Firmament

Short description: Solid dome dividing the primal waters

Early Hebrew conception of the cosmos.[citation needed] The firmament, Sheol and tehom are depicted.

The sun, planets and angels and the firmament. Woodcut dated 1475.

In biblical cosmology, the firmament is the vast solid dome created by God during the Genesis creation narrative to divide the primal sea into upper and lower portions so that the dry land could appear.[1][2] The concept was adopted into the subsequent Classical/Medieval model of heavenly spheres, but was dropped with advances in astronomy in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today it is known as a synonym for sky or heaven.

## Contents

* 1 Etymology
* 2 Models of the Firmament
* 2.1 The plurality of heaven
* 2.2 Corporeality
* 3 History
* 4 See also
* 5 Citations
* 6 Bibliography
* 7 External links

## Etymology

In English, the word "firmament" is recorded as early as 1250, in the Middle English Story of Genesis and Exodus. It later appeared in the King James Bible. The same word is found in French and German Bible translations, all from Latin firmamentum (a firm object), used in the Vulgate (4th century).[3] This in turn is a calque of the Greek στερέωμᾰ (steréōma), also meaning a solid or firm structure (Greek στερεός = rigid), which appears in the Septuagint, the Greek translation made by Jewish scholars around 200 BC

The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament [TWOT], s.v. raqa, makes an important correction regarding this translation: "In pre-Christian Egypt, confusion was introduced into biblical cosmology when the LXX [Septuagint], perhaps under the influence of Alexandrian theories of a 'stone vault' of heaven, rendered raqia by stereoma suggesting some firm, solid substance."

These words all translate the Biblical Hebrew word rāqīaʿ (רָקִ֫יעַ), used for example in Genesis 1.6, where it is contrasted with shamayim (שָׁמַיִם), translated as "heaven(s)" in Genesis 1.1. Rāqīaʿ derives from the root rqʿ (רָקַע), meaning "stamp, spread out, stretch." "The basic concept in raqa is stamping, as with the foot, and what results, i.e. a spreading out or stretching forth." TWOT.[4]

## Models of the Firmament

### The plurality of heaven

Perhaps beginning with Origen, the different identifiers used for heavens in the Book of Genesis, caelum and firmamentum, sparked some commentary on the significance of the order of creation (caelum identified as the heaven of the first day, and firmamentum as the heaven of the second day).[5] Some of these theories identified caelum as the higher, immaterial and spiritual heaven, whereas firmamentum was of corporeal existence.[6]:237

Christian theologians of note writing between the 5th and mid-12th century were generally in agreement that the waters, sometimes called the "crystalline orb", were located above the firmament and beneath the fiery heaven that was also called empyrean (from Greek ἔμπυρος). One medieval writer who rejected such notions was Pietro d'Abano who argued that theologians "assuming a crystalline, or aqueous sphere, and an empyrean, or firey sphere" were relying on revelation more than Scripture.[7]

About this Ambrose wrote: "Wise men of the world say that water cannot be over the heavens"; the firmament is called such, according to Ambrose, because it held back the waters above it.[8]

This matter of the position of the "waters" above the firmament was considered by Augustine in De Genesi ad litteram (perhaps his least studied work): "only God knows how and why [the waters] are there, but we cannot deny the authority of Holy Scripture which is greater than our understanding".

### Corporeality

Early Christian writers wrote at length about the material nature of the firmament, the problem arising from the barrier said to be created when it divided the waters above and below it.[9] At issue was the reconciliation of Scripture with Aristotle's cosmology.

Saint Basil rejected the notion that the firmament is made of solid ice, although Bede in Hexaemeron ignores the problem of the motion of celestial bodies (stars) in a solid firmament and declares that the siderum caelum (heaven of the celestial bodies) was made firm (firmatum) in the midst of the waters so should be interpreted as having the firmness of crystalline stone (cristallini Iapidis).[10]

## History

The Flammarion engraving (1888) depicts a man crawling under the edge of the sky, depicted as if it were a solid hemisphere, to look at the mysterious Empyrean beyond. The caption underneath the engraving (not shown here) translates to "A medieval missionary tells that he has found the point where heaven and Earth meet..."

The ancient Hebrews, like all the ancient peoples of the Near East, believed the sky was a solid dome with the Sun, Moon, planets and stars embedded in it.[11] Around the 4th to 3rd centuries BCE the Greeks, under the influence of Aristotle who argued that the heavens must be perfect and that a sphere was the perfect geometrical figure, exchanged this for a spherical Earth surrounded by solid spheres. This became the dominant model in the Classical and Medieval world-view, and even when Copernicus placed the Sun at the centre of the system he included an outer sphere that held the stars (and by having the earth rotate daily on its axis it allowed the firmament to be completely stationary). Tycho Brahe's studies of the nova of 1572 and the Comet of 1577 were the first major challenges to the idea that orbs existed as solid, incorruptible, material objects,[12] and in 1584 Giordano Bruno proposed a cosmology without a firmament: an infinite universe in which the stars are actually suns with their own planetary systems.[13] After Galileo began using a telescope to examine the sky it became harder to argue that the heavens were perfect, as Aristotelian philosophy required, and by 1630 the concept of solid orbs was no longer dominant.[12]

## See also

* Religion:Abzu - Primeval sea in Mesopotamian mythology
* Religion:Cosmic ocean - Mythological motif
* Unsolved:Flood geology - Pseudoscientific attempt to reconcile geology with the Genesis flood narrative
* Religion:Heaven in Judaism - Dwelling place of God and other heavenly beings
* Astronomy:Primum Mobile - Outermost moving sphere in the geocentric model of the universe
* Religion:Sky deity - Deity associated with the sky
* Wuji - Chinese philosophical term for infinity and the primordial universe

## Citations

1. ↑ Pennington 2007, p. 42.
2. ↑ Ringgren 1990, p. 92.
3. ↑ "Online Etymology Dictionary – Firmament". http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=firmament.
4. ↑ Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, Harris, Archer,Jr., Waltke, Moody, 1980.
5. ↑ Et vocavit Deus firmamentum caelum.
6. ↑ Rochberg, Francesca (2008). "A Short History of the Waters of the Firmament". in Ross, Micah (in en). From the Banks of the Euphrates: Studies in Honor of Alice Louise Slotsky. Eisenbrauns. pp. 227–244. ISBN 978-1-57506-144-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=edVOGJKa7XUC&pg=PA237.
7. ↑ Grant, Edward (1994). Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687. Cambridge University Press. p. 321.
8. ↑ Boccaletti Dino, The Waters Above the Firmament, p.36 2020
9. ↑ Et dixit Deus, Fiat firmamentum in medio aquarum et sit dividens inter aquam et aquam
10. ↑ Randles, W. G. L. (1999). The Unmaking of the Medieval Christian Cosmos, 1500–1760. Routledge.
11. ↑ Seely, Paul H. (1991). "The Firmament and the Water Above". Westminster Theological Journal 53: 227–40. http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/01-Genesis/Text/Articles-Books/Seely-Firmament-WTJ.pdf. Retrieved 2010-02-02.
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Grant 1996, p. 349.
13. ↑ Giordano Bruno, De l'infinito universo e mondi (On the Infinite Universe and Worlds), 1584.

## Bibliography

* Grant, Edward (1996). Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521565097. https://books.google.com/books?id=TSc4AAAAIAAJ.
* Andrews, Tamra (2000). Dictionary of Nature Myths: Legends of the Earth, Sea, and Sky. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195136777. https://books.google.com/books?id=7jS65aClvFEC. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Bandstra, Barry L. (1999). Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Wadsworth. ISBN 0495391050. https://books.google.com/books?id=vRY9mTUZKJcC&q=Bandstra. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Berlin, Adele (2011). "Cosmology and creation". in Berlin, Adele; Grossman, Maxine. The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199730049. https://books.google.com/books?id=hKAaJXvUaUoC&q=Bible+Cosmology&pg=PA189. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Blenkinsopp, Joseph (2011). Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1–11. T&T Clarke International. ISBN 9780567574558. https://books.google.com/books?id=ZPMRBwAAQBAJ&q="this+reading+of+Gen.+1:1-2+is+not+the+preferred+option"&pg=PA30. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Broadie, Sarah (1999). "Rational Theology". in Long, A.A.. The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521446679. https://books.google.com/books?id=l4m2GP9eJmIC. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Brown, Francis; Driver, S.R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906). A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Bunnin, Nicholas; Yu, Jiyuan (2008). The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy. Blackwells. ISBN 9780470997215. https://books.google.com/books?id=LdbxabeToQYC. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Clifford, Richard J (2017). "Creatio ex Nihilo in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible". in Anderson, Gary A.; Bockmuehl, Markus. Creation ex nihilo: Origins, Development, Contemporary Challenges. University of Notre Dame. ISBN 9780268102562. https://books.google.com/books?id=vPA-DwAAQBAJ&q="an+important+point+obscured+by+the+traditional+translation+of+verse+1"&pg=PT51. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Couprie, Dirk L. (2011). Heaven and Earth in Ancient Greek Cosmology: From Thales to Heraclides Ponticus. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 9781441981165. https://books.google.com/books?id=MUmdgyUA8bgC. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Grunbaum, Adolf (2013). "Science and the Improbability of God". in Meister, Chad V.; Copan, Paul. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion. Routledge. ISBN 9780415782944. https://books.google.com/books?id=5KrAa6e_VN4C. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* James, E.O. (1969). Creation and Cosmology: A Historical and Comparative Inquiry. Brill. ISBN 9789004378070. https://books.google.com/books?id=St-mDwAAQBAJ. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* López-Ruiz, Carolina (2010). When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674049468. https://books.google.com/books?id=TGLXqt2bMdgC. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Mabie, F.J (2008). "Chaos and Death". in Longman, Tremper; Enns, Peter. Dictionary of the Old Testament. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 9780830817832. https://books.google.com/books?id=kE2k36XAkv4C&q=chaos,+society+and+kingship+the+motif&pg=PA48. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* May, Gerhard (2004). Creatio ex nihilo. T&T Clarke International. ISBN 9780567456229. https://books.google.com/books?id=eu4RBwAAQBAJ&q=May+Creatio+Ex+Nihilo. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Nebe, Gottfried (2002). "Creation in Paul's Theology". in Hoffman, Yair; Reventlow, Henning Graf. Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition. Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 9781841271620. https://books.google.com/books?id=fmatAwAAQBAJ&q="Neither+in+Genesis+1-3"&pg=PA119. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Muller, Richard A. (2017). Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms. Baker Academic. ISBN 9781493412082. https://books.google.com/books?id=AMo4DgAAQBAJ&q="not+of+preexistent+and+therefore+eternal+materials"&pg=PT199. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Pennington, Jonathan T. (2007). Heaven and earth in the Gospel of Matthew. Brill. ISBN 978-9004162051. https://books.google.com/books?id=EGTaBJDQoD0C&q=ancient+Israelite+ideas+about+the+heavenly+realms&pg=PA42. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Pruss, Alexander (2007). "Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit". in Campbell, Joseph Keim; O'Rourke, Michael; Silverstein, Harry. Causation and Explanation. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262033633. https://books.google.com/books?id=ccFHXMDXFdEC&q=ex+nihilo+nihil+fit&pg=PA291. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* von Rad, Gerhard (1961). Genesis: A Commentary. London: SCM Press.
* Ringgren, Helmer (1990). "Yam". in Botterweck, G. Johannes; Ringgren, Helmer. Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802823304. https://books.google.com/books?id=MCOd-uAEQy0C&q=cosmic+ocean&pg=PA92. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Rubio, Gonzalez (2013). "Time Before Time: Primeval Narratives in Early Mesopotamian Literature". in Feliu, L.; Llop, J.. Time and History in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 56th Recontre Assyriologique Internationale at Barcelona, 26–30 July 2010. Eisenbrauns. https://www.academia.edu/3879437. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
* Waltke, Bruce K. (2011). An Old Testament Theology. Zondervan. ISBN 9780310863328. https://books.google.com/books?id=EbQOCUZYEo0C. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Walton, John H. (2006). Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. Baker Academic. ISBN 0-8010-2750-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=rhb20fH7cZYC&q="it+takes+only+God+as+its+subject"&pg=PA183. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Walton, John H. (2015). The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 9780830897711. https://books.google.com/books?id=UMnYBgAAQBAJ. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Wasilewska, Ewa (2000). Creation Stories of the Middle East. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ISBN 9781853026812. https://books.google.com/books?id=sMj1tyho3CoC. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Wolfson, Harry Austryn (1976). The Philosophy of the Kalam. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674665804. https://books.google.com/books?id=fuv8J-g7EdAC. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
* Wolters, Albert M. (1994). "Creatio ex nihilo in Philo". in Helleman, Wendy. Hellenization Revisited: Shaping a Christian Response Within the Greco-Roman World. University Press of America. ISBN 9780819195449. https://books.google.com/books?id=sXWBRekUVOAC&q="the+first+explicit+formulation+of+creatio+ex+nihilo"&pg=PA109. Retrieved 2021-02-01.

## External links

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