3/19/2024 0 Comments Firmament pictures![]() ![]() This cosmology involved celestial orbs, nested concentrically inside one another, with the earth at the center. The Medieval Scholastics adopted a cosmology that fused the ideas of the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Ptolemy. The Greeks and Stoics adopted a model of celestial spheres after the discovery of the spherical Earth in the 4th to 3rd centuries BC. Calvin's " doctrine of accommodation" allowed Protestants to accept the findings of science without rejecting the authority of scripture. "As it became a theologian, had to respect us rather than the stars," Calvin wrote. "He who would learn astronomy and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere," wrote Calvin. In 1554, John Calvin proposed that "firmament" be interpreted as clouds. The Copernican Revolution of the 16th century led to reconsideration of these matters. Thomas Aquinas, the firmament had a "solid nature" and stood above a "region of fire, wherein all vapor must be consumed." Saint Basil argued for a fluid firmament. ![]() "We may understand this name as given to indicate not it is motionless but that it is solid." he wrote. So slight is this elevation that birds may rise to it and fly along its expanse.Īugustine wrote that too much learning had been expended on the nature of the firmament. To this vault are fastened the lights, the stars. Over this is arched the solid vault of heaven. The Hebrews regarded the earth as a plain or a hill figured like a hemisphere, swimming on water. Like most ancient peoples, the Hebrews believed the sky was a solid dome with the Sun, Moon and stars embedded in it. It is derived from the root raqa‘ ( רקע), meaning "to beat or spread out", e.g., the process of making a dish by hammering thin a lump of metal. ![]() The word "firmament" is used to translate raqia, or raqiya‘ ( רקיע), a word used in Biblical Hebrew. The word is a Latinization of the Greek stereōma, which appears in the Septuagint (c. This in turn is derived from the Latin root firmus, a cognate with "firm". The word is anglicised from Latin firmamentum, used in the Vulgate ( 4th century). It later appeared in the King James Bible. Genesis 7:11 mentions these windows, stating, “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.The word "firmament" is first recorded in a Middle English narrative based on scripture dated 1250. The water for rain, snow, hail, etc., was stored outside the raki’a, which had "windows" to release them onto the earth. According to Genesis 1:8, God called the firmament Heaven, giving it significance beyond just the border between the earth and beyond.Īccording to biblical cosmology, the firmament, seen as the sky from Earth, is essentially a fixed upside-down container over the Earth, colored blue from the heavenly waters above it. As part of the cosmic design, the firmament is the formation above the atmosphere of Earth, understood as an immense stable arch. In the story of creation, as found in Genesis, God formed the firmament to divide the "waters above" the earth from the "waters below" the earth. The “firmament” is mentioned 15 times in the King James Version of the Bible and refers to the expanse of the heavens above the earth. It was the support also of the heavenly bodies ( Genesis 1:14) and is spoken of as having "windows" and "doors" ( Genesis 7:11 Isaiah 24:18 Malachi 3:10) through which the rain and snow might descend. The raki'a supported the upper reservoir ( Psalms 148:4). It formed a division between the waters above and the waters below ( Genesis 1:7). It is plain that it was used to denote solidity and expansion. The language of Scripture is not scientific but popular, and hence we read of the sun rising and setting, and also here the use of this particular word. They who rendered raki'a by firmamentum regarded it as a solid body. ![]() This word means simply "expansion." It denotes the space or expanse like an arch appearing immediately above us. Merriam-Webster defines the firmament as “the vault or arch of the sky heavens.”Īccording to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, from the Vulgate firmamentum, which is used as the translation of the Hebrew raki'a, or raqia. The definition of the firmament can be essentially summarized as the arch or vault over the earth and sky that separates the earthly realm from what is beyond. ![]()
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