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Evening – Beginning of Day 2
The Firmament
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In the beginning God created the heaven / heavens and the earth.
- The Hebrew word שָׁמַיִם with the Hebrew letter “m” “ם” at the end (reading right to left), equivalent to the English “s”, indicates plurality. However, just like “the waters” can define both a plural or a singular entity like a baptismal font, so “the heavens” can indicate one or more than one spaces above earth.
- In all there are at least three heavens: “I knew a man in Christ (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.”
- These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created. (Genesis 2:1)
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And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: And God called the firmament [another] Heaven.
The Popol Vuh, the only Mesoamerican religious book to escape the Spaniards’ destruction of native culture, preserves a report of this event.
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“Over a universe wrapped in the gloom of a dense and primeval night passed the god Hurakan, the mighty wind [spirit]. He called out “earth,” and the solid land appeared….
It is worthy of notice that [this] embodies the general aboriginal idea of creation which prevailed in the New World. In many of them the central idea of creation is supplied by the brooding of a great bird [say, a dove?] over the dark primeval waste of waters.”
According to popular Christian educators, however, This word means simply “expansion.” It denotes the space or expanse like an arch appearing immediately above us. They who rendered raki’a by firmamentum regarded it as a solid body. The language of Scripture is not scientific but popular…
This explanation by Bible Study Tools dictionary is simply appalling, and utterly lacks the knowledge of Physics.
Focus! What just happened?!
“God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was / became formless / wasted and void / empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” (Genesis 1:1-2)

