Affirming the Firmament!

In this post, the SAB offer the following objection under the scientific/historical absurdity category:

(Gen. 1:6-8) The Firmament (Heaven)

"God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the second day) working on a solid firmament. This strange structure, which God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the lower waters."

This objection seems to consist of three parts:

1. The 'strange, solid' structure of the firmament.
2. The fact that it is called heaven.
3. Its function of separating the higher and lower waters.

The 'strange, solid' structure of the firmament.

This objection commonly hinges on the use of the Hebrew word for firmament (raqiya') found in these verses of Genesis. To answer this objection we need only say that the Genesis text contains no indication whatsoever that the firmament is a solid object; one can only read a solid firmament into the text by assuming that it is there in the first place. For a more detailed discussion of this point, see the following article:

• Is the raqiya'('firmament') a solid dome?

The fact that it is called heaven.

The original Hebrew word used for 'Heaven' in verse 8 of Genesis 1 is 'shamayim'. This word has at least 3 meanings in the Bible:

1. Heaven, where God lives.
2. The heavens, or the universe.
3. The local heavens or the sky.

The appropriate usage in a particular instance is determined by the context in which it is used. It is clear from the context in verse 8 that the Bible is describing some kind of space or expanse which God placed between two bodies of water, one of which was on earth and the other above and around the earth, and therefore in verse 8 the Heaven mentioned there takes the third meaning listed above. For a more detailed discussion of this see the following article:

• Linguistics, Genesis and evolution.

Its function of separating the higher and lower waters.

The function of the firmament described in verse 7 is to separate the lower waters (the oceans) from the higher waters, which is exactly what the local heavens, or sky does.

The Higher Waters

There is some difference of opinion between commentators as to what the higher waters actually are; Calvin and Poole take them to be the clouds, which are, as we know, water vapour. Others, such as creation science expert James Patrick Holding say that they were the originally-created, basic building blocks of matter that the earth was made from:

"What, then, are these ‘waters’? We agree with Seely, against a number of commentators, that these are not clouds. 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. 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.’
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.’
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."(James Patrick Holding, 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, Online).

Whatever these higher waters are, the firmament still provides a valid and logical function that cannot be shown to be in opposition to modern science.

Again, the SAB have failed to give a convincing argument in support of their claims about the unreliability of God's Word, and the Sacred Scriptures remain unmoved. Ironically and tragically their claims confirm the truth of the Scriptures time after time (Romans 1: 18-22).

Bye for now.