Is the raqiya‘ (‘firmament’) a solid dome?
Equivocal language in the cosmology of Genesis 1 and the Old Testament: a response
to Paul H. Seely
by James Patrick Holding
Anti-Christian sceptics often denounce the Bible as teaching a faulty cosmology.
One example is the assertion that the Hebrew word רקיע
raqiya‘, or ‘firmament’ in the KJV, denotes a solid dome
over the earth, so that the Bible is guilty of scientific error. Such enemies of
the Gospel have an ally in the professing evangelical Paul H. Seely, who maintains
that both the social background data and the text of the Bible itself support this
conclusion.
Seely’s conclusion is both presumptuous and untenable, and he fails to recognize
that the description of the raqiya‘ is so equivocal and lacking in
detail that one can only read a solid sky into the text by assuming that it is there
in the first place. One can, however, justifiably understand Genesis to be in harmony
with what we presently know about the nature of the heavens.
Introduction
It is common for sceptics to attack the Bible for teaching a primitive cosmology,
including a flat earth and geocentrism. They use these arguments to claim that the
Bible cannot be the word of God, rightly pointing out that God would not make errors
in his Word. Neither would Jesus, if he were truly God in the flesh, endorse erroneous
teaching. However, such sceptical arguments against the Bible’s cosmology
have been repeatedly refuted by conservative Christians.1
More recently, the enemies of Christ have acquired an ally in the professing evangelical
Paul H. Seely, who has also claimed that the Bible makes scientific errors. In giving
ammunition to sceptics and others who want to destroy the Bible, thus feeding into
the world system and giving it comfort, in some ways Seely is more dangerous to
Christians than atheists. Although his papers are not cited in any Bible commentary
I could find at the Reformed Theological Seminary at Orlando, Florida, his views
seem to be beloved of Christians who desire to compromise the plain teachings of
Scripture with the man-made theories of evolution and billions of years. Therefore
this article is justified as pulling out this tree of misinformation by its roots.
A solid dome?
In particular, Seely has published two papers in the Westminster Theological Journal
claiming that the Bible teaches that there is a solid dome above the earth. He announces
near the very start of his 1991 article:
‘The basic historical fact that defines the meaning of raqiya‘—the
Hebrew word in Genesis 1 which the King James Bible reads as ‘firmament,’
but many modern translations render ‘expanse’—‘is simply
this: all peoples in the ancient world thought of the sky as solid.’2
Following this statement is an impressive and informative list of citations that
goes on to prove just that point: from American Indians to the neighbors of the
Hebrews in the ancient East; from ancient times until the time of the Renaissance,
there were almost no recorded dissenters, leading Seely to the resolution, ‘When
the original readers of Genesis 1 read the word raqiya‘ they thought
of a solid sky.’2 Then, after an analysis of
relevant Biblical texts, Seely concludes:
‘… (T)he language of Genesis 1 suggests solidity … and no usage
of raqiya‘ anywhere states or even implies that it was not a solid object
… The historical-grammatical meaning of raqiya‘ in Gen. 1:6-8 is very
clearly a literally solid firmament.’2
Biblical inerrancy
We will have much to say regarding the specific Old Testament citations that Seely
uses in defence of his thesis, but for the present, I perceive some rather gaping
holes in Seely’s general logic. In terms of the meaning of raqiya‘ and the composition of Genesis, there are three basic possibilities:
First, it is possible that what Seely says is correct. The terms given in Genesis
had only one possible meaning and no other, and Genesis was written, even under
inspiration as Seely professes to believe, with this basic error in thought preserved.
Second, it is possible that the Genesis account was written before any
of the erroneous cosmological theories of solid skies that Seely lists. It is not
an uncommon suggestion that Gen. 1–11 was founded in sources prior to Moses — some
would say the story derives from Abraham; we may even suppose that it derived from
the experiences of Adam. If this is so, and if we can show that the descriptions
in Gen. 1 are compatible with our present-day observations of the natural world,
then Seely’s entire argument collapses. All he has shown is that the Hebrews
and all of those following misinterpreted the meaning of raqiya‘
according to their own perceptions and derived from Genesis the idea of a solid
sky. We may regard this solution as satisfactory, but a question mark remains in
that we have no exact idea of the original composition date of Genesis 1.
Finally, there is a third option. Truly enough, one can indeed read Genesis 1 and
say that a solid sky is in mind. But one can also, with as much justification, read
Genesis 1 and say rather that it comports exactly with what we know today of the
atmosphere and the solar system, with or without adjustments made for phenomenological
language, and this is because of the utterly equivocal nature of the language
used in Genesis 1.
Certainly Seely is correct to quote Warfield’s dictum that it was not the
purpose of the writer of Genesis3
to describe the nature of the sky; Seely is also correct (if a bit chauvinistic
in tone) to say that ‘there is no reason to believe the Hebrews were any less
scientifically naive than their neighbors.’4
Where the line must be drawn is before the implication that inerrancy is not compromised
by reading a solid sky into Genesis 1, and allowing no other interpretation. It
does not do to say that ‘God has sometimes allowed his inspired penman to
advert to the scientific concepts of their own day.’5 Seely confuses adaptation to human finitude
with accommodation to human error—the former does
not entail the latter.6
As I know all too well, having spent several years confronting critics of the Bible,7 such ‘allowances’ as
Seely asserts easily open the door to ridicule of the inspired Word, and the critics
are correct to see such rationalizations as Seely’s as totally invalid.
It also opens the door to those who claim that the Bible writers’ teaching
on morality was also a reflection of ‘the scientific concepts of their own
day’. For example, was their teaching against adultery and homosexual acts
in ignorance of the modern scientific ‘fact’ that such behaviour is
‘in the genes’, programmed by evolution? This is hardly a caricature,
since some liberals already use such arguments,8
showing that Seely’s attitude is the top of a perilous slippery slope. (Of
course, it is fallacious to claim that behaviour is completely controlled by genes,9 and the ‘gay gene’
finding has been strongly questioned.10)
Rather than wave the white flag over inerrancy with this compromise over raqiya‘,
it is better served, under this third option, to realize that the inspired author
of Genesis was allowed to use the only terms available to him in his language to
describe natural phenomena, but was not allowed to offer anything more
than the vaguest, most minimal descriptions of those phenomena, thereby leaving
nearly everything unsaid about their exact nature. Genesis 1 was perfectly designed
to allow that interpretation which accorded with actual fact, for it ‘says
nothing more than that God created the sky or its constituent elements’
while remaining ‘completely silent’ about what those elements
were.11 It only depended upon where
one started: if one starts with the presumption of a solid sky, one will read into
the text a solid sky. If one starts with a modern conception, the text, as we shall
see, permits that as well.
Put another way: if today we say ‘the sky is blue’ to a person who is
a member of a ‘primitive’ society, and they happen to define the ‘sky’
as ‘the solid expanse over our head’, this does not make our original
statement, ‘the sky is blue,’ in error. Their thought-concept is indeed
in error, but our original statement is not—even if we both happen to use
the same word, ‘sky’, to describe different concepts. So it is that
God, using an inspired penman under the constraints of human language, did not err
in Genesis. The cosmology has been kept so basic and equivocal that one must force
certain meanings into the text and analyze what the writer ‘must have been
thinking’ (as well as pay no attention to the fact that God, not man, is the
ultimate author of the text) in order to find error.
Solid proof
Sailhamer12 warns us that:
‘ … we must be careful to let neither our own view of the
structure of the universe nor what we think to have been the view of ancient people
to control our understanding of the biblical author’s description’
of the raqiya‘; rather, we must come to the text itself and ask what
it says. After beginning his case by spending several pages delineating ‘the
views of ancient people’, Seely finally follows Sailhamer’s
dictum and asks whether there is anything in the OT itself that ‘clearly
states or implies that the raqiya‘ is not solid’.13 He first submits:
‘ The fact that [the raqiya‘] was named “heaven(s)” in Gen.
1:8 and birds fly in the heaven(s) (Deut. 4:17) seems to imply that the
raqiya’ was not solid. But the word shamayim (heaven[s]) is broader
in meaning than raqiya‘. It encompasses not only the raqiya‘
(v. 8, Ps. 19:6; 148:4) but also the space above the raqiya‘ (Ps.
2:4; 11:4; 139:8) as well as the space below (Ps. 8:8; 79:2). Hence birds fly in
the heavens, but never in the raqiya‘. Rather, birds fly upon
the face or in front of the raqiya‘ (Gen. 1:20).13
This phrase upon the face (surface) of the raqiya‘
is important in that it implies that the raqiya‘ was neither space nor
atmosphere. For birds do not fly upon the surface or in front
of space or air, but rather in space or air.
This distinction is illustrated in the case of fish, which no one would say swim
upon the surface of or in front of the water (Gen.
7:18), but rather in the water (cf. Exodus 7:18, 21).’13
The problem with this argument is that the claim that shamayim is ‘broader
in meaning’ than raqiya‘ in Genesis14
is simply groundless—the result of circular reasoning. In Genesis 1:8, the
implication is that the raqiya‘ has the name shamayim in
an exact one-to-one correspondence, just as is the case for the ‘Earth’
and the ‘Seas’ when they are named (v. 10). There is no reason to see
a broader meaning of shamayim than an exact equation with raqiya‘.
In fact, Seely’s only reason for saying that shamayim and raqiya‘
are not equal seems to be that it would result (because of verses like Deuteronomy
4:17, and other like Psalm 11:4) in the absurd conclusion that the birds fly
or God sits enthroned ‘inside’ a solid structure! In other words, Seely
has done precisely what Sailhamer has warned against: he has started with the idea
of the solid sky, based on the views of ancient people, and forced onto the text
divisions in the shamayim that are simply not specified, and in the case
of Genesis 1, not even permitted, by the text.
We therefore argue that raqiya‘ is intended rather to refer to that
which serves to ‘separate the earth from all that is beyond it’,15 (that is, what we call the atmosphere, and interstellar
space) and that because no differentiation is made otherwise, there is no reason
why Genesis can not be read to permit a description of the heavens and the natural
order as we know it.
What of the other verses cited? Psalm 19:6 says, ‘It rises at one end of the
heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat’
(NIV). This occurs after one of only two uses of raqiya‘ in the Psalms,
in verse 1: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth
his handiwork’ (KJV).16
The poetic parallel of verse 1 strongly suggests that raqiya‘ and
shamayim are meant to be equal in some sense, and in that case this verse
would be contrary to Seely’s argument. But without any specific definitions
from the author of this Psalm, any argument is simply speculative. Psalm 19:6 offers
support for neither Seely’s position nor my own.
Psalm 148:4 says: ‘Praise Him, highest heavens, And the waters that are above
the heavens!’ (NASB) No comparison is made to the raqiya‘
at all, and we can hardly assume without any definition or comparison from
the writer of this Psalm that the two were or were not in exact correspondence;
much less can it be assumed that there is embedded in this passage all of the given
assumptions about what the shamayim consists of. At the same time, that
the Psalmist refers in this poetic genre to multiple heavens no more means a division
in types of heavens than his reference to the ‘most High God’ (78:56)
and a ‘lowest hell’ (86:13) means that he knew of a God lower than the
highest one or of a hell higher than the lowest one! Like the previous verse from
the Psalms, this verse supports no specific interpretation.
Psalms 2:4, 11:4, and 139:8 all refer to God’s ‘location’ in heaven.
It is difficult to see (especially since no explanation is offered) how these prove
that there is some portion of shamayim that is ‘above’ the
raqiya‘. Not one of these verses speaks of the shamayim
in reference to the raqiya‘; nor do they make any kind of distinction
between them.
Psalms 8:8 and 79:2 both refer to ‘birds of the shamayim’,
again, with no reference to the raqiya‘. Moreover, the ‘birds
of the shamayim’ are referred to in Gen. 1:26, a verse that Seely
bypasses without comment! There is nothing in either of these verses, especially
in light of Gen. 1:8 and 26, that in any way indicates that the two words refer
to anything different within their contexts. Seely appears to make the differentiation
only because to do otherwise would lead to an absurd conclusion.
That leaves Gen. 1:20. Many commentators regard this verse as phenomenological.17,18
But what of Seely’s ‘fish in the sea’ distinction? The analogy
is in fact completely inappropriate. Water presents a definitively visible and tactile
barrier to the human observer; the heavens do not. We know where the water starts,
but where does the sky start? How high must something be to be ‘in the sky’?
2 Samuel 18:9 describes Absalom caught in a tree by his hair as hanging ‘between
heaven and earth’. Is heaven very low, or is this a very tall tree, and was
Absalom riding tall in the saddle? Ezekiel (8:3) was ‘lifted up between the
earth and the heaven’ in his vision. No altimeter accompanied him,
but it is difficult to see why any great height needs to be implied. 1 Chr. 21:16
refers to ‘the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth’
(NIV). So does one have to be at least as tall as Jerusalem to be considered ‘between’
heaven and earth?’ (If I were Absalom or Ezekiel, or the woman called ‘wickedness’
[Zech. 5:9], I’d consider flight insurance.)
Genesis 1:7, read with wooden literalism, would suggest that the raqiya‘
began at the very surface of the waters! I don’t think that even Seely
would read a solid raqiya‘ into that one—this is a
reductio ad absurdum of Seely’s position.
The point is that whereas water presents a tangible and identifiable starting point,
the ‘sky’ does not, and it is to the credit of the OT writers (as well
as evidence of their inspiration, and perhaps of the equivocal language they were
inspired to use) that they do not say where the shamayim/raqiya‘
‘begins’ and ‘ends. The only verse that Seely can offer that comes
close to such an estimation is Gen. 1:20, which does not say precisely where the
shamayim starts in relation to the ground (for there is no indication that
birds flying higher are considered to be any closer to the raqiya‘
than those flying low to the ground); nor for that matter does it say or even imply
what this raqiya‘ is made of. Even so, the parallel in Gen. 1:26
strongly suggests that birds live in the shamayim just as fish live in
the sea—and thereby points to the words of Gen. 1:20 as purely phenomenological,
said from the point of view of a writer on earth. Now Seely is aware of the phenomenological
interpretation, for he notes:
‘Gen. 1:17 also testifies that the raqiya‘ is not air or atmosphere
for it says that God placed the stars (and probably the sun and moon) ‘in
the raqiya‘ of the heavens.’ But the stars are not located
in the air or atmosphere. Rather (as anyone can tell on a clear night away from
city lights) they look like they are embedded in a solid vault
which is exactly why scientifically naive peoples believe in a solid
vault, and why 1:17, in accordance with that belief, says God placed the stars in
the raqiya‘.’19
I am not sure what Seely means when he says that the sun and moon were ‘probably’
placed in the raqiya‘ - the text clearly enough indicates that they
were (vv. 14–15). As to whether the stars were placed in the raqiya‘,
that is an open question. Commentators have often noted that the creation of the
stars is added on to verse 16 as something of a parenthetical note.20 Whether they actually are or are not ‘in’
the raqiya‘/shamayim is left unsaid.21
If they are not, but the sun and moon are, then raqiya‘ may be meant
to indicate our solar system only.22
If the kowkabim (stars) are intended to be within the bounds of the raqiya‘,
then Young’s definition noted above, that the raqiya‘ indicates
only that which separates the earth from what is beyond it, may hold true; or else,
there is no reason, despite Seely, why the phenomenological approach cannot be used:
that the luminaries are created for the express purpose of being ‘signs, and
for seasons’ shows a thoroughly earth-bound phenomenological perspective.23 It is shocking that all
that Seely offers contrary to this is a vague assertion that ‘anyone can tell’
that from the perspective of earth, the stars look like they are ‘embedded
in a solid vault’. I have never gotten such an impression at all
about the stars. Nor, it seems, did at least one biblical writer, perhaps the earliest
of them, think that the expanse was solid. The natural implication of Job 26:7 is
that the writer understood that the stars, like the earth, were hung upon nothing.
Nowhere does Genesis even use words like ‘embedded’ to describe the
relationship.24
Air up there
A keystone to one of my own arguments is that the inspired authors, working under
the constraints of human language, simply had no words to use that would adequately
describe the creation of the raqiya‘ as ‘open air’, and
so were made to leave the descriptive details of the matter unsaid. Seely does try
to offer some alternatives, however:
‘… (W)hen God divided the light from the darkness nothing
was made. But in order to divide the tangible upper ocean (the
“waters above the raqiya4”—JPH) from
the lower ocean the raqiya‘ was made (‘asah).
The combination of dividing two tangibles (as opposed to intangibles) with something
that was made (‘asah), a verb which often means ‘manufacture,’
implies a tangible, i.e., a solid divider. It would be unnatural to use (‘asah)
to say that God made space. Nor is it a particularly apt word for saying God made
air.’25
There is a flaw in this line of reasoning as well. Seely has asserted that the ‘air’
or ‘space’ which surrounds us is ‘intangible,’ and this
is correct from a strictly phenomenal point of view. But in actuality, the ‘air’
and ‘space’ around and above us is not strictly ‘intangible’
at all. It is rather composed of gas molecules (oxygen, carbon dioxide, etc.) that
are too small for us to feel or otherwise perceive unaided, and further out into
space there is a wide variety of material such as spaceborne dust, gases, and so
on. There is no reason why ‘made’ should be an inappropriate verb for
the creation of such things, unless Seely can show elsewhere that creation of something
similar required a different verb—and that he certainly cannot do, unless
he has some hidden passages in the Old Testament up his sleeve. This is indeed a
key problem for Seely’s thesis: he has no way of proving that raqiya‘
would not also be used for the creation of something made of gas, dust, or
liquid because he has no comparison points within the text of the Old Testament
to offer.
Now I am by no means asserting that the human writer of Genesis 1 had some knowledge
of terrestrial gases or extraterrestrial objects; that is not the point. That author
(and later readers) could very well have understood the raqiya‘ as
Seely supposes; but in being inspired to say that a raqiya‘ was ‘made’,
without saying anything about its nature, the word permits us today to recognize
the raqiya‘ for what it most likely is: An ‘expanse’
of terrestrial gases—or perhaps also extraterrestrial matter within our solar
system or throughout space.
Now an obvious question is, if Seely has decided (in spite of having no comparison
point to say so) that these words are not ‘apt’ for the creation of
air and space, then what words would he have used that were available in Hebrew?
Claiming that raqiya‘ was a ‘particularly unfortunate’
choice (thus denying the plenary verbal inspiration, putting him outside the evangelical
camp), since it derives from a root that is used of hammering out metal into thin
plates, he makes these suggestions for replacements:
‘It could have been said that God put room or space
(revach) as in Genesis 32:16 (17) or space (rachowq)
as in Josh. 3:4, between the two bodies of water. If air (a word never appearing
in the OT) had been in mind as the divider, ruwach (‘wind’)
could have been used, as in Exod. 14:21, or neshamah
(‘breath’) as in Gen. 2:7; Ps. 150:6.’26
A closer look at each of these word choices reveals them to be inadequate. The first
word (revach) appears only twice in the OT, in Genesis 32 and in Esther
4:14, and in both cases carries the sense of an enlargement of a previous
space or thing. In Esther it refers to the ‘space’ and deliverance given
to the Jewish population! In Genesis it refers to the increasing of space between
two droves of herd animals. One can readily see someone like Seely arguing that
the use of this word would imply a space between a solid dome and the surface of
the earth! It would not by itself serve for a space that reaches upward to an indefinite
or infinite place, and at the very least has not been shown to be a better choice
than raqiya‘.
The same criticism could be levelled against the second word, rachowq,
which in Joshua 3:4 does not describe space between two bodies of water, but the
space needed between the people and the Ark of the Covenant. It is used in the OT
in the sense of describing distance in time, space, and even value, but even so
is made in reference to the distance between two specific points, and therefore
does not serve at all for an infinite or indefinite upward reach, and again, at
the very least has not been shown to be a better choice than raqiya‘.
Ruwach (wind) is the word that is actually used in reference to two bodies
of water: it is the force that divided the Red Sea. It is used throughout the OT
to describe the meteorological force of wind, breath (inhaling or exhaling), and
also a ‘spirit’. This word would hardly serve to describe an infinite/indefinite
expanse above the earth. Its main focus seems to be movement: note that when the
two words ruwach and shamayim are used in tandem in ‘meteorological’
contexts, the indication is that ruwach is a phenomenon of the shamayim
(1 Kings 18:45; Jer. 49:36; Dan. 8:8; Zech. 2:6). There is clearly a distinction
in the words that would make ruwach an inappropriate choice to describe
the heavens themselves.
The last word (neshamah) is Seely’s most absurd selection. It is
used in the OT in the sense of one’s life-breath, spirit or soul. If the raqiya‘
could have been called a soul or a spirit, or a life-breath, then whom does
it enliven, and who breathed it out? This term might have been useful under the
rubric of a New Age ‘Gaia’ theology, but it would not make a great deal
of sense in the context of Genesis!
We are left with the assertion that raqiya‘ and ‘asah
are the most suitable choices available to the Hebrew, and Seely has failed to show
otherwise. The Hebrew language had no holding place at this time for the concept
of terrestrial gases or space-borne particles, nor for the concept of an infinite
or immeasurable upward space, and the combination of words that was used in Genesis
offered the only choice.27
The Raqiya‘ in other books: Ezekiel and Exodus
As a final effort to argue that the raqiya‘ should be understood
as solid, Seely appeals to the use of the word in the book of Ezekiel, where it
appears five times describing something that is clearly some sort of solid, crystalline
canopy. As he puts it:
‘…(I)n Ezekiel 1 the nature of a firmament is described … It
was a divider of some kind over the heads of four cherubim (vv. 22–25), and
on top of it was a throne with a man on it (v. 26). As to the composition of the
firmament, it looked like “terrible crystal or ice.”
Inasmuch as the throne mentioned was apparently sitting on the firmament (cf.
Exod. 24:10) and the firmament looked like crystal or ice, it is apparent that the
firmament is solid and is certainly not mere atmosphere or space or simply phenomenal
language … Having then this clear definition of raqiya‘ as a solid
divider, one is hermeneutically bound to interpret the raqiya‘ in Genesis
as solid unless there is some clear reason to differentiate the one from the other.’28
There are plenty of ‘clear reasons’ to make the differentiation, the
most obvious being that there is no indication at all that Ezekiel considered this
raqiya‘ to be identical with the one in Genesis—or perhaps,
there was no faulty inspiration given to him which identified one with the other.
It is not described as the raqiya‘ of shamayim, merely as
a raqiya‘, and there is no indication that a raqiya‘
can only be made of something solid (as opposed to perhaps a gas or liquid—would
Ezekiel have regarded this covering as a raqiya‘ if it had been a
soap bubble?). But the clinching reason to not equate the two is that to do so would
also imply that cherubim were literally the sort of amalgamated zoo that Ezekiel
describes—or that God had a solid, humanlike form and sat on a literal, physical
throne! Surely Seely does not wish to imply that the visions granted to Ezekiel
and to the elders of Israel depicted some sort of actual reality in the same way
that our own world is a reality? Theologians are certainly correct to say that our
own consciousness is unable to truly, fully comprehend what these creatures
are like and what these visions represented; all of these things were rather conversions
into forms that could be perceived by human senses. By God’s standard, they
were crude and thoroughly inadequate constructs, but they served as the most that
the minds of men could endure.
It is therefore hazardous to suppose that the raqiya‘ of Ezekiel
and that implied in Exodus (24:10) may be used to interpret the raqiya‘
of Genesis 1 as a solid dome. In fact, this even applies if they are meant
to be understood in correspondence. Theoretically, angelic and spiritual beings,
which are ‘intangible’ to us, might regard what we consider to be ‘intangible’
as ‘liquid’ or ‘solid’. As long as we are uninformed as
to these matters (and we will certainly remain so for quite some time!) it is foolish
to judge these texts by our own perceptions and experiences and apply them to our
own reality.
Waters above the heavens
In a second article, Seely goes a step further and attempts to show that the Genesis
account teaches the existence of ‘a veritable sea located above’ the
solid raqiya‘.29
Now to begin this section, here is an analogy regarding the first of the Ten Plagues
that will prove useful. We have a descriptive indication that the waters of the
Nile were turned to ‘blood’, but we need not automatically believe that
it was ‘blood’ in the sense of having erythrocytes, platelets, plasma,
etc.30 By the same token, when Genesis
speaks of ‘waters’ above the raqiya‘, we are hardly to
suppose that it was a substance universally composed of two parts hydrogen, one
part oxygen. Nor for that matter can we suppose the distribution of these ‘waters’
was uniform above the raqiya‘, although we do not doubt that some
ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, reached that conclusion of their own accord.
What, then, are these ‘waters’? We agree with Seely, against a number
of commentators, that these are not clouds.31
Rather, it is our suggestion that these ‘waters’ were the originally-created,
basic building blocks of matter that the earth was made from, and otherwise became
all that was created outside of our atmosphere and/or our solar system.32 We would hardly expect the author of Genesis to
make distinctions between things like stellar matter, methane gas, asteroids, comets,
etc. A simple elemental term, ‘waters,’ would be sufficient, especially
in light of the fact that these same waters were made into ‘Seas’ below
the raqiya‘, and even so after the primordial ‘waters’
had been coalesced into different forms. The term ‘waters’ would serve
in the minds of the pre-scientific just as ‘blood’ stood for whatever
actual substance the Nile became.
We are not told what becomes of these ‘waters’ above the raqiya‘
in Genesis. This is not surprising, and in fact accords with the biblical record,
for as Seely rightly observes, citing Steck:
‘…(B)y not naming the waters above the firmament as he named the waters
below (Gen. 1:9-10) God signified that he excluded them from the world made for
man.’33
This clue is more significant than Seely realizes. No further revelation is given
about the nature of these waters; nor is it said what has happened to them. As far
as the inspired writers knew, these waters were still ‘up there,’ and
if they started with the conception of an ocean, they would continue with that conception.
At the same time, as long as they referred only to the ‘waters’ without
any further description, they were not inspired to error. The ‘waters’
were still there, but God had made further use of them in His creation, and the
terminology was hardly available to say that things were any different. (Hence,
it is appropriate that Psalms 148:4 only refers to these ‘waters’ and
says nothing else about them.)
With that, we are only left with some figurative language associated with the Flood
account. Seely reports:
‘In Genesis 7:11–12 water above the firmament is allowed to fall as
rain by opening the floodgates of the firmament; and in 8:2 the water is restrained
from falling by closing those same floodgates.’34
This works well as long as it is assumed proven that raqiya‘ and
shamayim are not equal in the mind of the Genesis writer, but as we have
shown, this is not proven at all. This water that came from above could have come
from any point in the expanse. It is not my place here to offer any speculations
on the mechanisms of the Flood, but it is worth noting that this term ‘floodgates
of heaven’ is used elsewhere in the OT in the context of heavy rain
(2 Kings 7:2, 19; Mal. 3:10). Perhaps the ancient readers of this text did envision
a solid dome with an ocean above it, but if so, they read things into the inspired
and equivocal language of the text every bit as much as Seely or I have.
Conclusion
Theologians of a liberal persuasion have often claimed that the idea of special
or propositional revelation is ‘nonsense’ because human language is
inadequate to the task of communicating divine truths. This argument is deeply flawed,
but it does contain a kernel of truth. Concepts of which human beings are thoroughly
ignorant, and would require several steps of scientific exploration to understand,
are merely simple matters in the mind of God. To the Hebrews and other ‘scientifically
naive’ peoples, basic cosmology was still in this realm. But it was not beyond
God’s ability to present the truth without any mix of error. Equivocal language,
terms left precisely undefined, served until such time as our own understanding
was sufficient to comprehend the wonders of God’s creation. It is singularly
unfortunate that men of ancient times and even up unto the present day have imposed
their own concepts of what is true upon the Word of God.
Related articles
References
- I analyse the usual ‘proof texts’ found in sceptical
websites and show that the sceptics have grossly twisted them, in Holding, J.P.,
What Shape is the Earth In? An Evaluation of Biblical Cosmology. Return
to text.
- P.H. Seely, The firmament and the water above. Part I:
The meaning of raqiya‘ in Gen. 1:6–8, Westminster Theological Journal
53:227–240, 1991. Return to text.
- I adhere to the thesis of Mosaic composition
of the Pentateuch; however, I do not believe that this excludes the possibility
that a good part of Genesis, particularly chapters 1–11, derived from pre-Mosaic
sources which were incorporated into Moses’ own work. This was argued cogently
by Wiseman, P.J., ed. Wiseman, D.J., Clues to Creation in Genesis, Marshall,
Morgan & Scott, 1977, Part 1; see also Grigg, R.M.,
Did Moses really write Genesis?
Creation 20(4):43–46, 1998. Hence
for the purposes of this paper I will leave the question of the immediate authorship
of Genesis 1 indeterminate. Return to text.
- Seely, Ref. 2, p. 234. Return to text.
- Seely, P.H., The firmament and the water above. Part II: The Meaning
of ‘the water above the firmament’ in Gen. 1:6–8, Westminster
Theological Journal 54:31–46, 1992. Return
to text.
- These and other important issues relating to biblical inerrancy
are well covered in Geisler, N.L. and Nix, Wm. E., A General Introduction
to the Bible, Moody Press, Chicago, revised and expanded, pp. 62–64,
1986. They give the example of a mother telling her four-year-old: ‘you grew
inside my tummy’—this is not false, but language simplified to the child’s
level. ‘Tummy’ is equivocal language—it can mean ‘stomach’
or anything within the abdominal cavity. Conversely, ‘the stork brought you’
is an outright error. Return to text.
- Holding, J.P.,
Answering a List of Biblical Contradictions. Return to text.
- Spong, J.S., Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality,
Harper San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, 1984. For a comprehensive critique, see
Bott, M.R. and Sarfati, J.D.,
What’s wrong with Bishop Spong?, Apologia 4(1):3–27,
1995. Return to text.
- Bergman, J., Creationism and the problem
of homosexual behaviour, Journal of Creation
9(1):121–130, 1995. Return to text.
- Rice, G., Anderson, C., Risch, N. and Ebers, G., Male homosexuality:
Absence of linkage to microsatellite markers at Xq28, Science 284(5414):665–667,
1999; Perspective by Wickelgren, I., Discovery of ‘gay gene’ questioned,
same issue, p. 517. Return to text.
- Aalders, G.Ch., Genesis Vol. 1, Zondervan, Grand Rapids,
MI, p. 61, 1981. Return to text.
- Sailhamer, J.H., The Pentateuch as Narrative,
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, p. 89, 1992. Return to text.
- Seely, Ref. 2, p. 237. Return to text.
- A further assumption is that the author of Genesis 1 holds exactly
the same cosmological view as the author(s) of the cited Psalms, and uses the same
terms in exactly the same way. The lack of precision in meaning might be ascribed
to the looser constraints of poetic narrative. Return to text.
- Young, E.J., Studies in Genesis One, Presbyterian and
Reformed Publishing, New Jersey, p. 90, 1973. Return to text.
- The only other verse in Psalms that uses raqiya‘
is 150:1. Seely offers no analysis of this verse, but we might suggest that any
‘sanctuary’ of God would not be limited, in the context of praising
God for His power, to a mere solid dome—regardless of how large it is.
Return to text.
- Matthews, K.A., Genesis 1–11:26, Broadman and Holman,
Nashville, TN, pp. 150, 154, 1996. Return to text.
- Wenham, G.J., Genesis 1–15, Word Books, Waco, TX,
p. 24, 1987. Return to text.
- Seely, Ref. 2, p. 237. Return to text.
- See Matthews, Ref. 17, pp. 154–5: The creation of the stars
is ‘treated almost as an aside … as if a mere afterthought’;
Young, Ref. 15, p. 94: ‘appears almost as an afterthought’;
Wenham, Ref. 18, p. 21: ‘almost as an afterthought’.
Return to text.
- At least, this is left unsaid as far as Genesis 1 is concerned.
Other verses indicate that the stars are in (‘of’) the shamayim,
but may indicate a later and less precise (or more phenomenological) cosmology.
Return to text.
- The Hebrew word kowkab did not make any distinction between
what we now call ‘stars’ and planets, so that it might be objected that
at least some of the kowkabim ought to have been said to be within the
confines of the raqiya‘ if my ‘solar system’ idea is
correct. But I see no reason why, if Genesis is indeed less concerned with cosmology
than with pointing to God as the Creator, anyone should tender this objection. A
second diversion explaining that some kowkabim were in the raqiya‘
while others were not would have caused needless confusion to ancient readers
who would not have had any possible reference point to understand the concept. Return to text.
- Matthews, Ref., 17, p. 154–155, writes that the description
of the celestial placements presupposes a human view: ‘The narrative stresses
their function as servants, subordinate to the interests of the earth.’
Return to text.
- Aalders, Ref. 11, p. 65, notes that Genesis ‘says nothing
about precisely where these heavenly bodies are located, and what their relationship
is to each other and to the earth.’ Return to text.
- Seely, Ref. 2, p. 237. Return to text.
- Seely, Ref. 2, pp. 237–8. Return to text.
- An equation of raqiya‘ with atmosphere, or with
atmosphere plus miscellaneous spaceborne matter, comports well with descriptions
in the OT elsewhere of the shamayim comparing it to a scroll, a curtain,
or a tent. Return to text.
- Seely, Ref. 2, p. 239. Return to text.
- Seely, Ref. 5, p. 31. Return to text.
- It is typical to make the suggestion that the ‘blood’
was actually some sort of algal bloom (‘red tide’), or perhaps silt
and mud from further up the Nile. Return to text.
- Seely, Ref. 5, p. 37ff. Return to text.
- The physicist Dr Russell Humphreys
has proposed that the heavenly bodies were created out of water, and this has successfully
predicted their observed magnetic fields far better than evolutionary models. See
Humphreys, D.R., The Creation of Planetary Magnetic Fields, CRSQ 21(3):140–149,
1984; Good news from Neptune: The Voyager 2 magnetic measurements, CRSQ
27(1):140–149, 1990; and Sarfati, J.D.,
The Earth’s magnetic field: Evidence that the earth is
young, Creation 20(2):15–17, 1998. Return to text.
- Seely, Ref. 5, p. 34. Return to text.
- Seely, Ref. 5, p. 44. Return to text.
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