I am wondering what people think about the following way that the raqia might fit into natural history of the solar system
If data on exoplanets shows that the mediocrity hypothesis is incorrect, then can one entertain the opposite hypothesis: that the solar system and earth are special (opposite of Sagan and Drake’s mediocrity hypothesis) or even that God intervened in the formation of the solar system (opposite of Kant’s mediocrity hypothesis)? Actually, it is impossible to use the scientific method to prove such a hypothesis because God and the actions of God are not measurable.
Although one cannot prove through science that God intervened in the solar system, it is possible to show that there is consistency between scientific models and religious teaching. For example, Rev. Paul Sullins of the Catholic University of America states with reference to the Big Bang model, “The scientific idea that everything began at a moment of time is very consistent with the idea that there’s a personal creator God who spake the world into existence in a moment of time . . . The mythopoeic account that we read in Genesis is very consistent with the scientific account of the Big Bang.” In my estimation, the solar system is another of those cases. The scientific model of solar system formation has four stages and two unexplained events (in bold) in the following scientific sequence of solar system formation. The two unexplained events are the lack of explanation for the separation of the protosun from nebular cloud in which it formed (M67 problem), and the lack of explanation for the separation or gap between the inner and outer circumsolar disk.
Nebular cloud Protosun (separation) Disk (separation) Dry Earth and planets
I have taken the liberty to divide the following passage (Genesis 1:2-10) into the same four sections as the scientific sequence. Notice that the separations (in bold) are at the same positions in the sequences:
Nebular cloud
The earth was formless and void,
and darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and a wind was moving over the surface of the waters.
ProtoSun
Then God said, “Let there be light” and there was light. God saw that the light was good,
and God separated the light from the darkness
God called the light day and the darkness He called night, and there was evening and morning, one day.
Disk
Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters,
and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
God made the expanse and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse, and it was so.
God called the expanse heaven, and there was evening and morning, a second day
Dry Earth
Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.
God called the dry land earth and the gathering of the waters, He called seas; and God saw that it was good.
Nobody would accuse modern planetary scientists of trying to align the natural history of the solar system with the Bible. The Hebrew and Greek texts of Genesis have been around for two or three thousand years, long before the development of the nebular hypothesis and modern planetary science. Comparing the above text with the scientific model of the formation of the solar system is an objective comparison except for two words in the text, “wind” in third line and “expanse” in the Disk paragraph, which have both been the subject of extensive debate among translators, a debate that continues to this day, and are translated with widely different meanings. Other than those words, it is safe to say that the Genesis 1 text and modern planetary science provide two independent sources of information on the formation of the solar system. Thus, comparing the Genesis text above to the scientific model is an objective comparison of two independent sources of information. When two independent sources tell the same version of an event, historians consider this to be strong evidence that the event took place.
Lest someone think that this alignment of the Bible with natural history is a hare-brained idea that no self-respecting theologian would consider, this approach closely follows the interpretation of Arnold Guyot (nebular cloud, light, expanse, earth). Guyot was a Princeton geographer and geologist in the last half of the 19th century. He was a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, namesake of Guyot Hall at Princeton, and namesake of the National Geographic Arnold Guyot Prize that is still awarded each year in his honor. His Genesis interpretation was endorsed by the famous Princeton theologian Charles Hodge, renowned Yale geologist James Dana, and many others. This method of interpretation is called the day-age interpretation, which considers that each of the days of Genesis was an age of time. In its various forms, this was the most common interpretation of Genesis 1 for the last half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. The following are my own subjective interpretations in which I align the text of Genesis with the scientific solar system model. By subjective, I mean that if there are two possible meanings of a Hebrew word or phrase, I choose the one that aligns with science.
• Nebula. Gramatically, this passage includes three clauses describing the same entity. Although ruah sometimes means Spirit, another meaning is wind; thus,I took the third line in the first section from the JPS Tanach (Jewish translation, “the wind of God moved over the waters”) because I think this is the correct meaning. The rest of the text is from the NASB. As with the scientific sequence, this passage describes charateristics of the dark chaos that preceded the earth as an unformed void, darkness, deep (massive), waters, and impacted by wind. If it was a void and also water, then I think this supports the concept of a cloud that contained water rather than a body of liquid water.
• Sun. “Let” is from the jussive verb, which implies a giving of permission, such as let it form naturally. According to Ringgren (Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament), “Let it become light” is an acceptable translation if the darkness became light. I think that God separated the protosun (light) from the darkness in which it formed in order to allow the planets to form with circular orbits. Although it most often referred to a 24-hour day, the word translated as day, yom, also referred to an age or period, such as the length of Jacob’s life (the day of Jacob).
• Disk. According to Gorg (Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament), the “expanse” had the shape of a flat plate (a disk). Gorg based this conclusion on extensive studies of this word (raqia in Hebrew) and similar words in Hebrew and other Semitic languages. The midplane dust layer, from which the planets formed, was primarily water. It bisected the remaining cloud around the protosun, which is the precise meaning of “in the midst.” I interpret the separation as God making a physical gap (separated means physical separation) between the lower part (below) of the disk and the outer part of the disk. The word translated as below, can also refer to a gravitational low point, such as the part of the disk closest to the Sun. The disk is defined as the heavens, which is the solar system
• Earth. The dry earth and the rest of the terrestrial planets formed in the lower part of the disk, the part closest to the sun (“below the heavens,” or at the foot of the heavens). “One place” refers to a central location such as a planet and does not fit well with oceans distributed around the planet. The midplane dust layer in the inner disk was primarily water before it was heated up and sublimated to the gas phase so to call it “waters” is reasonable. The meaning of “dry land” is just as it sounds, dry ground.