The non-solid interpretation of raqia is a novelty. Virtually every description of raqia from antiquity to the Renaissance depicts it as solid.There is no indication that Genesis is a novel description of the sky. The most natural explanation of the raqia is that it also reflects this understanding. The other cosmologies from the ancient world depict some solid structure in the sky.Let me summarize some of the general arguments for why raqia is understood by contemporary biblical scholars as a solid structure: 1 If we keep this in mind, much of the conflict can subside. Those views are also reflected in Genesis. In the ancient world, people held certain views about the world around them. It is important to remember that God always speaks in ways that people can actually understand. To insist that the description of the sky in Genesis 1 must conform to contemporary science is a big theological problem. Genesis and modern science are neither enemies nor friends, but two different ways of describing the world according to the means available to the people living at these different times.
The debate exists because of the assumption made by some Christians that the ancient biblical description of the world must be compatible on a scientific level with what we know today. Our understanding of ancient perceptions of the cosmos has not been overturned by more information. The raqia “debate” is not the result of new evidence that has come to light. This second issue creates a conflict where they need not be one. Regardless of what one thinks of the raqia, why would anyone assume that the ancient cosmology in Genesis could be expected to be in harmony with modern science in the first place? The second problem is a much larger theological issue, but is actually more foundational. First, the biblical and extrabiblical data indicate that raqia means a solid structure of some sort. Often, the word “expanse” is the preferred translation because it does not necessarily imply something solid.Īrguing for a non-solid raqia in Genesis is extremely problematic, for two reasons. How can the Bible, which is the inspired, revealed word of God, contain such an inaccurate piece of ancient nonsense? Hence, some invest a lot of time and energy to show that the raqia is not solid but more like the atmosphere. For some Christians, however, this is troubling. The translation “firmament” (i.e., firm) gets across this idea of a solid structure.īiblical scholars agree on this understanding of raqia. Ancient Israelites and others in that part of the world assumed the world was flat, and so it looked like the earth is covered by a dome, and the “blue sky” is the “water above” held back by the raqia. Even today, looking up at a clear sky in open country, the sky seems to “begin” at the horizons and reaches up far above. They relied on what their senses told them. There were no telescopes, space exploration, or means of testing the atmosphere.
9-10), the water below the raqia is “gathered to one place” to form the sea and allow the dry land to appear.Īncient Israelites “saw” this barrier when they looked up.
The waters above are kept at bay so the world can become inhabitable. It separates the water into two parts, so that there is water above the raqia and water below it (v. Biblical scholars understand the raqia to be a solid dome-like structure. One of those issue concerns the second day of creation (Genesis 1:6-8), where God made the “expanse” or the “firmament.” The Hebrew word for this is raqia (pronounced ra-KEE-ah). Genesis 1 and 2 tell the story of creation, and it says things that are at odds with what modern people know to be true of the world and universe around us.
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