The firmament

[Corvus]

I have heard said by some creationists that there was once a water canopy above the earth.

[6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
[7] 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.
[8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

What seems exceedingly odd to me is that the stars occupy this firmament:

[14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
[15] And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
[16] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
[17] And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
[18] And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

As do the birds:

[20] And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

So if the stars were sandwiched between an open area between two waters, where is the water above us? What is the second water the bible speaks about?

How could this water flood the world, according to the water canopy interpretation?

[steen]

And another problem is the vapor pressure of this canopy. Vapor pressure is essentially the weight of the water above the surface. Higher vapor pressure means higher temperature. Somebody once did the claculation in the Delphi forums that if there was 100 feet of water (That would be a rather minor flood, leaving mountains uncovered), Adam would have lived in a pressure cooker of about 1200 degrees.

[Corvus]

That's only if the water canopy is around the earth. According to genesis, the stars are in the firmament along with the birds. So is this water canopy surrounding the whole universe?

[micatala]

The idea of a firmament does seem to need some explaining. It is one reason I think we should take Genesis 1 and 2 metaphorically.

My understanding is the Hebrews had the idea of a 'dome of the sky', referred to as the firmament, and rain was the result of water coming down from above this firmament through holes which were occasionally opened.

The water canopy idea espoused by modern creationists is, it seems to me, an attempt to keep the idea of 'the waters above' as literally true while dispensing with the idea of the solid dome.

As steen mentions, there are a number of problems with the idea of a water canopy with sufficient water to create a worldwide flood.

Even up to Copernicus time, the stars were thought to be fixed to the firmament, with the sun, moon and other planets (all of these were referred to as planets at the time) occuping the space between the outer dome of stars and the earth.

[ST88]

As steen mentions, there are a number of problems with the idea of a water canopy with sufficient water to create a worldwide flood.

As I understand it, and before otseng says something, in YEC the majority of the water from the flood was in underground chambers which were unleashed as "the fountains of the deep." If true, this would resolve the water canopy problems.

As far as the firmament itself, I don't know how the stars get in there. Various stars have been observed to move, which discounts the entire firmament hypothesis. Barnard's star, for example, moves about 10 arseconds per year.

[QED]

As I understand it, and before otseng says something, in YEC the majority of the water from the flood was in underground chambers which were unleashed as "the fountains of the deep." If true, this would resolve the water canopy problems.

It transpires that deep bore-holes do release an unexpected quantity of water and National Geographic has carried an article describing how Japanese researchers have established reasons for this in the lab. I'm not going to convert into a 6-day creationist on this evidence alone, but it is only fair to bring it up

[juliod]

"the fountains of the deep." If true, this would resolve the water canopy problems.

Only if gravity is reversed.

I think we should stick with the canopy. It's impossible too, but less impossible.

DanZ

[Lotan]

That's only if the water canopy is around the earth. According to genesis, the stars are in the firmament along with the birds. So is this water canopy surrounding the whole universe?

I'm waiting for Voyager to smash into it. Should be any time now...

[israeltour]

I just addressed this in another section. I hate to duplicate postings, but I don't want to mix topics either, so here's the posting in its entirety:

... so here is my literal interpretation of Day 1: The world already existed, during time of complete darkness over all the earth, probably after a meteor impact 65 million years ago. Hovering over now void earth, God said, "Let there be light", and enough mist and dust dissipated for light to finally hit the earth again. Since only half the earth is in the sun's view at a time, there was indeed a separation of the light from the darkness. God called "light" half day, and the "dark" half He called night. He saw it, and it was good. It was the end of a new beginning, one day.

But according to Genesis the Sun and Moon were not created until day 3.
It's nice to have a bit of creative thinking going on though.

Actually, it was day 4, but I'm glad you brought that up:

Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to dieivde the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth" and it was so.

During days 1 through 3, there was only enough dust and mist dissipated in the atmosphere for light to show through the firmament. On day 4 though, God cleared enough away so that the sun, moon, and stars could finally be seen through the firmament. Notice that these verses don't say God placed them in space, but in the firmament... from the perspective of a person, it would certainly appear like that's what God did. This shows that the writer thought he was talking about something God did in the firmament, and there sets up the context for verses 16 through 19:

Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkenss. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

If we infer from verses 14 and 15 that Moses thought he was writing of an event that took place in the firmament, it is therefore no surprise that he would think the actual creation took place there, and therefore wrote of it as such. Had he realized that everything was already there, and that God was simply making them visible to us on Day 4, then Moses would have written something else. However, God uses us where we are at, and Moses wrote of the events to the best of his ability.

I have no doubt that Moses meant "create" literally in this case. But, he also meant "firmament" literally, and we know the sun, moon, and stars do not actually exist in the firmament. So, if one can concde that the sun, moon, and stars were are only seen through firmament, not in it, then we should for the same reason be able to concede that they only "appeared" created at that time.

[Corvus]

I agree that Moses, or whoever wrote Genesis, wrote about how things appeared to him, but how things appeared were clearly wrong. I would think that for a creationist, this would be a significant blow towards genesis being a factual account of the creation of the world.