Good Lord’s Day to you, John.
(1) I have been saying that “windows of heaven,” understood in a literal-historical way, has great explanatory power in the context of Genesis 7: windows of heaven provide a literal-historical mechanism by which the literal-historical waters above the literal-historical dome of raqi’a/heaven are able to come to the surface of the earth and flood it in a literal-historical way.
Does a literal-historical interpretation of the windows of heaven have any explanatory power for an ancient Hebrew reader who believed in an ancient Near East cosmology? I’m not asking whether, in the light of what we know about science now, it is the only viable interpretation. I am simply asking whether an ancient Hebrew might reasonably have interpreted the windows in a literal-historical way.
(2)
Why are you afraid to answer this question, John? You have twice dodged this question.
Of course, you are not obliged to answer it. You do not answer to me, but to one who is far, far higher than I. (As do I.)
At the same time, everyone who reads this thread must by now have come to the conclusion that you do not have a good answer to the question–otherwise you would have given it already.
Peace,
Chris Falter