All very interesting, folks, but there is a point being overlooked here.
The world which the human author of Genesis is describing is best understood if you can visualize a gigantic platter (the earth) sitting in the middle of vast amounts of water, viz., the waters above and the waters below. Later in the Bible, the platter will be visualized as resting on huge columns which disappear down into the depths to rest upon … something. The firmament which God creates is then best visualized as a gigantic fishbowl set upside down on the platter, to separate the waters above and the waters below. God next drains most of the waters under the fishbowl (the firmament) out, confines them to their place, and so creates the seas, rivers, etc. When he has done this, he is able to hang gigantic lamps and lanterns (sun, moon, and stars) from the upside-down fishbowl, or firmament, into which we learn, a bit further on. he has also set gates or doors (the floodgates), through which he allows rain to enter at appropriate times and needed amounts. One knows that there is this vast quantity of water above the sky because the sky is blue, same color as the sea.
This different way of visualizing the world was common through the ancient Near East, and for the human author of Genesis to use it does not mean that “the Bible is wrong.” It does mean that God was using that writer’s perception of the order of the world to teach us something about the beautifully ordered world which he had created in the beginning, so that he could later teach us what original sin did to the world as well as to humanity.
Father Michael Cotone
