![]() ![]() The idea of a firmament is entirely contradictory to modern planetary science yet there God is, in our Torah, spending all of creation day number two fashioning it. Gen 1:6 God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water." 1:7 God made the firmament, and it separated the water which was below the firmament from the water which was above the firmament. If you can entertain this notion, and feel yourself underneath this massive curved wall of heaven, straining under the weight of the rainwater it holds back, then you are living on the earth our sages knew, for this is the world, the universe, of which the Bible conceived: בראשית א:ו וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי רָקִיעַ בְּתוֹךְ הַמָּיִם וִיהִי מַבְדִּיל בֵּין מַיִם לָמָיִם. This is what the Bible is describing when it refers to הָרָקִיעַ, traditionally rendered in English Bibles as “the firmament” (from the Latin firmamentum meaning “support”). Only try and picture it as a connecting point between two solids: a flat plate like earth, and a rigid dome like an upside down bowl that vaults it, blue as ocean, from the vast stores of water it contains. If you are unfamiliar with the firmament, then imagine for a moment the horizon, where the earth appears to meet with the sky. Of all the vexing problems modern cosmology poses for the first chapter of Genesis, such as the insufficient biblical timeline of 6 days (as opposed to billions of years) until the appearance of humans, or vegetative bloom before the sun and photosynthesis, the most acute for me is God’s creation of the firmament (רקיע rakia) on the second day. ![]()
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