Question:
Question about Genesis?
christopher
2012-06-06 20:16:24 UTC
If God created the firmamanent and divided the waters from the waters, then what are the waters the firmanent divided?
The firmanent, he called Heaven. Obviously he didn't seperate two bodies of H2O with the heavens, so this means the waters must have a symbolic meaning. Could the waters, be the seas of spirits, gathering on earth? Also described as the fall of Lucifer too earth, in which he took a third of the angels with him. Also described as when Eve and Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The consequence of this disobedience given to Eve seems to be conception. Conception which leads to mortal life. Or a fall to earth, or loss of immortality. (Could this also be symbolic of when the angels mingled with the daughters of men?)

It is a law that all that is of the earth returns to the earth. So one cannot be immortal while on earth. So this also means the garden of Eden is either heaven itself of a part of heaven. Also, the Lord couldn't be walking through a garden on earth. (When he found Adam had eaten of the fruit.)
Eleven answers:
Softtouchmale
2012-06-06 20:32:50 UTC
The theme behind Genesis is complex.



Then beginning of the end of mankind's presence in Eden begins with his fall from God's Grace.



Remember that the original sin was partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, of good and evil.



Once Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit, they became aware of good and evil and all things God made.



Because they had this dangerous knowledge, God foreclosed human immortality. He did so by sealing off the Tree of Life, and guarding it with flaming swords, forever separating man from physical immortality.



From there mankind was to bear the sufferings of life and of death; the joys and sorrows.



The purpose of the stories of Genesis is to draw parallels, parables and illustrate how mankind had fallen from perfection to imperfection due to a simple flaw. Free will.



So the metaphor of separating the waters could be the creation of a divide between Heaven (immortality) and Earth (mortality).



The story is intriguing but I do believe almost all serious biblical scholars consider the books of Genesis to be more of a teaching tool, making regular punctuated points of the increasingly narrower covenants between God and mankind and later God and the Jews.



Its a book that explains in essence that no matter how good humans have it, free will ends up causing a fall. Thus, humans will always fall because free will dictates that when things are very good if not perfect humans are unhappy or unsatisfied, and so they err. Then God is unsatisfied. But when God is satisfied (perfection) then humans are unsatisfied.



Its an inverse proportion of satisfaction. An exercise in frustration. Till humans get it right again.



The main points are of course to follow the important covenants and so God will always look kindly and forgive the rest of the sins.
james o
2012-06-06 20:25:43 UTC
It's called Firmament for a reason! It is the material stuff that holds back the waters above it.



If you look at the Flood story, you find that the windows in the firmament are opened in order to allow the waters above the firmament to pour in and flood all of creation.



When the job is done, God closes those windows again, so things can gradually return to the ir former state.



However, if the world was in reality flooded as the text states, it would have taken a bit more than 40 days to dry out. In fact, after the last ice age, it took centuries for the Great Lakes to drain.



I do not take any of the idle tales about Lucifer very seriously. Every time he shows up, it's a bit different. He's utterly inconsistent, meaning nobody has a clue what he's like at all -- meaning he may not even be real.



So it is a law that all that is of the earth returns to the earth? I am not at all convinced of the accuracy of that statement. I think you confuse literal reading and metaphorical reading. In fact, I'd bet the farm on it.
?
2012-06-07 23:14:57 UTC
It means what is says. Don't know why this is so hard. There was water above the sky/air and water below (ocean). It's not that far fetched. Remember the story of the flood? Water fell, so much so that it flooded and after the flood was the first rainbow? Because major changes had happened. Before the flood people lived hundreds of years? And after what 80-120 years?



If you consider the composition of planets that are known, this is not weird at all. For example, it was not until the fourth day that the lights are in the sky over this earth. The Sun and moon do not yet exist until at least the fourth day.



We are talking (actually Genesis is telling) of major solar systems changes, and earth formations, with the earth not even in orbit in this particular solar system until the "fourth day." Before water was put above air there was no "sky" only water on the surface, and before that?



Just read it. It says what it says. Try a couple versions if you are having trouble getting stuck on a particular word or two.
Lighting the Way to Reality
2012-06-07 20:45:46 UTC
The creation story in Genesis was derived from an earlier Babylonian myth and modified to reflect Hebrew religious belief. In the Babylonian myth, there was likewise a cosmic ocean in which creation occurred, including the separation of the waters.



The description in Genesis accurately reflects ancient Hebrew belief, and without a need to interpret it as meaning something it doesn't mean. The firmament was conceived as being a solid structure that held back the waters above the firmament. See Psalm 148:4.



But that is not all.



According to Ecclesiastes 1:5 the sun actually goes around the earth--as, of course, it must, since, according to Ps 93:1, Ps 96:10, and 1 Chr 16:30, the earth does not move. And the earth cannot move because, according to 1 Samuel 2:8 and Ps 75:3, it is placed on pillars. And because it is placed on pillars, it has an underside and an upper side, as confirmed by Isaiah 40:22 which indicates that the earth is a flat disk.



(The Hebrew word translated as "circle" in Isaiah 40:22 is chuwg, which means "circle" not "sphere." Strong's Concordance: "circle"..."describe a circle." Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament: "Circle...the earth conceived as a disc, Is 40:22." Hebrew-Aramaic and English Lexicon of the Old Testament: "draw round, make a circle." If a sphere were meant, the Hebrew word duwr would have been used. The ancient Hebrews would have gotten the idea of a circular earth by viewing the horizon from the top of a mountain.)



Since the biblical earth is flat, it has an underside and under the earth is the abyss, which is referred to several times in the Bible. That is also what is being referred to in Job 26:7 when it says that the earth hangs over nothing. (The original Hebrew word translated as "upon" in that passage in the KJV also means "over.") The actual sphere of the earth in space is not "suspended' or "hanging" "over" or "upon" nothing. It is orbiting the sun at 66,700 miles per hour.



There are several other verses in the Bible indicating the earth is flat, such as Nebuchadnezzar's vision in Dan 4:10-11 (if it were not flat the tree could not be seen from all the earth), and Dan 2:28 states that the visions of Nebuchadnezzar are from God. If the biblical god says the biblical earth is flat, it must be flat.



The original Hebrew word translated as firmament is raqiya, which is a noun derived from the Hebrew word raqa. That word is a verb meaning "to beat out," and is used in the bible in reference to beating out metal into plates or expanses of the metal (as in Exodus 39:3). So raqiya, as a noun, would literally mean "that which is beaten out."



The idea is that the firmament, or sky, is a solid, beaten out expanse or vault set on the rim of the flat disk of the earth. This understanding is confirmed in Job 37:18, which states:



"Can you beat out the vault of the skies as he does,

hard as a mirror of cast metal?" (New English Bible. .)



There, the Hebrew word translated as "beat out" (or "spread out" in other versions) is, as noted above, raqa.



That idea is also implied in verses such as Deut 4:32:



"Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?" See also Ps 19:1-6, Isaiah 13:4-5, and Matt 24:31.



The "ends of heaven" would be the base of the vault of heaven where it rests on the rim of the disk of the earth.



Also, the stars in the biblical cosmos are just lights set in the firmament. As mere lights in the sky, they will fall to the earth in the Last Days (Matt 24:29), something that is ridiculous considering the actual stars are other suns and many times larger than the earth.



So, according to the Bible the earth is a flat, immovable disk, supported by pillars and covered with a solid vault of heaven, the rim of which is is resting on the perimeter of the disk of the earth, and the stars are just lights set in the vault of heaven.



That this is the correct view of the biblical cosmos is shown by the fact that it describes a structure with parts that are fully consistent with each other. That structural consistency indicates that it accurately represents the cosmos as conceived by the ancient Hebrews and as its writers incorporated that view in the Bible.
The GMC
2012-06-06 20:25:39 UTC
God formed the earth with vast amounts of water under the crust, contained at high pressure. This is the water under the earth. The water above the earth probably just refers to the moisture in the atmosphere, aka clouds. Although, they would not have precipitated until the time of the flood.
Truth Seeker
2012-06-06 20:20:12 UTC
Actually, it was H2O that was separated. The earth was surrounded with H2O. Remember that it did not rain until the Flood. That is how God was able to cover the entire earth with water. He broke the firmament above and opened the flood gates. Read Chapter 6 of Genesis.
Gregory
2012-06-06 20:23:53 UTC
no none of it is symbolic



the firmament is the atmosphere around the earth

god called the atmosphere around the earth heaven also

god put a water canopy around the whole earth

the waters from the ocean and the waters surrounding the atmosphere of the earth



none of it is symbolic its all literal



no the garden of eden was a real place on earth not symbolic

yes the lord jesus in physical form walked on the earth
?
2012-06-06 20:22:43 UTC
Why can He not seperate H2O with the Heavens? God is all-powerful. He can do anything including things that go against our laws of physics. God can make the Heavens be at more than one place at the same time. Everything is possible with God.
?
2012-06-09 16:09:20 UTC
Try reading the text that genesi was plagiarized from - the Sumerian tablets. They explain why it is not symbolism but real.
?
2012-06-06 20:22:31 UTC
Biblical creation is true.



The 8th edition of Walt Brown's book “In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,” scientific evidence is presented that the earth’s geology and fossils were formed around 5,000 years ago, and that the global flood recorded in Gen. 7 created the geologic, astronomical and biological phenomena of today.



Brown relies only observable and calculable data.



“About half the water now in the oceans was below the earth’s surface. Above the subterranean water was a granite crust.The water pressure beneath the rock increased over the centuries, the crust stretched like a balloon. Pressure triggered a crack that ruptured the earth’s crust. As the crack raced around the earth, the crust opened, pressure suddenly dropped causing water to explode with great violence out of the ‘slit’ that wrapped around the earth like the seam of a baseball, ripping a tear down the middle of the Atlantic, veering beneath Africa and Australia, running north off South America’s west coast, going under North America off Mexico’s west coast to Alaska, resurfacing in the Arctic and continuing down through Iceland. Along this globe-circling rupture a fountain of water jetted far above the atmosphere. Some of the water fell as rain such as the earth had never experienced. Jetting water shot above the atmosphere, froze and fell on the earth as extremly cold, muddy ‘hail' that buried and froze animals. Mammoths froze in minutes while still chewing vegetation. The powerful jet of water and rocks escaped earth’s gravity and became the comets, asteroids and meteoroids. Numerous bodies in the solar system possess scientifically documented characteristics that support the earth’s supersonic expulsion – spin, density, composition, size, number, texture and orbital measurements".



“Deep folds thousands of miles long and several miles deep lie on the floor of the Pacific in an area centered directly opposite of the Atlantic.”



The pressure release on the Atlantic side caused suction on the opposite side of the globe, pulling down the area where the world’s deepest ocean trenches are today. Volcanoes inside the “Ring of Fire” are evidence of the massive pressure release and drop of the Pacific Rim.



Fountains pushed up the crust on both sides to form the 46,000 mile Mid-Oceanic Ridge. They produced massive amounts of sediment from the eroded rock that buried plants and animals to form the stratified fossils. The earth-encircling rupture grew to an average width of 800 miles.



“The hydroplates slid, separating the east coast of North and South America from Europe and Africa. The plates that buckled downward became ocean trenches, and those that buckled upward became mountains.The Rocky Mountains, Appalachians and Andes are parallel to the Mid-Oceanic Ridge and have a north-south orientation.”



Besides the formation of mountains and the jigsaw fit of the continents, this compression caused an imbalance in the earth by the upthrust of the Himalayas. The thickening of the crust containing the 10 highest peaks on earth produced a force that rolled the Himalayas 35 degrees toward the equator. This axis tilt explains why plants and animals from warm climates are buried in today’s Polar Regions.



Only a global flood could have generated a mass rapid burial and fossilization of animals. Remains would have rotted if they had died without being submerged. Fossils’ similar density and mass discovered on the same levels of the geologic column prove that dinosaurs were buried just thousands of years ago in a flood, not interred hundreds of millions of years ago in a series of mass extinctions.



Soft bone tissue and DNA found in dinosaur remains cannot exist for more than thousands of years. Incorrect reading of fossil and rock age put evolutionists’ millions-of-years-old origins account into disrepute.



Theories describing gradual erosion taking place over millions of years have been shot down by Brown’s geological observations. The Grand Canyon, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Golden Gate were carved by rapid erosion by large bodies of water, which carved them in a matter of weeks or months, not millions of years.



Brown examines other phenomena that provides further evidence for the Bible’s accuracy including Noah’s Ark; symbiotic relationships; planets; the moon’s dust, origin and recession; planetary rings; a young sun; the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics; biblical genealogies; mutations; and mitochondrial Eve.



For decades evolutionists have refused to debate Brown’s scientific findings. He stipulates that the debate be published in a major scientific journal, that his opponent hold a doctorate and that only scientific data is discussed.



Brown reports 50 of the circumstances he would expect to see develop under his theory have been documented and concludes that it is the Bible’s description of original creation that is true.
2012-06-06 20:20:55 UTC
i suggest asking a Trinity minister...i am worn out and goint to bed


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
Loading...