title: Argonauts of the Desert: Structural Analysis of the Hebrew Bible (Copenhagen International Seminar)
author:  Philippe Wajdenbaum 
description: Philippe Wajdenbaum has recently completed his PhD in anthropology at the University of Brussels.
zlib_text:                          The Westminster Theological Journal 53 (1991) 227-40    
     Copyright © 1991 by Westminster Theological Seminary, cited with permission. 
   
  WTJ 53 (1991) 227-240 
   
   
     THE FIRMAMENT AND THE WATER ABOVE 
          Part I: The Meaning of raqiac in Gen 1:6-8 
   
      PAUL H. SEELY 
   
  STANDARD Hebrew lexica and a number of modern biblical scholars 
  have defined the raqiac (fyqr, "firmament") of Gen 1:6-8 as a solid dome 
  over the earth.1  Conservative scholars from Calvin on down to the present, 
  however, have defined it as an atmospheric expanse.2  Some conservatives 
  have taken special pains to reject the concept of a solid dome on the basis 
  that the Bible also refers to the heavens as a tent or curtain and that refer- 
  ences to windows and pillars of heaven are obviously poetic.3  The word 
  raqiac, they say, simply means "expanse." They say the understanding of 
  raqiac as a solid firmament rests on the Vulgate's translation, firmamentum; 
  and that translation res