. That may have been closer to the mark, even in the absence of a knowledge of ancient ideas.

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Hi Richard

The Septuagint translators did a good job - not least in preserving some old textual traditions. But of course, despite the legends about miraculous provision, they weren’t infallible and they were several centuries beyond the ancient cosmological model, working in Greek Alexandria for the Greek king Ptolemy. .

As for Jerome, Greek was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire of course, and it was a Hellenic culture that Rome took over. His own native language was Illyrian, and the philosophy he studied in Rome was, of course, Greek in origin, though he mainly learned it in Latin - it was a standard classical education.

Hebrew was definitely his third language, and his first OT translations were from the Septuagint column of Origen’s Hexapla . Once he was instructed his translation was to be a revision of the Old Latin Version he translated much of the OT directly from Hebrew - but using Greek exegetical aids. In other words, it seems to have been a pretty eclectic project and, of course, undertaken not only in a Hellenic culture, but under instruction to make a conservative revision of the Old Latin (Vetus Latina), which was taken from the Septuagint.

Since the Vetus Latina uses “firmamentum” for “raqia”, it’s hard to know if Jerome was simply retaining the accepted word or making an exegetical decision from the Hebrew. Either way, he was revising a translation from the Greek, so it was certainly an influence.

Footnote - cuneiform (and hence the old records) had become extinct in the 1st century AD, and even before that only Babylonian priests and scholars still read it.