SIMPLE Astronomical Evidence Supports the Bible

we're gonna have a thread crossover. let's talk about the biblical description of the heavens, and then the classical qabalistic interpretation. רקיע is the hebrew word rendered as "firmament" in the kjv. you are correct in that this word comes from רקע, which means "to beat, or stamp out" or "to spread out."this is supposed to connotate images of working hot metal or molten glass. in other words, it's a solid object. firm, even.

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Job 37:18 Hast thou with him spread out [raqia] the sky, [which is] strong, [and] as a molten looking glass?

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in the text, this is a solid object. a vault or dome of the sky.

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Gen 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

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Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.

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this vault separates water from water. so everything outside of it, (above the sky) is water. and everything below the ground is also water. if you squint your eyes at one or the other, sure. but the text itself does not literally fit reality. there is no glass dome in the sky. and there is no water just outside our atmosphere. yet that is what the bible explicitly says.now, the qabalists ran into some problems with this even in the middle ages. they knew there was more going on than the bible said. how did the sun and moon move independently in the glass dome? how did the stars and planets move independently? how did it account for the world being round?their interpretation was of multiple, layer glass spheres that surrounded the earth. planes of existance, sort of. the first two contained the sun and the moon. then they gave one to each known planet, and one to the stars. this should sort of ironic, because it's close to ptolemy's model, although i forget if they bothered with epicycles or not.each of these spheres was assigned an angel, an agent of god to keep them moving along. the planets moved strictly by will of god, since they had no concept of gravity or orbits.sound crackpot to you? seem anything like what we know the universe to be like?This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 04-14-2005 11:16 AM

1. use the little-red-reply-button at the bottom of posts, to respond to them. it sends a message to person that you've replied, and makes it easier to follow threads of discussion.
==EDIT== ==Peek==2. Jar is probably one of the most respected members of this community. His way of thinking is not limited to someone else's opinions. He has a very good and educated grasp on everything from biology to theology. He understands the bible better than nearly anyone else on this board. Jar is not just a Christian, he's a THINKING christian. Some of us have a better idea than others.This message has been edited by AdminPhat, 04-20-2005 12:43 AM

hi, percy! welcome to the evolution vs. creation debate!

no, that's not what i believe at all. i believe that the text itself does not make literal sense in terms of our modern scientific understanding. that's NOT what the text says. the text said that the sky itself was solid, spread by the process of beating. it is a fundamental error to replace a word's meaning with it's root word's meaning. see my debates with eddy penngelly if you want to see where this road takes you.the text indicates that the sky is solid, and holds water. you either believe that, or there is no point defending a literal reading of the bible. and since this picture is very observably not true, why bother in the first place?it is NOT talking about quasars and galaxies and the hubble equation. it's talking about a solid glass dome in the sky that keeps out water. no, the babylonians were quite astrologically astute, as were most mesopotamian cultures. there are mentions of planets in the hebrew bible, which means they not only observed that the stars all moved together, but that there were objects that did not behave like the stars, instead wandering about the sky.the hebrew position of the bible is quite consistant with a pre-copernican view of the solar system. this is to be expected, as well as incorrect.

i don't think you actually believe what you say you believe. ok, let's actually reject science then.shall we talk about the glass dome in the sky that keeps the waters out now?

misleading. everything else is in the water too.

yes, and this is what we should be discussing. because this is the way the bible describes the universe.therefor, if can get outside of our atmosphere and not end up breaking glass or being surrounded by water, the bible is wrong. if the earth is round, the bible is wrong. if the earth is not only the center of the universe, but the majority of the universe, the bible is wrong.we can't pretend that any astronomy done in the last several thousand years lines up with this view.

books in the bible do reference other books in bible. quite frequently, in fact.they also reference books that are not in the bible, curiously. except paul. he claims the "scripture" to be "given by inspiration" whatever that actually means. this subject is of course very debatable. what does paul mean by scripture? is he talking of his own work? the torah? the gospels? what? and what of inspiration? does he mean god-dictated, or is it a little more loose? allow me to borrow jar's image from another thread: proving the bible wrong is not exactly a difficult - or new concept. it contradicts itself very plainly in many instances. not everything can be right, by simple logic. we're also talking about a giant glass dome in the sky. not even considered in the slightest. i doubt anybody thought of it that way at all. the planets were just stars that moved a little differently.

quite. agreed.however, certain books in the bible DO recognize that such collections do exist, if incomplete. for instance, i just demonstrated in another thread that joshua seems to recognize the existance of the torah, or at least exodus and numbers. and probably leviticus. it refers to a book of the law (torah) and makes reference to verses from exodus and numbers.the other joshua, jesus later refers to two collections: "the law" (torah) and "the prophets" (nevi'im). these are collections of 5 and 19 books respectively. he also mentions psalms, which is a collection of 5 books (that everyone counts as one).now whether or not these collections contained all the books they currently do isn't the issue. the fact is that he's referring to collections of books. the contemporary jewish library of holy texts: a bible. so yes, people in the bible are aware of the existance, in some form, of the bible.for a collection of books spanning 3000 years or so, all the time being collected as they go, it's be suprising for books NOT to reference other books or the collection. i do agree with that. but i tend to phrase it, like jar, as "the bible is not god." no, they certainly wouldn;t recognize the gospels, would they? nor the letters of paul, probably. or any of the nt, for that matter. jesus appears to have recognized a little over 2/3 of the modern tanakh. but i don't know if those collections were closed at that point. so they might have been incomplete. i know. it just gets thrown around here a lot. so i thought i'd bring it up before anyone else did. i do think it might be good evidence that SOMEONE who wrote for "the bible" thought at least some of it was the word of god.i don't think the authors of chronicles thought they were writing the words of god though. the verse doesn't really make any sense, when read like christians tend to read it. thank jar, i stole it from one of his posts. hmm good points.

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Second Peter 3:1-4

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This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

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he seems to be saying that is the fundamental assumption on which science is based: that things behave in predicatble ways, according to natural laws. this is a fundamental assumption of science, yes.however, it's not what peter's talking about. he's talking about the return of the messiah, and the coming of the new kingdom. tradition and religion, not natural law.ptolemy is basically, incorrectly, using this verse to say that all of science is bunk because it's relying on a faulty assumption that nature behaves in predicatable ways. and that our faith in the bible should be stronger than evidence in the natural world.as such, i think this thread should be moved to faith and belief.

i only linked to it once. won't do it again. quite. like i commented, psalms is actually five books. we still have the division there, mind you. but there is overlap.all the evidence is that the collection process combined multiple sources into complete documents, well before those documents were regarded as a single source themselves. genesis contains at least 3 authors. chronicles and kings/samuel share a good portion of their text, and refer each other and similar books. isaiah and jeremiah borrow from kings, or the source kings borrowed from. etc.

i'm gonna go with you a second here. i'm glad someone FINALLY has the guts to say "look, the bible and science disagree. i'm gonna take the bible." instead of trying to fit the two together and compromising both.but i'm still calling your bluff. do you believe in the glass dome in the sky that the bible talks about, but is clearly contradicted by science? that's not what peter is talking about. from my earlier post:

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however, it's not what peter's talking about. he's talking about the return of the messiah, and the coming of the new kingdom. tradition and religion, not natural law.

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ptolemy is basically, incorrectly, using this verse to say that all of science is bunk because it's relying on a faulty assumption that nature behaves in predicatable ways. and that our faith in the bible should be stronger than evidence in the natural world.

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peter is addressing his letter to his beloved (church) saying that the first thing WE should know is that in the last days, people will mock the believers asking for signs of the second coming. you're completely misreading the verse.

if you look up in the thread, i've posted a few mentions that describe heaven as a "tent" and one that describes the earth as a "circle." a circular tent would be roughly dome shaped.although, i suppose it could have been another shape. however, a dome seemed the natural view. various ones. well, this is a spiritual thing. these are the primordial waters of creation. they embody chaos. this is why in the other thread, i said it's kind of silly to look for a natural explanation of where the flood water comes from. the bible does not describe the water as being from our universe.i think it may metaphorically represent the void, or whatever is outside of our universe. but literally, it doesn't match up at all.

well, no offenses, but you're not doing so well here. your blatantly misreading that peter verse. the grammar's not even that confusing. actually, the funny bit is that i used that same verse above. here's the jps.

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Isaiah 40:22: It is He who is enthroned the above the vault of the earth,
So that it's inhabitants seem as grasshoppers;
Who spread out the skies like gauze,
stretched them out like a tent to dwell in.

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yes. they're talking about the sky. between the vault (dome) and the earth. clouds. gauze. see the metaphor now? these are not "the skies" these are "the heavens" it's the wrong thing you're talking about. it does not say the heavens are being stretched out. it says the CLOUDS are. as in the clouds in our atmosphere.do you dwell under galaxies like a tent? no. no. no no no. it says "the first thing YOU should know." the people it's addressed to. the first thing WE should know is that people will mock us saying "where is the sign of his coming? everything looks the same to me buddy!" take an astronomy course then. a good portion, though not a majority, of our study of the natural universe relies on light - visible reality.

not if you have a good enough telescope.ever seen the famous hubble picture of the "empty" patch of space?