From the Mailbag: Why would God allow scientific errors in the Bible?

Faith & Science Conversation
103

Hi Jon, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Are you saying that no cosmology drawings remain from ancient times?

For me, what’s interesting is not so much whether the ANE cosmology involved a “dome-like” shape of the heavens, but rather whether it involved flatness/hardness of the heavens. When the heavens are compared to a cast mirror or (in the End of Times) a receding scroll, I think that’s an important aspect of the imagery. If the Babylonians envisioned the cosmos like you describe (multiple layers like a cake), that would indicate the same idea of hardness/flatness of the heavens.

I would not say that’s a denial of the concept of a hard dome at all. I picture the clouds as “hanging poised” beneath the vault, in the same space where the birds fly, across the face of the heavens (Genesis 1:20, see quote below). I imagine that ANE cultures thought the blue color of the skies actually derived from an expanse of water located behind the vault of the heavens. That would make sense in the context of Genesis 1:6-10:

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Note how only the heavenly bodies (not the clouds) were “set in the vault” in Genesis 1:17-18:

17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.

Finally, here’s the quote from Genesis 1:20 describing how birds fly “across the vault of the sky”:

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”

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104

@Casper_Hesp
@Jon_Garvey

The argument seems to revolve around a notion that the Hebrews and other cultures may have envisaged the sky as a vault, a solid structure made of bronze, or something similar. I think this is not an argument, mainly because I cannot find a document that records discussions and contemplations in any ancient culture that concerns itself with the make-up and composition of the sky as such. I think we are twisting ancient writings into versions that we now wish to use as ‘definitions’ of sky, earth, water, and so on. But the ancients were (this has been admitted by various comments) more concerned with how they discussed their surroundings, and the purpose of these discussions. If we dismiss the ‘definitional option’, than we are left with common use of language (for ordinary discussions) and literal/poetic forms, used to discuss extra-ordinary matters. Thus a scroll is used as a term for the sky (Rev 6:14) , and yet a small scroll is used as something that was eaten (Rev 10:8-12) - clearly the same term (scroll) is used by the author to convey what he wished - we cannot argue that on one occasion, he is dealing with a description of a solid sky, and then this solid sky is eaten up - instead, the language conveys a very different meaning on each occasion, although the term ‘scroll’ is used for both.

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105

@LT_15

Oh really?

Doesn’t the “thingy” that divides “the waters” … the “thingy” that divides the waters below from the waters below … have to be a layer of something??

The firmament is clearly not “the waters” itself. It is the divider!

And while the great majority of translations imply the firmament is like a metal beaten out (like gold leaf) … the Job text, with its comparison to an ancient bronze mirror (image at the top!!!) suggests that the layer is “poured out” like something molten, and then it hardens. This is how the ancient flat mirrors were made. They had not yet figured out adhering a layer of reflective metal to the back of glass.

  1. The Job verse which uses the word “firmament” as a verb is most interesting; one might equate “firmament” and “firmament-ing” with “partition” and “partiion-ing”!!! There is nothing ambivalent about the term “partition” either.

  2. It would be centuries later that relatively perfect panes of glass would be made by floating molten sand on a molten metal, making for a very flat layer - - made perfect by the consistent powers of gravity and the surface tension properties of a molten liquid.

You can almost imagine Yahweh taking a body of water, and then pouring a molten mineral/crystal/something over the water to harden it… and then submerging the now hardened partition deep into the body of waters and fastening it in place.

Then, when the waters “beneath” were lowered so that dry land could appear, it would create the gap that the Bible typically associates with the open sky (i.e., Heaven or Heavens). The firmament, being made of a clear substance, would allow the blue color of the waters above to show through. Or, the firmament could be made of something blue as well. I don’t think the Biblical text is as specific on this matter as it is on the hardness of the firmament.

Now, if you want the “divider” to be concave or convex - - fine. I really don’t care. But the Firmament is pretty clearly a rigid divider.

In the future, @LT_15, I would avoid the phrase “you haven’t answered my questions” - - and then not specify which questions someone hasn’t answered. If I hadn’t been so completely turned off by the repetitiveness of your accusation, with no help as to what you think hadn’t been answered, you probably would have got more conversation out of me sooner.

Please don’t argue just for arguing’s sake. We already have plenty of participants who enjoy that game.

106

So what about Genesis 1:6-8?

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

Isn’t this clearly a definition of sky in the cosmological worldview of the biblical author?

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107

Yep!

We have to be careful in deciding whether the vault is the firmament or the firmament is installed within the vault.

In other posts I have voted for a “domed” upper region (which could be referred to as a vault) … with a flat (or essentially flat) firmament (like the flat part of the bronze mirror. Archaeologists report that these ancient metal mirrors were sometimes slightly concave (less concave than a bowl).

108

I note you did not comment on ‘scroll’, so perhaps I can assume this has ceased to be an argument.

Gen1:6 is again concerned with God’s creative acts, and translations I have (and these include ones commonly used by Evangelicals, such as Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary), treat this as ‘stretching out’ a firmament, and use it analogically to stretching or working a metal - the firmament thus separates the waters - thus the emphasis is on an act by God, and a the language chosen is meant for that purpose.

Gen 1:6 And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 And God made the firmament and separated 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 there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
The Revised Standard Version. 1971 . Logos Research Systems, Inc.: Oak Harbor, WA

Commentary. Gen 1:6 In biblical usage, firmament means “heavens.” Literally, it means “something stretched out, like hammered metal.” Gen 1:7, 8 divided the waters: The notion of upper and lower waters is somewhat mysterious. The language may simply refer to waters gathered in a liquid state and to moisture in the atmosphere. The division of the waters is another of God’s acts in bringing order out of disorder.
Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. 1999. Nelson’s new illustrated Bible commentary . T. Nelson Publishers: Nashville

109

Casper

If there are ancient cosmological representations (apart from Egypt’s) I’ve not seen them after extensive searching (and modern articles always, somehow, prefer a modern “reconstruction”). One near-exception is the Babylonian “world map”, on which I wrote here, and which shows what a fundamentally different conceptual framework they had.

The Babylonian “layer cake”, for example, does not so much imply belief in a flat earth as belief that the earth was below the various heavens phenomenologically: the edges were not particularly under consideration, since nobody had been to the edge of the universe. But the main point is that this multi-layer sandwich was (a) not compatible with other ANE cosmologies - or even other Babylonian ones and (b) didn’t end with a ceiling over which were infinite waters.

Another couple of pieces I did on this theme (with links to some others) are here and here.

As for the idea you imagine about the ancients picturing blue water above the heaven, surely what we imagine has very little to do with it? Job describes the water suspended in clouds, rather marvellously, above the earth. It gives more detail in 36.27-33, in which a pretty good lay phenomenological picture of the hydrological cycle is given: water is distilled up to clouds, which pour down their moisture. No mechanism for pumping the stuff through pipes back into the supposed waters above the solid firmament, which NIV has completely without warrant translated “vault”, the word “raqia” actually being that “something stretched out” to which Perry refers.

NIV also plays fast and loose with the birds in Genesis 1, which actually fly “in”, not “across”, shemayim, which is where John’s eagle flies (though in Greek) in Rev 8.13 - which NIV has translated as “mid-air” but is actually “mid-heaven”. Note that, as my article points out, “air” was not a concept available in the ANE, except in the sense of “wind” or “breath”: “heaven” was a concept implying the separation of earth from waters above (try “clouds”) and the space that originally lay above the “face” of the waters in Gen 1.2 (another reinterpretation of the literal translation in NIV, though at least the spirit was “above” the waters), which was the realm of God. I also did a phenomenological interpretation of the creation account, which suggests just how much we read into a text that had a completely naive and terrestrial view of things, here.

Whether or not it is correct, I think it has at least much evidence as, and more plausibility, than the “space helmet” concept of a domed raqia (though no domes existed in the ANE, just corbelling!) keeping out the endless waters above (in which, presumably, God swims using an aqualung or something.

110

It is a very strange conclusion to draw that everything that is not commented upon has somehow ceased to be an argument. If you would demand that level of involvement from all participants on this Forum… It would be a very unpleasant place. But since you insist that I react, I’ll share my thoughts.

I don’t see how your observation of the word “scroll” being used in Revelation 10 in a completely different context changes anything about the verse in Revelation 6:

The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

It’s not surprising that the word scroll is used for a different purpose in other passages. But in this specific case, the comparison implies that the heavens are flat like a scroll, such that they are able to recede like a scroll.

In the same way, in your beautiful poem, your comparison implies that our planet is blue and round like a sapphire and the night is enveloping it like velvet. When the words sapphire and velvet are used in a different sense somewhere else, that does not change the implied characteristic of comparison of your poem.

As for the commentaries you quote concerning Genesis 1, they only seem to reinforce the point I was making. The emphasis on God “stretching out” the Heavens is easy to interpret in the context of a flat structure, as in working a flat piece of metal or even stretching out the canvas of a tent.

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111

@GJDS

My dear sir, that is a brilliant bit of dancing. Waters is water… not vapor. The sky is blue, because there is a blue ocean above. Fresh water below is blue like the fresh water above.

The reality is there is no firmament any kind… and so Job makes absolutely no sense from the viewpoint of natural science. And no blue crystal… and no storehouses (treasuries) of snow or hail.

The author of Job may very well have been the author of Genesis. Otherwise, there is more than 1 writer who has no real idea what is Up!

112

I guess I’m confused about how you seem to view the Bible as so separate from the ancient Hebrews. If you grant that they were mistaken about some things, how is it possible that none of those mistaken concepts are even alluded to in the accounts and literary art they created? The poetry of the Bible is an artistic expression of a human people’s experience, albeit an inspired one. How do you envision God editing the Scriptures the Hebrews created to remove all allusions to mistaken concepts and ensure that none of them show up? If much of the Scriptures are based on communal oral traditions that were eventually recorded in writing and selectively edited and recompiled over time (as opposed to a collection of manuscripts that individual authors sat down one day and composed with God dictating in their ears), how do you envision them as not expressing the worldview of the community that produced them? Or do you just not accept the orality component of Scripture’s early transmission?

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113

I think this is not really a fair reply to my thought, Jon. I haven’t seen you applying such rhetorical stabs before. I just expressed an additional point which would make sense from a phenomenological point of view. At some point we all need our imagination to visualize these descriptions.

Thanks for sharing your resources!

I’ll take a closer look at your articles later, but for now, I have just one question. What stops the solid-dome interpretation from being a phenomenological one? If I look at the heavens on a cloudless day, a rigid dome seems like a pretty sound description of the heavens. In fact, this is what I said in the beginning of this discussion:[quote=“Casper_Hesp, post:10, topic:5694”]
I don’t view that ancient cosmology as “backwards”. Instead, I view it as phenomenological, in much the same way as you describe.

In the case of cosmology, things are often different than they seem. So the phenomenological descriptions end up being physically “incorrect”. But… Who cares? I’m an astronomer. Astronomers today talk about observing objects “on the sky”, as if the heavens were some kind of hard wall on which the objects are pinned. This phenomenological description is physically wrong, but works perfectly fine for the meaning one intends to convey.
[/quote]

So what renders your point of view “phenomenological” in a way different from the view involving a rigid dome?

So, to repeat my question, why can’t the phenomenological description involve a solid dome? It does not have to be an either-or issue, in my humble opinion.

Casper

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114

PS
Forgot to say that your “hardness” as an essential element of the raqia, if based on Job 37, is not in the text, except as the translator’s idea of matching the idea of the mirror. The word is chazaq, meaning in most cases “strong” (as in “strong arm” or “strong wind”), but also hot, loud, amd mighty, but never hard.

So the heavens are (a) mighty and (b) like a mirror - whose main characateristic (even its sole distinctive) is to reflect light, a theme better seen in the more literal and, perhaps, safer here, KJV: in v15 he causes the light of his cloud to shine, and in v15 men fail to see the bright light in the clouds. In between the sky is like a mirror.

So how is the firmament mighty or strong? It might be simply in its grandeur, or it might be in the fact that the sky stays up (as wonderful as Job says the clouds staying up is). Making a unique translation of the Hebrew word as “hardness” surely requires more than a comparison with a mirror (“That Torquemada’s a tough nut - he’s as hard as a mirror!” “Yeah, right…”)

115

@Jon_Garvey

And yet how few translators share your sense of creativity!

One translator wants to compare the firmament to how hot the molten metal for a mirror is. His is definitely a minority opinion.

So what other aspect of greatness or mightiness might we infer from a bronze mirror? It’s size?
Hardly. Ancient mirrors were small… smaller than one’s whole face.

Brilliant? … as in a brilliant reflection? Hardly. A bowl of water throws a much more clear reflection.

The only thing parallel between a “divider” of massive amounts of water and a bronze mirror is the hardness of a metal mirror.

116

You (or I) misunderstood this - I simply assumed that the point on the scroll had been settled, not demanding a further argument.

Now I am trying to see what we are arguing about (if indeed we are doing that?). Yes, you say stretched out like a flat surface, and I am making the point that it describes an activity, that to the writer may be analogous to stretching out a scroll. I am inclined to read more in this part of Revelation, but that is another matter. So what is our point of disagreement or departure?

My example was meant to illustrate the experience in writing poetry - and when we write poetry that we hope others would read and appreciate, we expect our readers to perhaps see things (in this case of beauty and care of the creator) that I as a writer may have, but also hoping readers may also be conscious of things I had not thought of when I wrote that verse. Yes we use similes and metaphors, but the point of the poem is to convey feelings and insights that may be shared with others. This approach places aesthetics way, way, above terms, definitions, and factually correct statements. That is why I mention poetic license - I know sapphire is not a planet (to be humorous) and so do you, but we may compare its beauty to that of our planet, and also high value…

So … if I can make a comment, our differences may stem from (a) my insistence the passages discussed deal more with acts, activities, and such matters that are important to the writer, and these are illustrated using physically meaningful (at least to the writer) terms such as ‘scroll’ and ‘firmament’, while (b) you seem to emphasise the physical aspects in the writing, and insist it illustrates some cosmologically significant outlook in ancient times.

Perhaps both (a) and (b) are relevant, but I would put (a) way ahead of (b). Perhaps you think otherwise.

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117

Casper - not I was not seeking to be offensive, but to say that any deductions we make about how others in the past might have interpreted (as opposed to seen) things are suspect.

Accordingly I think “rigid dome” is a strongly deductive conclusion, rather than a phenomenological description of what appears. Think what reasoning goes into the modern unpacking of ANE reasoning: “Because they believed in an endless ocean above the sky, they must have thought something solid kept it out - and it probably resembled a dome. And so they must also have believed, like Spike Milligan, that the rain came through holes in the sky equipped with “floodgates of heaven”. And they must have believed the solid sky had to be supported on pillars…” etc

So the simpler phenomenological suggestion that the heavens are what separate lower waters (seas) from upper waters (clouds - which everyone knows are wet), but extend upwards therafter to the stars and beyond, is bypassed. Likewise, “windows of heaven”, instead of being interpreted in terms of the “lattice or network” the word actually means, pretty reasonably describing the nebulosity of clouds, goes even beyond triple-glazing to “floodgates” - as if any Israelite looked out of his floodgate to see what the day was like.

Please note that I’d not be very twitched if the world were described according to some ancient and outmoded notions, including a solid raqia. In Job’s theophany, for example, the aim of showing God’s glory is not one whit affected by “scientific errors”: it’s not a scientific text. But (a) I don’t think they did, (b) I don’t think it makes sense, whereas the biblical descriptions do, © it encourages us to read our own materialistic worldview back into theirs, thereby missing a massive opportunity to see the world in a more spiritual way.

It’s immensely mind-expanding to realise a true view of the world can be given completely apart from a material scientific description, whether that “science” be modern or ancient - and the biblical account is like that because scientific descriptions were simply not part of their worldview.

118

George - you’re welcome to use a metal mirror to keep dry under water. Me, I’d prefer something bigger.

Being under a cloud and seeing a flash of light, though - I don’t think I could the water to stay in the bowl if I turned it over.

119

@Jon_Garvey

And the “waters above” simply levitate? God divided the waters with a partition.

What do you think the partition is?

This partition is not “the sky” … it is the top limit of the sky. Everything below the top limit… until it touches the earth is part of “the sky”.

120

OT scholar Pete Enns wrote an article on the firmament in 2010:

The Firmament of Genesis 1 is Solid but That’s not the Point

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121

I’m glad you raised your last point, George, because it makes mine nicely. Genesis specifically says that the partition was called “the heavens”: that was its name. It was the only Hebrew word for “sky” apart from the occasional translation of “thin cloud” as sky in the versions.

Later biblical writers referred to “mid-heaven” as the realm of the birds, and “the highest heavens” (perhaps to be identified with Paul’s “third heaven”) as the holy dwelling of God himself, even above the stars.

The “firmament” extends, then, from the ground up, and is a spatial division. That is, when they thought about it that way - after all, though you have said the sky actually extends to the earth, we’ll often speak of the sky as the blue stuff “up there”, rather than say we walk through the sky to work. The Hebrews no doubt did as well.

Remember that there was already a space above the primordial ocean in Genesis - over whose surface the Spirit of God hovered. There was no need to describe the creation od a space that intuitively always existed above the ocean.

So the job of day 2 was to split the waters of that ocean in two with an expanse - an expanse upwards as well as across. The upper waters (the clouds) stayed up in a wondrous manner known only to God (but specifically wondered at in Job without concluding clouds are solid or have a solid support). Note that the Genesis text doesn’t say the raqia is to hold up the upper waters, but to separate them from the lower waters.

122

Yes, it does have to be a layer of something. But it can’t be a “flat layer” (You left out the word “flat” for some reason) because there are things in it that shine, that fly, that praise God, etc.

  1. The Job verse which uses the word “firmament” as a verb is most interesting; one might equate “firmament” and “firmament-ing” with “partition” and “partiion-ing”!!!

Yes, but what is Elihu’s point?

[quote=“gbrooks9, post:105, topic:5694”]
In the future, @LT_15, I would avoid the phrase “you haven’t answered my questions” - - and then not specify which questions someone hasn’t answered. If I hadn’t been so completely turned off by the repetitiveness of your accusation, with no help as to what you think hadn’t been answered, you probably would have got more conversation out of me sooner.
[/quote]I have actually given the questions multiple times (Post #26, #100). You even quoted them post #47. In fact, this post in which you complained I hadn’t given the questions was a response to my post which had the questions (#100 … go look at it). That tells me that you aren’t actually reading what is being said. You are interacting with any thought at all because you don’t even know what is in the post. Why is that?