![]() ![]() The waters below the raqiya He named “sea” ( yam in Hebrew) and the raqiya itself He named “heaven,” “air” or “sky,” depending on your translation of the Hebrew word shamayim. On the second day of creation, God created the raqiya, placing it in the midst of the water, thereby separating it into two parts: “the waters above the firmament ” and the waters below it. It appears nine times throughout the first chapter of Genesis (in verses 6-8, 14-18 and 20) and eight more times throughout the rest of the Old Testament (in Psalms, Ezekiel and Daniel).Īccording to Genesis, before there was air or land or any form of life, the earth was a formless mass of primordial water. The Hebrew word alternatively translated “firmament” in some translations and “expanse” in others is raqiya. While Genesis 1:20 (KJV) does say that birds fly in the firmament, suggesting the earth’s atmosphere, it also says that the sun, moon and stars reside there (Genesis 1:14-17), suggesting the entire sky from the earth’s surface outward, where birds fly and celestial objects reside. It is presumed to have consisted of water vapor because a canopy of ice could not have survived the constant bombardment of celestial objects like meteoroids which perpetually barrage the earth’s atmosphere. According to the canopy theory, there was a canopy of water above the atmosphere until the cataclysm of Noah’s day, at which point it disappeared either by collapsing upon the earth or dissipating into space. ![]() The canopy theory seeks to explain the reference in Genesis 1:6 to “the waters above the firmament,” assuming that “firmament,” or “expanse,” as the Hebrew word is alternatively translated, refers to our atmosphere. ![]()
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