Genesis - Chapter 1 - Bible - Catholic Online

Just reading the bible*, as you do, and I’m puzzled by the first chapter of the first book, Genesis.  As I understand it, God made some water and split it in two by means of a vault, whatever that is.  There was then some water above the vault and some water below the vault.  God called the middle bit heaven and made dry land appear in the water below the vault.  Then, he populated the dry land, which he called earth, and the water under heaven seas.

The question I have is this: what happened to the water above the vault?  There doesn’t seem to be any further mention of this at all.  Maybe, God made another planet out of it, but didn’t tell us about it for some reason.

*I’m using the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) for two reasons: 1) because it is translated from the original languages and not the erroneous (Greek?) one that the King James, for example, is translated from, so it is less likely to be susceptible to Chinese whispers (so the NJB claim, anyway); and 2) because it was the one I grew up with.

This entry was posted on Friday 27th June, 2008 @ 5.10pm BST Europe/London and is filed under Life, the universe and everything and is tagged with bible, gods, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

10 Responses to “What happened to the water?”

1. Phill Says:
   Monday 30th June, 2008 @ 7.57am BST Europe/London

   Hiya, just noticed this blog entry. May I ask why you were reading Genesis? For some ammo against creationists? On the subject of which translation to use - I use the ESV, the Old Testament was translated from the Masoretic text (Hebrew) for the most part. See this page (under “Textual Basis”) for more info.

   I guess the passage you’re referring to is Genesis 1:6-8? Only thing I can think of is that we are in fact surrounded by water… as clouds Seriously though, Genesis 1 (IMHO) is meant to be read as poetry rather than some sort of scientific text, consequently some of it won’t “make sense” because it’s not supposed to be read in that way.

2. Pandammonium Says:
   Monday 30th June, 2008 @ 8.41am BST Europe/London

   Hi, Phill. That’s the passage, yes. Thanks for the tip re translations.

   I was reading Genesis because that’s the start of the book

   If it happened your light-hearted comment was right, and heaven is indeed between the Earth and the clouds, I hope everyone in heaven is either immune from precipitation or there’s a lot of umbrellas up there!

   Ok, now to the serious stuff, and pardon me if my tone seems a bit off - it’s not meant to be. Where does it say a) you’re not to believe certain parts of the bible, and b) which parts you’re not to believe? This is a big problem for me. Creationists are wrong, in my opinion: there is enough evidence to convince me that evolution is a valid phenomenon. In fact, when I was no more than ten years old, I realised for myself that the modern elephant must be descended from the woolly mammoth.

   Some more enlightened, for want of a better word, Christians accept evolution. This means that they are knowingly rejecting part of the bible because science has a better theory about how we have the animals and plants around today as compared to, say, the Jurassic period. Consequently, this means they reject that Earth is 6000 years old (I think that’s the figure the creationists give - correct me if I’m wrong) because the Jurassic period was well over 6000 years ago.

   As a teenager, I was thinking about all this. I noticed that the Romans had various gods, each to explain various natural phenomena, and man-made stuff as well. I imagine there to be very few people today who believe in the old Roman gods - and Greek and Norse variations. I reckoned this must have been because people came to understand how the sun and moon worked after a while, and had no further need of these gods to explain this. Either that, or a different god was used to explain it, I suppose. The point is, I have thought for a long time that religion is used to explain things we don’t understand - *long before* I’d even heard of Richard Dawkins, who calls this the god of the gaps (The god delusion).

3. Phill Says:
   Monday 30th June, 2008 @ 12.01pm BST Europe/London

   Hi,

   Well I think ‘heaven’ (as translated in the NJB) can also be translated ’sky’. Hebrew words don’t map directly to English words - as well you would know, being a cunning linguist and everything - so the original meaning is hidden.

   Your tone doesn’t sound off to me, by the way Your questions are good ones and probably deserve an essay length response, but I’ll try and keep this short (he says, hopefully…)

   Where does it say a) you’re not to believe certain parts of the bible, and b) which parts you’re not to believe?

   How do you define “believing”? I believe in Genesis, absolutely. I just don’t believe everything is literal. Unfortunately the Bible doesn’t specify which bits are meant to be taken literally and which are not - we have to work it out.

   I believe Genesis 1 in particular is a good example of a passage we should not take literally: if you look into the original Hebrew, there is a symmetry in the language which obviously can’t come through in the translation. For example, the sentence structure is grouped into words of 7, can’t remember the exact details (I can look it up if you like) but that, to me, suggests poetry. Not a scientific text-book.

   The purpose of Genesis 1 is to portray the creation narrative from a Christian perspective, that is to say, impart theological truths without going into details about how everything actually happened. It also serves as a contrast with other ancient ‘religions’ — for example: Genesis 1 is monotheistic, other religions of the time were polytheistic. Genesis 1 says that the creation is ‘good’ - other ancient religions said that creation was bad.

   So, given that, the creation narratives are there to teach us about God, the world, and us (and how they relate) - not tell us how the world came into being!

   I also believe Creationists are wrong, sincere but wrong. I realised this (I used to be a creationist) when I read the book ‘Rebuilding the Matrix’ by Denis Alexander, which explained the history of faith and science and spent a few chapters on evolution. A lot of the problem is people like Richard Dawkins who absolutely insist that evolution is necessarily atheistic. He, in turn, is probably fuelled by intelligent design / creationist types and the circle continues!

   Aaaanyway, back to what you originally said… I think I’ve covered your point about “knowingly rejecting part of the bible” - I certainly am not “rejecting” part of the Bible. It’s a matter of interpretation, I’m certainly not throwing it away or counting it as useless.

   I can’t speak for all religions, but I don’t think Christianity is - or has ever been, really - used to explain things we don’t understand. It’s primarily concerned with the relationship between God and us.

   Going right back to what you said about reading from Genesis because it’s the start of the book - Personally I’d recommend starting with one of the gospels (any one of them will do, Luke might be quite good to start with). Most people, including myself, who are Christians would probably say they’re Christians because of Jesus. If anything we’ve been convinced by the person and work of Jesus. If you want to get an idea of Christianity, the place to start is with him

   Sorry this has gone on for ages, I hope this has gone some way towards addressing your question anyway!

4. Pandammonium Says:
   Tuesday 1st July, 2008 @ 7.22pm BST Europe/London

   Thanks for the reply.

   Heaven and sky translate into Spanish as the same word as well, cielo.

   I define believing as accepting as true (or likely). I don’t think the events of Genesis are likely or true, hence I don’t believe it. I would like you to look up the original Hebrew, if you wouldn’t mind - I think it would be interesting. I have to say I love the idea of a scientific text being written in poetry! I agree it’s unlikely.

   If what you say about what Genesis is saying, though, why wasn’t it written in such a way to make that clear? Why does it leave so much open to interpretation? Admittedly, it does say creation is good, I’ll give you that!

   If you’ve rejected creationism and accept evolution, do you accept big bang theory? I know it’s unlikely, but it seems the best we’ve got (to date).

   I take on board what you say about where to start, but I’d like to read the Old Testament first - after all, that’s what Jesus grew up with.

   Incidentally, I should hope Christians are Christians because of Jesus

   Don’t apologise for the length of your comment, either - there’s no word limit as far as I know!

5. Pandammonium Says:
   Wednesday 2nd July, 2008 @ 4.43pm BST Europe/London

   Incidentally, it seems the pope said something very similar to what you said: wikipedia link.

6. Phill Says:
   Thursday 3rd July, 2008 @ 8.56am BST Europe/London

   Hi,

   It appears that using blockquote HTML tags do not work here, so I will try and use italics!

   I would like you to look up the original Hebrew, if you wouldn’t mind - I think it would be interesting.

   Well, all I’ve managed to find so far is this: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0101.htm — but it doesn’t mean much to me (not sure whether I even have the necessary font installed?!)

   And unfortunately I can’t read Hebrew so I’m pretty much stuck with the English translation.

   If what you say about what Genesis is saying, though, why wasn’t it written in such a way to make that clear? Why does it leave so much open to interpretation?

   Interesting question. IMO it’s pretty obvious that it’s not giving a scientific account of how the universe came into being. Like I said before, the whole point is to communicate theological truth about creation, and I think for centuries this was the traditional understanding of Genesis 1-2. It’s only in the past 50-100 years that the creationist movement has come in and started causing trouble.

   Another thing I find interesting - when Darwin first announced his theory, a lot of theologians and clerics welcomed them, and found nothing in them contrary to Christianity.

   If you’ve rejected creationism and accept evolution, do you accept big bang theory? I know it’s unlikely, but it seems the best we’ve got (to date).

   I’m happy to accept any scientific theory really, I don’t dismiss anything because of religious reasons. If there’s evidence to support the big bang / evolution, great! If you look into the history of science, a lot of the early scientists (I think they were called natural philosophers) were religious and believed reading from the Bible and reading from nature were both reading the word of God - just in two different ways. That’s kind of what I believe, if Christianity is true then science and Christianity are not in conflict - science is in fact telling us more about God!

   I take on board what you say about where to start, but I’d like to read the Old Testament first - after all, that’s what Jesus grew up with.

   Ok, but bear in mind that you have to view the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament. Also, there are lots of references in the OT to Jesus which you wouldn’t pick up just by reading it at face value. For example, if you read Hebrews chapter 1, the writer picks up a variety of passages from the OT and applies them to Christ.

   Also, you don’t want to get too bogged down in the laws etc, most of that is now irrelevant (but that’s a matter for a whole other discussion).

   Oh, by the way, thanks for the Wikipedia link - I think I’d pretty much agree with that paragraph.

7. Phill Says:
   Thursday 3rd July, 2008 @ 8.57am BST Europe/London

   Doh! It appears that EM tags are stripped as well. Grrr @ WordPress.

   If you read something I’ve said and it sounds like Deja-vu, I was probably quoting you!

8. Pandammonium Says:
   Thursday 3rd July, 2008 @ 10.24am BST Europe/London

   Just a quick reply about the tags: I thought it was supposed to work with HTML tags. I think something odd is going on with the comments in general. Your tags are actually there when I look at the source code in WP, but they’re just not showing. I shall look into that more fully.

   I will also reply to the main part more fully later.

9. Phill Says:
   Thursday 3rd July, 2008 @ 3.03pm BST Europe/London

   (Puts web developer hat on)

   Hmmm, it seems that my tags are showing up in the HTML, however they’re just not doing anything. It could be something to do with your stylesheet.

   (30 seconds later)

   Well, upon investigation using the web developer toolbar, I think the problem lies with your CSS. There’s a huge great big line in your default.css file which is resetting everything, including EM and BLOCKQUOTE tags.

   to fix it, remove those couple of tags from your CSS or add them in with your own styles

10. Pandammonium Says:
    Friday 4th July, 2008 @ 10.53am BST Europe/London

    Yeah, I realised that at some point between this morning and yesterday. That’s what happens when you follow Internet guidelines and do a “reset” thing so that all browsers start off with the same blank canvas and forget to style all tags used thereafter. *rolls eyes*

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