Creation - the Light and the Firmament/Part 4
Contents
Creation: the Light and the Firmament (Part 4)
This article, Creation: the Light and the Firmament reflects my personal journey to understand and believe the Biblical account of Creation in Genesis Chapter 1.
The scope is only the first few verses of Genesis, to the separation of waters by an expanse called a firmament. These are the verses I found most challenging.
This article is in four parts: the text of the Creation account in Part 1; several issues, which arise from the way the story was traditionally published, are expanded in Part 2; some thoughts about the Light which preceded the sun, moon and stars in Part 3; and a suggestion that the waters (verse 6) is a metaphor and the firmament separates the temporal from the atemporal or eternal, explained below.
Background
The account of Creation in the first of Moses' five books known as Genesis begins at Chapter 1 verse 1 and ends at Chapter 2 verse 3. Chapter and verse divisions were not present in the original Hebrew text and it would have been more appropriate for Chapter 2 to begin with the more detailed account of the creation of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. After that event the author of Genesis has clearly identified sections relating to key characters and their history.
It seems reasonable to suggest that the opening sentences in the book of Genesis, Gen 1:1-2, also form an introduction or overview: God created the heavens and the earth, and the state of everything prior to this Creation is summarised in verse 2: the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
If that is correct, then God's first creative act was to create light. Historically the light has been thought to illuminate an unformed earth and to provide light before the creation of the sun and moon and stars.
Alternatively, since light is the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and since that is a form of energy with electrical and magnetic fields capable of radiating through space in the form of waves and which may have been a pre-requisite to the formation or creation of matter, it seems reasonable to suggest that Moses used the word Light, which everyone would understand, to indicate something greater which, post Flood, people would not comprehend and for which there were no words anyway.
If that is correct then God's second creative act is described at verse 6:-
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Gen 1:6-8 KJV
So, what is a firmament? What are the waters? And why was it necessary to divide or separate one lot of waters from another lot of waters? And why did all this need to take place before the creation of the dry [land] which God only then called earth? First though, I want to digress into some thoughts about our universe, it's size and substance and get some perspective, and then refer to some analogies.
Some Perspectives
1) Awe
I chose to believe in Creation. I asked (as a prayer) for help to believe. And I admit it can be challenging. There have been so many attempts to explain this passage of scripture; arguments over words; debates over the sequence of events and duration of each day; attempts to reconcile evolutionary beliefs and a geological timescale with a literal reading of the narrative; the development of creationist theories which have morphed into rigid dogma I call creationism; and more recently quantum physics, attempting to use science to discover proof of a spiritual truth.
However, I am convinced that many critics of creation simply have no sense of awe. They are not humbled by the universe around us.
A lot of people live in cities. Academics are inclined to live close to their universities. Theologians may live near their colleges and churches. Few, if any, of the influential voices about creation are heard from the desert. Yet at night, in the desert, darkness can be almost tangible with no background light, no city lights, and the night sky is full of stars. So many more than can be seen from suburbia. So clear through clean air. And if you point a telescope towards any area of darkness between visible stars you can view yet more.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Ps 19:1 (ESV).
Where I live in a semi-rural area there is no street lighting; in one direction the sky is brightened by suburbia over the horizon, in the far distance; and if I stand where trees block the light from my neighbours' security lights I can clearly see the Milky Way and the constellations which are familiar to those of us in the southern hemisphere. Even without a telescope it is possible to identify the planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter when they reflect light from the Sun. My advice is: get out of the city away from the concrete and the traffic and the lights and sounds and pervasive technology and get some perspective. Realise just how small and insignificant our earth is - a pale blue dot[1], as Carl Sagan once described it. We should be in awe. As the psalmist said:-
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
Psalm 8:3-4 (ESV)
At dusk I can also see satellites, and occasionally the International Space Station, as they orbit the earth. A tribute to our current technology and achievement. A cause also for pride and arrogance. Our spacecraft have burst through the thin atmospheric layers surrounding our earth, through the ionosphere[2], past the Van Allen[3] radiation belt and into the vast emptiness of space. But no matter how far these craft travel they will not reach Heaven.
2) An Endless, Boundless, Stable Universe
In the mid-1980's it was my privilege to be introduced to Grote Reber[4] at his home near Bothwell in Tasmania. I had travelled there in the company of someone who knew him well so the occasion was more of a greeting of old friends than a formal occasion. Grote kindly showed me around his home (I recall a shiny silver small three-wheeled car probably a Messerschmitt), and Grote talked a bit about his career as a radio-astronomer. As we left he gave me a typed copy of a paper he had written: Endless Boundless Stable Universe[5]. Thanks to sources on the Internet, including the Web Archive, I don't need to re-type it or scan it for you to read.
Grote should have been one of the most famous people on earth. If you have heard of the astronomer Hubble, or Jansky (the person who first discovered radio waves from space), why have you not heard of Dr Grote Reber? Probably because "Official science purged Reber for trashing Big Bang Creationism from 1976 until his 2002 death. In lectures, papers, articles and letters Reber denounced the Big Bang as: “bunk”, “voodoo”, “hocus–pocus”, “ignorant humbug”, “modern mysticism”, “a mental disease”, “a religious myth” and “a peculiar mental aberration.”[6] That describes someone worth listening to!
At the end of his paper Dr Reber wrote:
Up to the end of the nineteenth century interstellar space was considered vacant. Now it has electrons, protons, gas, dust, magnetic fields, cosmic ray particles etc. By the end of the twentieth century, intergalactic space will probably be similarly populated. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
Time is merely a sequence of events. There is no beginning nor ending. The material universe extends beyond the greatest distances we can observe optically or by radio means. It is boundless. The energy from hot material is recycled by electrodynamic (not thermodynamic) means. The material from dying galaxies is recycled into new galaxies. Details of material and energy distribution change on a small scale. Over any large volume and long time the gross features of the universe remain stable. I am not offering a finished product. I am attempting to instill thinking about the Endless, Boundless, Stable Universe.
Source: Dr Grote Reber (1976) Endless, Boundless, Stable Universe
3) Timeless or Temporal?
A significant characteristic of life on earth is that it is temporal: a word that comes from the Latin word temporalis[7], which means "of time".
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Cor 4:18 KJV
...we look to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Cor 4:18 ESV
The word translated temporal or transient here is πρόσκαιρα, a form of πρόσκαιρος which William Mounce describes as 'continuing for a limited time, temporary, transient'[8].
Our world and everything in it, our universe and all that it contains - it is all temporary, here for a season, it is not everalasting. Our universe, as we see it, may appear endless, boundless and stable but it is not timeless.
4) Analogies and Metaphors
The properties or behaviour of water are often used as an analogy.
Whenever the subject of electricity is taught at a basic level the flow of electrons can be compared with the flow of liquid through a pipe. The fluid pressure equates to voltage; the pressure difference between any two points along the pipe is a potential; the rate of flow equates to current; the effect of friction to slow the flow down and reduce the pressure equates to resistance. But electricity is not a liquid like water. This is only an analogy.
Similarly, when electromagnetic propagation is introduced at a basic level the radiation is likened to waves, like the sea. In the ocean we have have waves called swell, loved by surfers, which roll through slowly with a fairly regular height, the wavelength being the distance between crests and the height of the waves representing amplitude. Count the number of wave crests to pass through over a period of time and you are measuring frequency. The wind can cause smaller waves to form, which mariners call seas, with higher frequency, shorter wavelength and usually lower amplitude. And there are tsunamis: waves with a very low frequency, very long wavelength, almost unnoticeable in an open ocean but powerful and destructive when they reach a shoreline. And each of these waveforms can interact. If the boating weather forecast describes a swell of 2m and seas of 1m one would be wise not to venture out in a small boat. Water, or rather the behaviour of water, is observable by many and therefore suitable for a range of analogies. Even the flow of water in a river can be likened to the relentless flow of time. That is also an analogy.
Can the properties and behaviour of water also be used as a metaphor? Is the use of the term waters in Genesis 1 a metaphor, describing something that God created and then separated, but does not literally mean water? The next section looks at this more closely.
Key Words
Three key words in Genesis 1:6-8 are:
- raqiya‘, translated as firmament or expanse,
- mayim, translated as waters, and
- shâmmayîm, translated as heaven.
1) Firmament
For centuries the Hebrew raqiya‘ was translated only as firmament, but it was not even an English word. When Genesis was translated into Greek, for the Septuagint, raqiya‘ was translated as στερέωμα (stereóma)[9] meaning a support. Later when Genesis was translated in the Latin Bible, known as the Vulgate, raqiya‘ was translated firmamentum. King James' translators borrowed the Latin word anglicised as firmament. Apparently firmamentum[10] also meant a support or prop. The idea of an expanse supporting the heavens may have been read into the text based on other mythologies. Notes in my KJV Bible indicate that it also meant sky. So was the sky an expanse supporting the heaven(s)? But then in verse 8 God called the firmament Heaven. The complexity of both translation and context is covered well in an online article The Firmament: What did God Create on Day 2?[11] including the following information:-.
The noun, raqiya‘, is related to the verb, raqa‘. This verb is used eleven times in the Old Testament and is translated variously in the ESV (and similarly in other translations) as “hammer,” “spread out,” “beat,” “stamp,” or “overlay.” Often it refers to spreading, beating, or hammering a thin layer of metal (gold or silver or bronze) onto an object.
2) Waters
The Hebrew word מים mayim[12] is translated waters in Gen 1:6. Mayim begins with the letter מ mem which represents water, followed by the suffix ים (iym) which makes Hebrew words plural.[13] In a more ancient version of Hebrew mem was drawn as a pictogram[14] like /\/\ (like the waves which form on water) from which we also get our letter M. Some modern languages have words for "water" or "sea" which begin with 'm'[15], for example mare (latin), mar (Spanish), mer (French) and meer (German).
3) Heaven
Within the Hebrew word shamayim שָׁמַיִם you might notice the word mayim מים prefixed by ש sh meaning like. Combined, the word שמים shamayim would mean 'like water'.[16] However, since mayim is plural the word shamayim could be translated heavens. In some verses the word shamayim is translated air or sky[17]. Traditionally, there are at least three heavens: the atmospheric heaven - the air surrounding the earth; the planetary heaven - our solar system; and a third heaven where God dwells.[18]
Summary
The word studies are fascinating, particularly the ancient pictogram for water. But to pursue answers by delving deeper into the words leads inevitably to a study of ancient languages, an evaluation of the cosmologies of nations in the near middle east, and a comparison between the Bible and other texts. It is a rabbit hole which leads to more detail but less clarity. Adam was created after these events: he was not a witness to them. The knowledge and understanding gained by Adam and the generations following him were passed on through Noah and his family - the only survivors from God's people after the flood. Then there were many more generations before Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. God may have enlightened Moses directly, and Moses surely had other resources to turn to. So we have a record of Creation written in the language of an era generations after the events. It's the best we have. Of all the creation myths and stories the one in Genesis is the most concise, clear, rational and believable.[19]
To understand the creative acts on Day Two I think it best now to step back, get the 'big picture', and approach it from a different perspective.
Day 2: The Firmament
Let's summarise what we now know:-
- Our perception of God may need to change. The earth is not the centre of the universe. The universe is vast and amazing. We should develop a sense of awe. What God created is awesome. And God is greater than we can imagine.
- The universe which God created may be endless, boundless and stable but it is not timeless. It is temporal. Our life on earth is transient, temporal and bound by time.
- However, our God is eternal. His abode is in heaven.
- During the creation God saw the need to separate the temporal from the eternal; so He created a divider which he called a firmament. This barrier, raqiya‘ separated the waters mayim below from the waters mayim above.
- We know that the raqiya‘ does not hold up the sky; the raqiya‘ is not like a beaten metal dome above us holding up the stars; nor is it a barrier holding the waters above to stop them falling down to earth. There are no waters above our sky. The raqiya‘ did not prevent our spacecraft from leaving earth, reaching the moon, or exploring the outer parts of our solar system.
- Below the raqiya‘ God gathered the waters (Gen 1:9) and the result was land, sea and air; on which plants and animals would live, within which fish would swim, and through which birds would fly. Whatever the mayim or waters were, it was not just liquid water as we know it. The word mayim is used as a metaphor.
- And whatever God did with the mayim above the raqiya‘ we can be sure of one thing: it is not temporal. The heavens above the raqiya‘ are atemporal, eternal.
Just as the raqiya‘ is not located above the earth, it will not be found at the outer edge of our universe. The firmament is not a physical barrier. It is not distant from us, nor is it visible to us. Except occasionally, when the heavens are opened. Here is one example:-
12 [Jacob] had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac....
16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
From Gen 28:12-17 NIV
Jacob called it the gate of heaven. For that moment it was portal in the firmament through which angels were coming and going.
Conclusion
I hope that something in my journey may have been helpful to you too.
Grant
Notes and References
- ↑ From the book Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan and inspired by a photograph of planet Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot and the quote in full (copyrighted) at A Pale Blue Dot
- ↑ See Wikipedia article: Ionosphere
- ↑ See Wikipedia article: Van Allen radiation belt
- ↑ Dr Grote Reber (1911-2002) was a pioneer in the field of radio-astronomy. The Wikipedia article Grote Reber significantly understates his achievements.
- ↑ Endless, Boundless, Stable Universe is the text of a lecture delivered by Dr Grote Reber at the University of Tasmania on Wednesday, 8 September 1976. The paper was published as a University of Tasmania Occasional Paper 9 and printed by the University of Tasmania in December 1977.
Various copies are scattered around the Internet but Dr Reber also had a personal web-page which was captured a number of times by the Wayback Machine. The most accessible copy then, direct from Dr Reber via the Web Archive, is available for viewing or download at https://web.archive.org/web/20040208134447/http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/galaxy/G_Reber.html - ↑ William Walter Kay BA LL B (2019), Principia Scientific International (PSI) American Copernicus – Grote Reber And The Big Bang
- ↑ Source: https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/temporal
- ↑ Source: William D. Mounce online Greek Dictionary https://www.billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/proskairos
See also Strong's Exhaustive Concordance online: proskairos - ↑ Strong's Exhaustive Concordance online: stereoma
- ↑ World of Dictionary online: firmamentum
- ↑ by Dr. Terry Mortenson, Answers Research Journal 13 (2020): 113–133, Published on August 19, 2020 The Firmament: What did God Create on Day 2?
https://answersresearchjournal.org/firmament-what-did-god-create-day-2/ - ↑ Strong's Exhaustive Concordance online: mayim
- ↑ Benner, Jeff A. Ancient Hebrew Research Center Lesson 14: Hebrew Nouns Refer to the section Learn Hebrew Nouns - Plurals
- ↑ Source: The Ancient Pictographic Hebrew Language
- ↑ Source: https://www.studylight.org/language-studies/hebrew-thoughts.html?article=826
- ↑ Benner, Jeff A. Ancient Hebrew Research Center Heaven (shamayim)
Note: This is just one of three theories cited by this author. - ↑ See Strong's Exhaustive Concordance online: shamayim and refer to the different translations in various contexts.
- ↑ Source: Grace To You website What is heaven?
- ↑ During the 1970s I read English versions of every ancient text I could find, books on ancient cultures, myths, and the Bible. I concluded then that the Bible is different. The characters are real people, not gods and mythological beings. The text of the Bible is clear and understandable, not mystical. I don't remember much now and feel no need to revisit that quest. If you are curious though, try reading the Epic of Gilgamesh which contains a creation story.