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

Faith & Science Conversation
101

@Jon_Garvey

You write: “Well, if anyone were to identify the clouds with “firmament” that might be the case. But the firmament was established to separate the waters, not to be the waters.”

On this point, we agree! But I have read many a YEC say that the “Firmament” is water vapor in the sky … sometimes visibly manifest as clouds, and sometimes not visibly manifest at all - - other than the blueness which all witnesses admit does come from water molecules present in the atmosphere.

You also write:
“I can’t answer for the associations in your mind, but no passage of Scripture associates windows and doors of heaven with the location of stars. And only in the Flood narrative does the Bible associate them even with rain. Rain in a few Babylonian texts is on some occasions associated with stars (but not with doors). This is fact.”

I think you’ve done a nice job of collecting the evidence, even if you are unwilling to draw the conclusions the evidence allow for.

By the time of the writings of the Dead Sea, messianic Jews (not to be confused with the modern label of messianic Jews) associated stars with the angelized bodies of particularly saintly/righteous men. What seems too have allowed for this notion is a general notion that, like the living “wanderers” (the Planetes), Stars were the physical manifestation of God’s angelic host of heaven.

This appears to be supported by this text in Daniel: Dan 12:3 "And they that be Wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to Righteousness [i.e., “those who **lead** many to Righteousness”] as the Stars for ever and ever. "

A supporting indicator for such a Cosmic view comes from this text, which otherwise would be very unusual for Jewish scribes to do - - the animation of natural objects along traditional Pagan viewpoints.

Gen 37:9
"And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. "

Then there is further support:

Deu 4:19
"And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven."

Here god warns against worshiping the stars, not because they are not alive, but because they are not the Lord. “Host” as you will recall, is not some “special word” uniquely deployed in the phrase “Host of Heaven”; “Host” means “soldiers” or (collectively), “army”.

Which is why we have this verse reading the way it does:

Dan 8:10-11 "And it [the “Little Horn” that came out of the “Great Horn”] waxed great, even to the Host of Heaven; and it cast down some of the Host and of the Stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. [< One wonders which of the stars of the night sky are not distant suns, light years away, but angels?]

"Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the Host, and by him [the Little Horn] the daily sacrifice was taken away…

Some alternate translations for the phrase “Prince of the Host” are:

New International Version: "Commander of the Army of the LORD"
Revised Standard Version: "Prince of the Host"
and
New American Standard Bible: “Commander of the Host”

One of the jobs for these stars - other than cosmic singing as we find in the Job 38:7 text (“When the morning stars sang together…”), was to regulate the doors/windows/etc of Heaven to provide for the rain as directed by God. This is why the Flood narrative, as you point out yourself, does associate stars with rain:

Even this text from Judges is relevant and supportive:

Jdg 5:20-21 “They fought from heaven; the Stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river…”

This text, frequently missed in digital searches, implies that the stars (located in their regulated positions (orbiting the Pole Star, even when bright daylight drowns them out from view) fought Sisera with rain! - - which is why the river overflowed. If not by means of Rain, @Jon_Garvey, what are you suggesting they used? Star Trek style phasers?

In case there is any doubt that the Stars were considered alive (implying all the stars are alive, which of course is also quite a frivolous error of cosmology, in addition to the notion of a Firmament) we have Psalms:

Psa 147:4 “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.” I’m not sure God would award names to lifeless balls of burning gas.

Psa 136:9 “The moon and stars to rule by night: for his mercy endureth for ever.” Lifeless objects rule nothing.

Psa 148:3 “Praise ye Him, [you, the] Sun and Moon: praise him, all ye Stars of light.”

Jon, perhaps the lesson to take away from this particular section of this thread is this:

If and when BioLogos supporters are bold enough to introduce the topic of the Firmament, it would be prudent to be prepared with the entire picture, where it is not just a fictional barrier, separating a fictional collection of Waters in the sky from the actual/real waters of the Earth, but it has an integrated function:

The Ten Talking Points Regarding the Biblical Firmament:
1] - In The Beginning, the Waters of chaos are multiple and in disorder;
2] - God organizes the waters, and divides them into two bodies (one above and one below the Firmament);
3] - the Bible compares the Firmament to a jewel like substance that God melted into molten form to pour out as a strong and rigid plane, like an ancient method for making bronze mirrors;
4] - God gathers together the Waters below to reveal the land underneath (one might liken this to an Underworld Firmament);
5] - in the Firmament are Windows/Doors/apertures of some or many kind;
6] - these Stars, described as the Host, are angelic “soldiers” of God’s Army of Heaven and thus intelligent;
7] - These Stars are associated with the apertures in the Firmament - - Judges describes them helping the Lord fight against the enemies of the Hebrew by causing a river to flood;
8] - Some Creationists liken the waters above the Firmament to water in the form of vapor, but this interpretation does not support the need for the Biblical description of doors/windows, which would not be needed if these Waters existed simply as vapor;
9] - Clouds, unlike stars, do not appear to have intelligence or life, but are part of the rain delivery system;
10] - the regulated apertures either release the waters directly onto land and/or they fill Clouds as virtual “water skins”.

Like water “skins”, clouds expand but do not burst from the weight of the water, but release the water where directed, whereupon clouds (like water skins as they empty) contract in size - - some eventually vanish to reappear later).

Caveats to the Ten Point List:

  1. Do not use the term “dome” to describe the top of the Earth; it’s an artistic preference, not a Biblical description.

  2. Better to avoid the term “vault” as well; since there is a tendency to equate “Vault” to “Dome” or at least “Arches”.

  3. Avoid the use of the term “Ocean” or “Sea” in reference to the Waters above the firmament. One might benefit by temporarily comparing these waters to an Ocean, but don’t insist that this is the form the waters take. The Bible is not clear on what form these waters in the sky take - - probably because they couldn’t agree amongst themselves on this point either.

Frankly, considering the diverse nature of the elements described above, the Biblical scribes present a surprisingly coherent and expansive view of a (fictional) global watering system, - - something which might have easily been prevented by the almost casual nature of the references, scattered within multiple contexts, in multiple books having very different events to discuss!

102

@Chris_Falter

Hi Jon,

This is a bit of false dichotomy, isn’t it? You assert that if there is no, cosmic, “ocean” evident in scripture and/or in ANE myths, then the raqia can’t be a vault. So it’s either no ocean, no vault, or ocean then vault. I agree that the evidence for an outright ocean is scanty. However, a Hebrew 4,000 years ago listening to G1 and hearing that the raqia held up water, “above” , but not necessarily an ocean, still would have reasonably expected that it would be of a solid material. So, the question then is, does scripture support the idea of heavenly waters or, “waters above”? Well, here are some nuggets from an an incomplete survey from the OT:

  • Jeremiah 10:13 “When he thunders, _the waters in the heavens roa_r; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.”

  • Jeremiah 51:16, “When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.”

  • Psalm 104:3, “and lays the _beams of his upper chambers on their water_s. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind.”

  • Psalm 148:4, “Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies.”

  • Job 38:37, "Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens?"

  • Psalm 104:13, “He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.”

Some food for though as you digest your dinner and your election results. :slight_smile:

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103

Well it’s also used by Hebraists and scholars who recognize the construction here to be parallel with the " when on high" construction in the prologue to the Akkadian Enuma Elish. So we have here a clear literary device with extant historical analogs.

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104

Hi Richard

The quoted remark was about the need for the “conventional” solid vault in the absence of an ocean, rather than the possibility. I would suggest that if people like you and George have agreed that there is little evidence for that ocean, my task of deconstructing the “ANE bubble universe” has succeeded in general terms. Everyone has to rethink the model from scratch (and maybe from the other ANE texts too).

The list of refs you give, taken literally, creates a rather Rube Goldberg cosmos very different from all those diagrams, with its storehouses, water jars, beams and so on. George seems to think that reflects Hebrew confusion - I suggest it suggests a rich poetic spirit, behind which stands a pretty simple and earthy understanding of the physical world. I’ve dealt with all those passages, I think, in various blogs accessible from here.

I notice how, in your main paragraph, the old assumptions creep in - our ancient Hebrew listening to G1 wouldn’t hear that the raqia held up the water above, but that it separated the waters above from those below. The question for us moderns is what he would have understood by that - given that he knew from his native language, as we don’t, what is implied by “raqia”.

There is no dispute that there were believed to be waters above, because Genesis says so. The whole question is what they were - I suggest that clouds were known to contain (somewhat mysteriously - hence Job’s wonder that they saty up!) all the water needed not only to water the earth, but to match the genesis description.

So, to take Job 38.37, does it describe two sources of rain (clouds, plus water jars perched precariously on a ledge of a solid heaven), or is it a typical case of poetic parallelism? Are God’s upper chambers evidence that God was believed to dwell in a celestial physical building floating on a body of water, or are they an architectural metaphor implying only that God sets his dwelling above the clouds? Are storehouses, likewise, to be considered alternatives or additions to Job’s water jars, or simply different ways of expressing the relationship of God’s providence to rain that comes, prosaically speaking, in the phenomenologically-observed way that clouds rise, form, and drop their waters?

Now, if we assume (for argument’s sake) that Gen 1 and these other texts aren’t just winging their ideas haphazardly, then I can’t imagine it likely that our ancient Genesis hearer would think of God’s splitting the primordial deep by ladling it into literal water jars, shoveling it nto storehouses etc, with the raqia placed as a floor on which to store these contrivances. At least the cosmic ocean idea had some kind of feel of describing a natural phenomena like the earth, sea and sky.

Additionally, the ocean at least needs no replenishing - whereas all these storehouse might be supposed to be depleted quite quickly. But if the waters are clouds, then a number of Bible passages - including your Jeremiah passages - allude to clouds rising from the sea, or from the horizon, thus providing a means of keeping nature going perpetually. And we already know that the cuneiform literature, too, believes that rainclouds arise from below, because Gilgamesh explicitly states that in its account of the Flood.

A rubbish election result by anyone’s standards - but then the western world is getting used to rubbish elections, isn’t it? But I’m teaching Daniel at the moment, which cautions me to think beyond the merely political!

105

@Jon_Garvey,

That’s ridiculous. We have agreed that we don’t need to use the term “ocean” to argue successfully for Waters. We agreed to such an idea so that you wouldn’t hijack the discussion over the issue of “Ocean”, when it might be some other form of “Waters”.

So, instead, you try to hi-jack the discussion with the idea that if there is no Ocean, then there is no real importance to the word Waters.

Is this really how you think a forensic discussion should proceed. I’m a little disappointed in your resistance to the obvious.

106

Hi John,

Are you teaching at your church? I love Daniel, it has always been one of my favorite books in the bible. I have a fond memory of being a brand new Christian, almost 30 years ago now, when myself and another young brother in the church spent a Friday night reading Daniel out loud, alternating chapters.

I’ve until very recently held that the, “waters above” in G1 were in the clouds. But when I took raqia to be the sky, which is your stance as well, then I don’t see how that can be true. I agree with you that it being solid is not a slam dunk. Even if it weren’t, though, don’t you think it’s relatively easy to show from scripture that the OT Israelites did believe in a phenomenologically-induced 3-tier universe, in the form of Heaven above, earth (really land) in the middle and water below? You don’t even need the waters above, they could be a result of poetic imagery, as you suggest. So then we’ve got another inaccurate view of the world to deal with, that being the water below land (God’s throne above the skies I’ll let lie). For record, I don’t think that the Hebrews took the Job passage literally.

What I would like ask you about is what do you feel we lose from, for instance, claiming that the raqia is solid.

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107

It usually goers “something something something Calvinism”.

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108

Hi Richard

A home group “parachuted me in” to do Daniel, so at least it’s for the committed rather than folk wandering in! The trick has been to try and show how Daniel’s thought is so formative both to late 2nd temple Judaism and to Jesus’s own self-awareness and make it look easy! Fortunately they have some awareness of the genre of apocalyptic because the last thing they asked me to do was Revelation (it’s that kind of group)! It’s just getting harder since we’ve got beyond chapter 6 and the Sunday School stories have run out!

You ask what we lose from a solid raqia, and I have to say my main answer is, “Not a vast amount - but enough to cloud our understanding of the message of the text in various ways.” Scientific concordism isn’t the problem, because the ocean forming before the land messes that up, and my contention that the text may assume light before the sun does so even more.

Rather, apart from the way the raqia has been used as a lever to demonstrate the human fallibility of Scripture, more significantly I think it skews our attention from what the text is trying to say, which is about how God’s providential blessings originate from him in creation (and, in accord with Walton, Middleton and Beale, not to mention ancient writers, about that Creation as cosmic temple).

Accordingly each element separated from the “primordial elements” is directly related to provision for mankind and the world: day/night from darkness; ground water/rain from tehom; dry land and sea from ocean. The denizens of each realm so designated follow in the next three days, described primarily with respect to their blessing for mankind.

To me neither a large body of heavenly waters nor a solid retaining “firmament” further those phenomenological/theological themes, but instead look like the leftovers of a speculative cosmology trying to do natural science badly.

But if you add to that consideration the gratuitousness of the interpretation, flying in the face of the cuneiform and Egyptian texts which have no such celestial ocean nor, properly speaking, a “retaining roof” raqia contrary to the nineteenth century view), and the dubious conclusions from the etymology of the term raqia itself, then those things appear to be a real distraction from the understanding of not only Genesis, but other texts: every metaphor from pillars to beams to windows to mirrors is dragged in to build this Heath-Robinson cosmology, prior to dismissing it as primitive. It deserves better.

On your specifics, the Babylonian cosmic geography has (basically) three (flat and circular) earths and three heavens, most of the complexity being to accommodate polytheistic assumptions and developments. So the heaven of Anu corresponds to the highest heavens of Yahweh, the middle heaven is accommodation for the Igigi, lesser gods, and so irrelevant to Israel, and the lower heavens are the sky extending from that to the ground, or sometimes instead just the top (with blue, clouds, stars etc) with the expanse below being unnamed (that same ambiguity occurs in Hebrew and, come to that, in English).

Below the inhabited earth, the apsu (fresh waters) become an actual realm only because it has its own deities - in contrast, in Scripture, we have only phenomenological references to springs of the deep (dig a well, you get fresh water - phenomenology again). In Babylon, the Underworld of the dead is the lowest realm, and again is emphasised because it has its own gods running it as an entity. The bottom of the Underworld is solid. Scripture has only “Sheol”, “the Grave”, where the dead are buried and have (perhaps) some shadowy existence, which is scarcely developed as a concept, let alone a cosmic realm.

The world ocean in cuneiform texts surrounds the land laterally, just as the seas appear to do in Genesis - it may or may not have land beyond it, and it is certainly not infinite.

In both nations the earth is the bottom of the ladder (and in both there is no real consideration of the boundaries or extent of the universe in any direction), and not water (contrary to many of those accursed diagrams!). The two isolated texts in the Bible that might suggest the world floats on water I dealt with in detail here.

One further basic consideration about a three-level cosmos, at least as far as you label it as heavens above earth above waters, is that the nearest one gets to “universe” in either Hebrew or Mesopotamian thinking is the merism “heaven and earth” ie heaven, earth and everything in between (an-ki in Akkadian) - it’s not “heaven and deep” (and still less “upper deep and lower deep”).

Oh yes, and to please Jon “calvinism”. No doubt he knows what he wants that to mean.

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109

By the by - I think we have forgotten just how deeply held reverence for the Scriptures has been historically. St Basil, well trained in Greek philosophy and reviewing his current scientific cosmologies in relation to Genesis in the fourth century, is far from accomodating to the science but relativises it:

It will not lead me to give less importance to the creation of the universe, that the servant of God, Moses, is silent as to shapes; he has not said that the earth is a hundred and eighty thousand furlongs in circumference; he has not measured into what extent of air its shadow projects itself while the sun revolves around it, nor stated how this shadow, casting itself upon the moon, produces eclipses. He has passed over in silence, as useless, all that is unimportant for us. Shall I then prefer foolish wisdom to the oracles of the Holy Spirit? Shall I not rather exalt Him who, not wishing to fill our minds with these vanities, has regulated all the economy of Scripture in view of the edification and the making perfect of our souls?

I saw a modern version of that regard for Scripture this morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jkDW0-gIr0

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110

@Jon_Garvey, (@Richard_Wright1, @Jonathan_Burke, @Marty)

Jon G.,

I’m letting you know now, with the sincere intention of helping to avoid any sense of “sand-bagging”, that I have identified Egyptian references that not only mention a celestial body of water, but also mention a firmament made of metal!

You could have knocked me over with a feather!

It would seem that if there are colliding images in the Old Testament on how to present the sky, it is a collision of an Egyptian view vs. a more Babylonian view (at least until we find any Babylonian texts that sound like Egyptian images).

Because I had never bumped into such Egyptian material before, I was always content that the Hebrew priests had formulated their own deductions based on a Firm firmament. And it allowed me the extra benefit of thinking the Hebrew/Jews never really got any important ideas from Egyptian culture:

Neither Cosmology,
Nor an Afterlife.
(Remember, I’m referring to pre-Messianic/Enochian material which is practically devoid of any texts that are specific to a General Resurrection of all Humanity!).

But now it looks like I’m going to have to give a nod to the Egyptians as the source for a rather large slice of Jewish Cosmology (with a firm firmament, and one made of metal no less, plus heavenly waters) - - leaving the only scenario in my personal status quo a General Resurrection.

I have a work deadline that is keeping me from posting the Egyptian material for several hours, but I assure you I will post it either very late tonight (say, in about 8/9 hours), or early tomorrow (in about 20 hours at the latest!).

Sincerely,

George

111

So let me get this straight: the Jews who had just witnessed all the gods of Egypt aggressively crushed before the Exodus then decide to adopt Egyptian cosmology? “Let’s throw our lot in with the losers of this great cosmic battle!” Does that really make sense?

112

@Marty,

I understand your comment … and it is my fault that I haven’t given you the full context of what I meant.

The one thing about Egypt’s theology and metaphysics is that they are the exemplar par excellence of an ancient culture with an optimistic future in the afterlife. The Greeks were not nearly as optimistic; unless they engaged in a mystery school, some of which are supposed to have been influenced by Egyptian thinking.

But here’s the conundrum, Marty: You would expect 200 or 400 years of exposure to Egyptian religion would have left the Hebrew of the Old Testament with a profound appreciation of the one thing that should have been intrinsic to Judaism - - serving as a bridge to the New Testament conversions of Jews and Non-Jews - - of a general hope of salvation in the afterlife.

But what do we see in the Old Testament? Hardly a peep! The story line around Endor seems to be more about not thinking about an afterlife to avoid witchcraft - - rather than a hope of a happy afterlife. There are, perhaps 3 verses in the Old Testament that suggest an afterlife, but they don’t suggest a universal expectation. And by the time we get to the Roman Greek period, the Sadducees are said to be firmly opposed to any idea of an afterlife.

Frankly, I think this is probably not exactly what the Priests believed. I do think that is what they wanted the other groups to think they believed. I think it is most likely that the Sadducees believed only the priesthood would experience a general resurrection. But I admit that this is, so far, just speculation.

So, to have Judaism be the very root of New Testament salvation, and yet have virtually no discussion of it in the massive O.T. is not exactly resounding proof they spent any time in Egypt. The best evidence for Jewish exposure to Egyptian culture and world view is the Jeremiad community - - the refugees that took Jeremiah to Egypt with them.

Archaeologists say that the Jeremiad settlements seem to go dormant some time after the Persian conquest of Egypt. To me, this makes sense. The international border is now irrelevant. And there is a good chance that the Jeremiad population wanted to participate in revival of Jerusalem. I think this is actually where a lot of Egyptian information and lore comes from … but that should be no surprise to anyone who has read some of my related views.

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113

Sadly, it didn’t take them long to make a golden calf. I don’t know if @gbrooks9’s analysis is correct or not, but I wouldn’t exactly put it past the Jewish people, regardless of timing.

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114

@cwhenderson,

There’s an irony there. I had never found anything convincing about the Golden Calf being particularly Egyptian. There was a Golden Calf mentioned in the theology of Mesopotamia … but not until today had I ever seen anything specifically in Egyptian commentary referring to a calf, and in the context of gold (gold was the color associated with the sun).

But if you read the Northern Israel reference to the two calfs, it suddenly sounds like the Exodus text was copied from the Kings text … not the other way around!

1Ki 12:28
"Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them …
behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt."

Exo 32:4
". . . after [Aaron] had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel,
which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt."

115

Keep in mind that it is easy as we’re reading stories to imagine that things are happening one after the other and no time in between. Have you ever noticed, for example that in one of the ten plagues we see “all” the Egyptian cattle get killed off, and yet in the very next plague we see the Egyptian cattle (cattle? what cattle?) getting afflicted again for the Egyptians who did not heed the warnings. Sometimes we are explicitly told how many days (maybe 40 in the case of Mt. Sinai?) or maybe the next morning. But mostly we can probably assume by reading between the lines (like with the cattle above) that these ten plagues didn’t happen in only 10 days or anything like that. The old testament is already pretty long (and papyrus probably isn’t cheap – right?) So can you imagine if Moses and the later redactors had felt compelled to also describe everything in between the exciting bits? "Day 3 after Moses disappeared up the mountain. Nothing much happened today. Jonas may have pilfered some of the water rations again … " And assuming they didn’t have any wifi or sports channels to entertain themselves with I can imagine folks getting a bit stir crazy after days of this. Watch what a routy classroom of teenagers can come up with in a “mere” five minutes of leftover unstructured classroom time and a golden calf doesn’t at all seem beyond the pale to me. But the boring bits were all there too I’m sure.

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116

This shows your rejection of the solid raqia is based on theological concerns rather than looking at the facts.

How?

Have you read the work of Seely and others? Have you submitted anything to peer review on this subject? You seem to be using a lot of weasel words here.

@gbrooks9, this is how the Egyptians thought of the sky.

nut-geb-shu-egypt.jpg770×231 31.6 KB

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117

Hi Marty,

Maybe you’ve forgotten about this sad episode in Israel’s history, from 2 Chronicles 25:14:

When Amaziah returned from slaughtering the Edomites, he brought back the gods of the people of Seir. He set them up as his own gods, bowed down to them and burned sacrifices to them.

Let’s recap here. The Judean King Amaziah took home the gods he had just defeated and set them up as his own gods. This was after some Judean troops that were left behind, apparently upset, went and slaughtered 3,000 Isrealites from both Judea and Samaria, taking plunder. So given how prone they were to sin, I don’t think it would too much of a stretch to imagine that they obsconded the worldview of the Egyptians.

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118

Hi Jon,

I appreciate your responses, well thought out as usual.

But you didn’t really address my question. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that someone somehow demonstrates that the raqia was taken to be solid. What essential elements of the faith would be in danger in your mind? Does it mean the bible to you loses its reliability, as I’ve read from you recently?

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119

@Richard_Wright1

Frankly, I have to wonder if the great god “out of Seir” is in fact “our” Yahweh.

120

@Jonathan_Burke,

We have to be careful with the Seely article … right away he starts using the dreaded word : “Dome” !