in the air as distinct from the firmament. In conformity with these ideas, the writer of Gen., i, 14-17, 20, represents God as setting the stars in the firmament of heaven, and the fowls are located beneath it, i.e. Is., xlii, 5, emphasize rather the idea of something extended: “Thus saith the Lord God that created the heavens and stretched them out” (Cf. also IV Kings, vii, 19 Is., xxiv, 18 Mal., iii, 10 Prov., viii, 28 sqq.) Other passages, e.g. It may have been inserted in this missal at a later date water, it being conceived as supporting a vast celestial reservoir and also in the account of the deluge (Gen., vii), where we read that the “flood gates of heaven were opened”, and “shut up” (viii, 2). Nowhere does the Bible refer to little holes in a metal dome through which the drops fall.
Heaven bible firmament windows#
to serve as a wall of separation between the upper and lower bodies of Biblical firmament It does speak figuratively of the windows of heaven opening for the Flood ( Gen. Psalm 19:1 (KJV) states, 'The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handywork. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. The same is implied in the purpose attributed to God in creating the firmament, viz. The word 'firmament' is seen again in the Book of Psalms. The notion of the solidity of the firmament is moreover expressed in such passages as Job, xxxvii, 18, where reference is made incidentally to the heavens, “which are most strong, as if they were of molten brass”. The Hebrew word yr p7 means something beaten or hammered out, and thus extended the Vulgate rendering, “firmamentum”, corresponds more closely with the Greek stereoma (Septuagint, Aquila, and Symmachus), “something made firm or solid”. In the first account of the creation (Gen., i) we read that God created a firmament to divide the upper or celestial from the lower or terrestrial waters.
That the Hebrews entertained similar ideas appears from numerous biblical passages. According to the notion prevalent among the Greeks and Romans, the sky was a great vault of crystal to which the fixed stars were attached, though by some it was held to be of iron or brass. Like-wise to the mind of the Babylonians the sky was an immense dome, forged out of the hardest metal by the hand of Merodach (Marduk) and resting on a wall surrounding the earth (Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, Strasburg, 1890, pp.
Thus the Egyptians conceived the heavens to be an arched iron ceiling from which the stars were suspended by means of cables (Chabas, L’Antiquite historique, Paris, 1873, pp. stereoma Vulgate, firmamentum).-The notion that the sky was a vast solid dome seems to have been common among the ancient peoples whose ideas of cosmology have come down to us.
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