ECT What is the Firmament in Genesis 1?

[Gary K]

What parable? The key concepts leading to the idea of the firmament in V8 being the crust of the Earth are laid out thus:

The word raqia is most useful when translated as "firmament," because that keeps the guesswork in the game for a thing we are grappling over anyway. Or we could just use the Hebrew placeholder for a to-be-determined proper English translation. Either way, one side claims the thing created was the crust of the Earth, while the other says it is the sky. Looking at the text, we need to agree that the central features of that created item are: 1. It was formed in the water. 2. It separated water above from water below. We ask, as challenges to the "skyists": Where was the water? What powered the fountains of the deep? How could water falling as rain account for a global flood? Where did that water go?

Pluralization would require that both firmaments (assuming there were more than one) were referred to in unison. That there is no instance is not much of evidence for anything.

I'm done with this thread. When posts get changed to change arguments there is no honest discussion. The argument that the earth is heaven was linked to Jesus parable of the sower from Matthew 13 and specifically verse 19. That has all been deleted.

The plain wording of Genesis 1 is too clear to be missed. All I see in your side of the argument is an attempt to force scripture to fit a pet theory created by human beings. I'll stick with God's word all the way. So, I see no common ground on which to continue this argument for that is all it has degenerated into, an argument to defend a theory over scripture.

 

[Stripe]

I'm done with this thread.

Uh... OK.

When posts get changed to change arguments there is no honest discussion. The argument that the earth is heaven was linked to Jesus parable of the sower from Matthew 13 and specifically verse 19. That has all been deleted.

Are you sure it was this thread? I've followed this one pretty closely and this is the first time I've heard that passage come up in this conversation, here or elsewhere.

Also, I don't see any deleted post markers in reviewing the thread.

The plain wording of Genesis 1 is too clear to be missed. All I see in your side of the argument is an attempt to force scripture to fit a pet theory created by human beings. I'll stick with God's word all the way. So, I see no common ground on which to continue this argument for that is all it has degenerated into, an argument to defend a theory over scripture.

Genesis 1 describes a firmament created within the deep, separating waters below from waters above.

 

[genuineoriginal]

The plain wording of Genesis 1 is too clear to be missed.

Yes, that is the point I have been making.

 

[JudgeRightly]

WARNING: LONG POST

Yes, that is the point I have been making.

So, now that we have somewhat fleshed out our positions a little bit, GO, how about we look at the implications of our positions. (There are questions at the bottom of this post that are taken from the meat of the post, so if you don't care to read the post (though I strongly suggest you do), I would like it if you could answer the questions at the end.

Your position is that the all uses of firmament, raqia, heaven, are all talking about the sky.

So where does that leave you?

Our position is that there are two firmaments, the "firmament called Heaven," and the "firmament of the heavens," that the former refers to the crust of the earth before (and even after) dry land appeared, that the waters above were the waters God called Seas when He made the dry land (which He called "Earth") appear, and that the waters below were stored in vast subterranean chambers beneath the crust of the earth.

So where does that leave US?

====================

Spoiler

Let's look at where it leaves you first, and we'll assume for a moment that your position is correct. This discussion unavoidably revolves around the Flood, as you'll see in a moment.

Because you said that the "waters below the firmament" are the Seas, and the "waters above the firmament" were held in storehouses ABOVE the earth, you come across the first contradiction with scripture (and why the question I asked truly is important, and not irrelevant like you claimed) in Genesis 8, which describes the Flood.

The Bible uses "the deep" many times throughout the Bible, and it is used as the "deep," a place, or "depth," and is ALWAYS used to refer to something below the surface, usually of water, but sometimes of the earth itself.

Something that is ABOVE the earth cannot be considered "beneath the surface."

Ok, minor contradiction, maybe we can look past it, maybe instead it's referring to how deep the storehouses in heaven are.

But that's not what we see in Scripture.

First of all, "Fountains of the deep" (same word) is also used to refer to springs of water in Deuteronomy 8:7, for example, and it's DEFINITELY not talking about the sky there, but natural springs coming out of the earth (which, not surprisingly, is actually consistent with our position, but more on that later)

Psalm 33:7, "He lays up the deep in....

Storehouses."

The whole verse is talking about water. Which again brings us back to where "the deep" is, because if it's in heaven, then it's again not consistent with what the word actually implies, which is below the surface.

So, by definition, your position is already on shaky ground because it puts a word that refers to something below the surface above the earth.

But maybe we can look past that, to see if anything else resolves the issue.

What if, you might say, the water is in a "canopy" above the earth (ie, the Canopy Theory)? The problem with that is that only a few inches of water somehow suspended above the earth's atmosphere, or dispersed throughout it, would literally boil the earth and kill all the life God had made. Simulations have been done on this, and there's no physical way that you could have more than a few inches of water above the earth before the stored up heat beneath the canopy would become too great for life to continue to exist, and a few inches of water isn't going to raise the sea level more than a few inches, let alone flood the earth completely...

So maybe the water wasn't present in the physical universe, but stored up in heaven?

The goal when creating a theory based on the Bible is to have as few assumptions as possible, and to only have miracles where they are mentioned, otherwise the theory could just become one giant miraculous event that cannot be understood by anyone other than God, which defeats any evidence that we find.

In other words, appealing to miracles should be avoided at all costs, except when miracles are specifically called for in the text.

With that in mind, when we look at the text of the Flood story, we don't see any specific instances of miracles except perhaps the "windows of heaven were opened," which says nothing specific about where the water is, because, and I believe both sides of this discussion would agree, when such a phrase is used, it's typically referring to rains, torrential downpours, etc., which can be accounted for by both sides, just in different ways.

The real issue comes about, however, because apart from that, there is no mention of any other "miracle-like" event in the entire passage, except for Genesis 8:1, where God caused a wind to blow on the earth, which could be a miracle, but not a very specific one, so trying to read too much into it might not be a good idea.

All of that, just to say that having "windows of heaven were opened" mean that the water was miraculously transported to the earth, when it could be explained through normal, as opposed to supernatural (though certainly extraordinary) physical processes (like rain falling from the clouds), seems counterproductive, and more like a rescue device meant to save the theory than an actual explanation of the events of Genesis 7-8.

In other words, such a position can safely be discarded if a better explanation can be found.

So, we looked at where the water came from, now let's look at where it all went.

Again, the only potential miracle found that caused the beginning of the receding of the waters on the earth is found in Genesis 8:1, where God caused a wind to blow across the surface of the earth. Nothing else is mentioned except that the fountains and windows were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.

Whether these phrases describe miracles or simply the atmosphere simply rained itself out is to be determined, but it is better to assume no miracles, rather than assume miracles and preclude any investigation into it.

So, where did the water go? The Bible says it receded, but where did it recede to?

I'm not sure that the canopy theory has an answer for this, and the only other option that I can think of (other than what my own position asserts) is that God removed the water supernaturally, which is not stated in scripture, and so can safely be discarded if an alternative explanation can be provided, as doing so would not require any changes to what scripture says.

GO, perhaps you could provide the explanation you hold to regarding where the waters of the Flood went?

That should be enough to discuss concerning your side of the discussion, at least for now. Now for our position...

========================

Spoiler

So, now that we've looked where your theory leaves you in reference to a few things concerning the Flood, let's look at where OUR position leaves US. Let's assume for a moment that the Hydroplate theory is correct, and the canopy theory is wrong.

Because we said that there are two firmaments, one being the crust of the earth, the other being the firmament of the sky, it leaves us with an accurate location for where "the deep" of Genesis 1:2 is, below the crust of the earth, as Psalm 33:7 says, the deep is in storehouses beneath the surface of the earth. According to the Hydroplate theory, those storehouses are simply many large interconnected chambers of water beneath the crust of the earth that were formed on Day 3 of the creation week. These chambers are the source of the water for the fountains of the deep.

This is consistent with many of the verses that use "the deep" or "depth," such as Genesis 49:25, Job 38:16,30, Psalm 33:7, 71:20, 104:5-9, Proverbs 3:19-20 (which uses the same word as in Genesis 7:11, "broken up"), 8:22-31, and Ezekiel 31 (the entire chapter, but specifically verses 4 and 15).

So if the firmament called Heaven (not "of the heavens") was instead the continental crust of the earth, then what about the firmament "of the heavens"? Well, as we have said before, that does, just as your position does, refer to the sky, just like "windows of heaven" refers to rain falling from the sky.

So how does the "windows of heaven" phrase fit in?

As I mentioned before, but will do so again here, if we take the order in which Genesis 7:11 describes the events of the flood happening to be the actual order, then we can assume that when the fountains broke forth, the windows of heaven were the resulting rains from the fountains, just like if you go to a public square and there's a fountain, the water goes up, and because of gravity, comes back down again, but it's usually dispersed from the more solid stream that it was on it's way upwards.

If the hydroplate theory is accurate, it solves both the problem of where the flood waters originated, below the crust of the earth, which means there's no requirement for miracles in either supernaturally removing heat due to there being too much water in the atmosphere (boiling all life on earth) OR supernaturally transporting water to above the earth to cause it to rain upon it.

And that's just for where the water comes from.

What about where the water went? What happened to all of the water (a bit less than half of all the water on the earth since creation, if the crust divided the waters of Genesis 1:6 exactly in half) that was below the crust of the earth?

Well, let's start by taking a look at the reason God placed Adam in the garden:

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. - Genesis 2:15 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis2:15&version=NKJV

What happens when you don't tend a garden? It becomes overgrown, yes? Weeds, overgrown plants, and specifically, if there's a good source of water nearby, a tree's roots will grow, and as a result, you get a really, really big tree.

Some of the following is conjecture, but can be supported by scripture. Allow me to tell you a story that I hope you'll read.

Imagine such a tree, in the Garden of Eden, that has grown large because of the source of water it sits on, so large that its boughs stretch from mountain-top to mountain-top, we're talking a GINORMOUS tree. The source of water this tree was above was constantly pumping out water, enough that it formed a huge river that went out of the garden, and then split up into four smaller rivers, each of which went out and watered the whole earth, so much water that it's no wonder that the tree above it grew so bit.

Now, when God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden, the garden no longer had anyone to tend to it and keep it, and so you can imagine that a few centuries later, and the entire garden would have been completely overgrown. So this tree that sat on the source of the river, its roots grew so thick that it eventually choked off the source of the large river, causing all of the rivers to dry up, resulting in a world-wide drought. And so, as time went on, the descendents of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Seth and their wives, started to resent this "God" that had kicked their ancestors out of what was supposed to be a paradise, and blamed the drought on God, accusing Him of drying up their source of water (typical humans, amirite?), and so they form a search party to go look for the source of water, so that they can restore their water supply.

So they follow the riverbeds upstream, and come across this giant tree, the base of which is in some mountains, and is surrounded by trees which are large, but come nowhere near the size of the giant tree.

These men, they think to themselves, "this must be this so-called "God's" garden, we can see the remains of a giant river at the base of this tree, yet no water is flowing. Let's cut the tree down, so that the water will flow again, so that we may drink."

So they cut the tree down. Its branches fell on the mountains and the valleys, its boughs laid broken by all the rivers of the land, and the ground shook with the sound of it's fall, and when it fell, the fountains of the great deep broke forth.

God was laughing at them, saying, "You want water? Here, I'll give you water. I'll give you so much water you'll be comforted by it." And so the entire earth was flooded.

This storyline (the parts that matter, at least) can be found in Ezekiel 31.

So, you might be wondering, what in the world does a tree in the Garden have to do with the Flood?

Well, let's compare two verses, for a moment:

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil:
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. - Genesis 3:6 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis3:6&version=NKJV

The Tree in the Garden of Eden:
Indeed Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, With fine branches that shaded the forest, And of high stature; And its top was among the thick boughs.The waters made it grow; Underground waters gave it height, With their rivers running around the place where it was planted, And sent out rivulets to all the trees of the field.‘Therefore its height was exalted above all the trees of the field; Its boughs were multiplied, And its branches became long because of the abundance of water, As it sent them out.All the birds of the heavens made their nests in its boughs; Under its branches all the beasts of the field brought forth their young; And in its shadow all great nations made their home.‘Thus it was beautiful in greatness and in the length of its branches, Because its roots reached to abundant waters.The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it; The fir trees were not like its boughs, And the chestnut trees were not like its branches; No tree in the garden of God was like it in beauty.I made it beautiful with a multitude of branches, So that all the trees of Eden envied it, That were in the garden of God.’ - Ezekiel 31:3-9 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel31:3-9&version=NKJV

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/lBuMyXvfSMI

Long story short, we can reasonably argue that the tree that was cut down was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (from here on out referred to as simply, "the Tree"), and that the Tree was placed on top of a natural spring of water.

So... again, what does this have to do with the flood, and particularly, the Hydroplate theory?

More on that later, this post is long enough as it is, and there's plenty to talk about in it currently.

========================

So, GO, in case you skipped some or all of the above, here are my questions for you:

1) According to the usage in the Bible, "the deep" refers to a place or being located below the surface, in other words, down. How do you reconcile "the deep" (especially considering all the verses listed above in the evaluation section of my position) with your position that there is only one firmament, and it is above the earth, requiring that the waters be above the earth, not below the surface of it? In other words, where was the flood waters stored, and by what process (if you could explain in some detail) did the waters go from that source to the surface of the earth to flood it?

2) According to your position, where did the water recede to after the flood? Where did it go? What happened to it?

3) Do you agree that appealing to miracles should be avoided where there are no specified miracles recorded in the Bible?

4) Could you agree that, at least on the surface, the tree described in Ezekiel 31 seems to match the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis?

That should suffice for now.

 

[genuineoriginal]

1) According to the usage in the Bible, "the deep" refers to a place or being located below the surface, in other words, down. How do you reconcile "the deep" (especially considering all the verses listed above in the evaluation section of my position) with your position that there is only one firmament, and it is above the earth,

That is easy.
The Bible always speaks of the firmament as being above the earth.
I would be willing to look at any verses you find that state that the firmament is under our feet instead of over our heads.

requiring that the waters be above the earth, not below the surface of it?

The plain reading of scripture shows that God made heaven on day 2 with water above it and water below it and then God made earth by moving the water under heaven that was covering the earth.

Genesis 1:6-10 6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 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. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.​ [/B] In other words, where was the flood waters stored, There was some water stored in the air (water vapor), but the vast majority of the flood waters were the same water that was covering the earth under heaven (Genesis 1:9) that God moved to expose the dry land (Genesis 1:10) when He put it in the seas. and by what process (if you could explain in some detail) did the waters go from that source to the surface of the earth to flood it? The simple answer is tsunamis. A more detailed answer to follow. 2) According to your position, where did the water recede to after the flood? Where did it go? What happened to it? The seas that God moved the water into in Genesis 1:9 hold all the water that covered the earth before Genesis 1:9 and all the water that covered the earth in Genesis 7:20. 3) Do you agree that appealing to miracles should be avoided where there are no specified miracles recorded in the Bible? I am not appealing to miracles. If you are saying I am appealing to miracles, then you are creating a strawman argument. 4) Could you agree that, at least on the surface, the tree described in Ezekiel 31 seems to match the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis? No, it appears to be a parable about how powerful Assyria was before it fell as a warning to Egypt to not take their power for granted because God could bring them down just as easily as He did to Assyria and doesn't seem to have any similarity to a tree in the Garden of Eden.

 

[JudgeRightly]

That is easy.

If it's easy, then why didn't you answer the question?

The Bible always speaks of the firmament as being above the earth.

Right, that was the assumption when I asked the question, but it doesn't reconcile the location of the deep throughout scripture as being BELOW, not ABOVE, the surface of the earth.

So could you answer the question:

How do you reconcile (make consistent) the fact that the deep points to something below the earth, when you claim the firmament which holds "the deep" is above the earth, not below it? (Remember, the "fountains of the deep," not the "fountains of heaven")

I would be willing to look at any verses you find that state that the firmament is under our feet instead of over our heads.

See the verses in my previous post.

The plain reading of scripture shows that God made heaven on day 2 with water above it and water below it and then God made earth by moving the water under heaven that was covering the earth.

Genesis 1:6-10 6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 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. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.​ [/B]

There was some water stored in the air (water vapor), So, Vapor Canopy Theory, right? Or your personal variant of it, at least? Again, the amount of water necessary to flood the earth would turn the earth into a terrarium, it would be unlivable. but the vast majority of the flood waters were the same water that was covering the earth under heaven (Genesis 1:9) Then you have another problem. The Bible says, in Genesis 7:12, that it rained for 40 days and nights, but a few verses later, it says that the waters kept rising after the rains fell, the waters rose for another 150 days! Where did all that water come from? It COULD NOT have been the atmosphere or the sea, because the amount of water needed would have killed off all life on earth before the flood waters ever could. that God moved to expose the dry land (Genesis 1:10) when He put it in the seas. The simple answer is tsunamis. A more detailed answer to follow. Oh, that's right, you're the tsunami guy. I'll get to that in a bit. The seas that God moved the water into in Genesis 1:9 hold all the water that covered the earth before Genesis 1:9 and all the water that covered the earth in Genesis 7:20. There's simply not enough water. Not in the Seas, not in the atmosphere, to flood the I am not appealing to miracles. That's quite the knee-jerk reaction. Where did I accuse you of such? Here's the question again: Do you agree that appealing to miracles should be avoided where there are no specified miracles recorded in the Bible? If you are saying I am appealing to miracles, then you are creating a strawman argument. I wasn't. I was simply asking a question so that we could agree on something as it relates to forming theories on historical events, so that we had a baseline to fall back to if necessary if we find paths that diverge from each other. No, it appears to be a parable about how powerful Assyria was before it fell as a warning to Egypt to not take their power for granted because God could bring them down just as easily as He did to Assyria Right, That's part is obvious, and is clearly not the part I'm asking about. I'm asking you to actually pay attention to the text, instead of just glossing over it. and doesn't seem to have any similarity to a tree in the Garden of Eden. Can you see the description of a tree (forget the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil for a moment) in Ezekiel 31? If not, could you please get out your Bible, and read through Ezekiel chapter 31 right now?

 

[genuineoriginal]

Common misconceptions about the flood

• Noah's ark was sitting on dry ground at the beginning of the flood.
• The flood involved 40 days and nights of continual rain that maintained the same amount of rain per minute from the beginning to the end.
• The flood was mostly a rise in sea level caused by rainfall in order to cover the earth.
• The height of the mountains before the flood is the same as the height of the mountains after the flood.
• The land mass before the flood is the same as the land mass after the flood.
• The diameter of the earth before the flood is the same as the diameter of the earth after the flood.

Let's look at the text to see if any of those ideas are supported.

Genesis 7:11-12 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.​

At this point, we can see that there is an artificial break splitting up the "windows of heaven" and "the rain" that comes down.
There was 40 days and nights of rain, but the verses do not tell us what amount of water fell per minute or if the amount of water per minute changed throughout the 40 days and nights.
Based on normal rainfall, we can assume that the amount of rain per minute was not constant and that there may have been occasional gaps in the rainfall of up to half a day during the 40 days and nights.
Therefore the water from the rain alone cannot explain the flood, but the cause of the flood must explain the extended rainfall.
The majority of the water must have come from the "fountains of the great deep".
The word "fountains" typically refers to water coming from an underground source and "the great deep" refers to a large ocean.
It doesn't make any sense to claim that the "fountains of the great deep" refers to a source of water that is under the ground that is under a large ocean.
The only thing that makes sense is that it is referring to the waters of a large ocean coming up in a manner not seen before (or since).

Genesis 7:17-20,24 17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. 18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. 20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. 24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.​

This phrase "the waters prevailed" is a description of mighty waves washing over the land and is different than "the waters increased" which happened at the beginning of the flood.
When we combine this with "fountains of the great deep" we can understand that something has caused the large ocean to generate mighty waves that flooded the dry land.

Genesis 8:1-3 1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; 2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; 3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.​

In this passage, we see that "the waters assuaged" which means the cause of the waters of the flood were stopped.
A second thing that happens is "the waters returned from off the earth continually" until finally "the waters were abated".
During the flood the land was covered in mighty waves, but after the initial 40 days and nights the cause of the flood was removed and the mighty waves got smaller and smaller as the ocean returned to a normal state.

Now we need to turn to modern science to find out what the earth was like right before the flood and right after.

The dry land immediately after the flood appears to have been a single land mass that broke up into the continents we have now.

There are tectonic plates under the continents that are floating on the earth's mantle and are still moving around.

The speed of the movement from the single land mass into our current continents indicates that something catastrophic broke up the crust of the earth at the time of the flood.

The crust of the earth is made up of multiple layers of sedimentary rocks.
The tops of high mountain ranges show the same layers of sedimentary rocks and contain fossils of sea creatures and plants.
This means that the high mountains were underwater and that the height of mountains during the flood was much lower than the height of mountains now.

Geologists have discovered signs of many meteor impacts between the sedimentary layers created by the flood.
Over 150 impact sites have been found in the lower layers.

So, what does this mean?
It means that the most probable cause of the flood is a large meteor shower that contained multiple "city buster" sized meteors and at least one "planet buster" meteor.
The "planet buster" meteor struck the earth near the middle of what is now known as the Pacific ocean and pushed through the crust into the mantle, swelling the interior of the earth, and breaking up the crust into the tectonic plates.
Any islands and land masses that were not part of a single land mass were forced together to form Pangaea by the impact.
The impact of the "planet buster" meteor created the world's biggest series of tsunamis (fountains of the deep) and filled the sky with water that came down like rain (windows of heaven).

Noah's ark was probably floating on the sea near an edge of a land mass, and an ocean swell caused by a meteor strike pulled the ark away from the land mass into the open sea where it pushed around by the series of tsunamis.

The tsunamis washed over the relatively flat ground, rapidly changing the landscape and causing mass extinctions.

As the tsunamis decreased in intensity, the water pressure on top of the land masses decreased and the broken crust of the earth moved enough to rapidly push up mountain tops that showed up on the first day of the tenth month.
The rise of the mountains trapped many large seas on top of the land masses, like the one that was on the North American continent and formed the Grand Canyon as it drained centuries after the flood.
The hole punched through the crust by the "planet buster" meteor began closing up, pulling on the tectonic plates towards the impact site and splitting Pangaea into what became the modern continents.
The movement of the tectonic plates towards the Pacific ocean created the Ring of Fire.

This theory I put forth is an amalgamation of commonly accepted ideas in modern science.
Here are excerpts from two of the hundreds of articles that lend support to my theory.

Did meteorites create the Earth’s tectonic plates? Meteorite impacts, the team suggests, would have caused the planet’s cold outer crust to move comparatively rapidly downwards towards the planetary core. This process would have changed the intensity of convection within the core, thus affecting the “geodynamo” – the conductive layer of liquid iron that surrounds the solid inner core and that generates a magnetic field. “This is a really important age in the inner solar system,” says O’Neill. “Impacting studies have suggested a big disturbance in the asteroid populations at this time, with perhaps a big upswing in impacts on the Earth. Our simulations show that larger amounts of meteorite collisions with the planet around this time could have driven the subduction process, explaining the formation of many zircons around this period, as well as the increase in magnetic field strength.”

​

Did a Pacific Ocean meteor trigger the Ice Age? "But consider that we're talking about something the size of a small mountain crashing at very high speed into very deep ocean, between Chile and Antarctica. Unlike a land impact, where the energy of the collision is largely absorbed locally, this would have generated an incredible splash with waves literally hundreds of metres high near the impact site. "Some modelling suggests that the ensuing mega-tsunami could have been unimaginably large – sweeping across vast areas of the Pacific and engulfing coastlines far inland. But it also would have ejected massive amounts of water vapour, sulphur and dust up into the stratosphere. "The tsunami alone would have been devastating enough in the short term, but all that material shot so high into the atmosphere could have been enough to dim the sun and dramatically reduce surface temperatures. Earth was already in a gradual cooling phase, so this might have been enough to rapidly accelerate and accentuate the process and kick start the Ice Ages."

​

 

[genuineoriginal]

If it's easy, then why didn't you answer the question?

I did answer.

How do you reconcile (make consistent) the fact that the deep points to something below the earth, when you claim the firmament which holds "the deep" is above the earth, not below it? (Remember, the "fountains of the deep," not the "fountains of heaven")

Like I said, The Bible always speaks of the firmament as being above the earth.

I am not responsible for any confusion caused by the Hydroplate theory.

So, Vapor Canopy Theory, right? Or your personal variant of it, at least?

No. See my recent post.

Again, the amount of water necessary to flood the earth would turn the earth into a terrarium, it would be unlivable.

Strawman arguments do not help.

Then you have another problem.

The Bible says, in Genesis 7:12, that it rained for 40 days and nights, but a few verses later, it says that the waters kept rising after the rains fell, the waters rose for another 150 days!

Where did all that water come from? It COULD NOT have been the atmosphere or the sea, because the amount of water needed would have killed off all life on earth before the flood waters ever could.

Your statements show you have a bunch of misconceptions about the nature of the flood. See my recent post.

Oh, that's right, you're the tsunami guy.

Yes, and my ideas are backed by real science.

There's simply not enough water.

There is not enough water to deal with your misconceptions about the flood, but there is plenty of water to handle the meteor/tsunami theory.

Here's the question again:
Do you agree that appealing to miracles should be avoided where there are no specified miracles recorded in the Bible?

Here is my answer again.
I am not appealing to miracles.

I was simply asking a question so that we could agree on something as it relates to forming theories on historical events, so that we had a baseline to fall back to if necessary if we find paths that diverge from each other.

Okay, the only miracles involved were the preservation of Noah and the ark and moving the meteor swarm so it impacted the earth to cause the flood.
Every effect of the meteor swarm on the earth causing the flood and the rest is scientifically plausible.

Can you see the description of a tree (forget the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil for a moment) in Ezekiel 31?

If not, could you please get out your Bible, and read through Ezekiel chapter 31 right now?

I did that already.
I found your comparison to be ridiculous and have moved on.

 

[Stripe]

There are tectonic plates under the continents that are floating on the earth's mantle and are still moving around.

What force moves them?

As the tsunamis decreased in intensity, the water pressure on top of the land masses decreased and the broken crust of the earth moved enough to rapidly push up mountain tops that showed up on the first day of the tenth month.

How did the weight of water hold down the earth?

The hole punched through the crust by the "planet buster" meteor began closing up, pulling on the tectonic plates towards the impact site and splitting Pangaea into what became the modern continents.

What force caused the hole to close? What force pulled the plates?

 

[Omniskeptical]

What force caused the hole to close? What force pulled the plates?

Yahweh

 

[genuineoriginal]

What force moves them? What force pulled the plates?

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/the-dynamic-earth/plate-tectonics/

How did the weight of water hold down the earth?

Gravity

What force caused the hole to close?

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/mantle/

 

[Stripe]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/the-dynamic-earth/plate-tectonics/

I guess you're referring to this: "Churning currents in the molten rocks below [the lithosphere]."

Rocks aren't molten inside the Earth till we get to the outer core. There is a whole bunch of not molten rock between the lithosphere and the outer core.

Would you like to describe what you believe in your own words rather than using this flawed source?

Gravity

A 2km column of water does not stop the land rising. In fact, no amount of water would hold the Earth in place if it decided to move.

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/mantle/

I don't know what you're referring to in this that would answer the question, but it does describe the Earth's interior more accurately than the first link.

 

[genuineoriginal]

Would you like to describe what you believe in your own words

I thought that was what I did originally, but you didn't think that was enough, so you asked these questions:

What force moves them?

My answer is that each of these can be explained by what modern science understands about plate tectonics, with the main exception that modern science can't understand that the plates have not been moving for billions of years but only thousands of years.

Here is a portion of an article on Catastrophic Plate Tectonics from answersingenesis.
The meteor/tsunami theory of the flood is a bit different from the explanations in the article in a couple of key points.
In the meteor/tsunami theory of the flood, the "sudden trigger" that cracks the crust of the earth is the earth being struck by a "planet buster" sized meteor.
The cracking of the crust is not one where regions of rock weakness spreads out over a matter of weeks, but all of the cracks that form the tectonic plates happen at the same time from the internal pressure caused by the impact of the meteor.

Can Catastrophic Plate Tectonics Explain Flood Geology? The catastrophic plate tectonics model of Austin et al. begins with a pre-Flood supercontinent surrounded by cold ocean-floor rocks that were denser than the warm mantle rock beneath. To initiate motion in the model, some sudden trigger “cracks” the ocean floors adjacent to the supercontinental crustal block, so that zones of cold ocean-floor rock start penetrating vertically into the upper mantle along the edge of most of the supercontinent. These vertical segments of ocean-floor rock correspond to the leading edges of oceanic plates. These vertical zones begin to sink in conveyor-belt fashion into the mantle, dragging the rest of the ocean floor with them. The sinking slabs of ocean plates produce stresses in the surrounding mantle rock, and these stresses, in turn, cause the rock to become more deformable and allow the slabs to sink faster. This process causes the stress levels to increase and the rock to become even weaker. These regions of rock weakness expand to encompass the entire mantle and result in a catastrophic runaway of the oceanic slabs to the bottom of the mantle in a matter of a few weeks. The energy for driving this catastrophe is the gravitational potential energy of the cold, dense rock overlying the less dense mantle beneath it at the beginning of the event. At its peak, this runaway instability allows the subduction rates of the plates to reach amazing speeds of feet-per-second. At the same time the pre-Flood seafloor was being catastrophically subducted into the mantle, the resultant tensional stress tore apart (rifted) the pre-Flood supercontinent (see Figure 2). The key physics responsible for the runaway instability is the fact that mantle rocks weaken under stress, by factors of a billion or more, for the sorts of stress levels that can occur in a planet the size of the earth—a behavior verified by many laboratory experiments over the past forty years. The rapidly sinking ocean-floor slabs forcibly displace the softer mantle rock into which they are subducted, which causes large-scale convectional flow throughout the entire mantle. The hot mantle rock displaced by these subducting slabs wells up elsewhere to complete the flow cycle, and in particular rises into the seafloor rift zones to form new ocean floor. Reaching the surface of the ocean floor, this hot mantle material vaporizes huge volumes of ocean water with which it comes into contact to produce a linear curtain of supersonic steam jets along the entire 43,500 miles (70,000 km) of the seafloor rift zones stretching around the globe (perhaps the “fountains of the great deep” of Genesis 7:11 and Genesis 8:2). These supersonic steam jets capture large amounts of liquid water as they “shoot” up through the ocean above the seafloor where they form. This water is catapulted high above the earth and then falls back to the surface as intense global rain (“and the floodgates of heaven were opened”). The rain persisted for “40 days and nights” (Genesis 7:11–12) until all the pre-Flood ocean floor had been subducted.

​

How did the weight of water hold down the earth?

Before the flood, the land mass was on one side of the earth and the rest of the earth was covered by water.
The "planet buster" meteor that embedded itself in the mantle went through the great deep sea, throwing up massive amounts of steam and gigantic waves of water.
The water moved away from the site of the impact, lessening the weight of the water above the crust at the impact site and moving that weight onto the land mass.
The extra weight of water that was now over the land mass did something, didn't it?
My guess is that it pushed down the pieces of the land mass and the tectonic plates, putting additional pressure on the mantle under the land mass and the pressure in the mantle pushed back against the side of the earth where the impact happened.
The mantle shook like jello during the flood, but the movement was slower because of the distances involved.

What force caused the hole to close? What force pulled the plates?

Pressure from above (weight of water and crust) and below (movements in the mantle) pulled and pushed the tectonic plates and split apart the land mass.
The cracks in the land mass caused lines of lower pressure over the mantle, causing the edges of the pieces of land masses to try to rise.
The water rushed into the cracks and hydraulic pressure pushed against the edges of the cracks, pushing the pieces of land mass apart from each other and towards the impact site.

As far as the hole in the pacific ocean goes, scientists have found that too.

The Earth Story There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea A mid-ocean ridge creates plates on two sides. As the plates separate, magma wells up in-between and sticks to both sides, creating the parallel pattern on both. If mid-ocean ridges always worked this way, then every part of every plate should have one of these sets of lines on it, even if the plate on the other side has been completely subducted. This works everywhere on Earth except one spot – the Western Pacific. In the Western Pacific Ocean, some of the oldest ocean crust on Earth doesn’t have the normal pattern of anomalies. They are a bit chaotic because of volcanoes that erupted later, but there’s a general pattern like the one outlined in the first image – it’s triangular. Just to the east of the Mariana trench, the oldest crust on the Pacific Plate has anomalies that have the wrong shape. No modern-day mid-ocean ridge setup will produce anomalies like the one seen there, so a new paper proposes a different setup actually led to the formation of the Pacific Plate. A gap opening between 3 transform faults will allow mantle rocks to rise up. Those rocks will start melting and generate magma that fills in the gap. This set of eruptions will create a newly formed plate in the hole and that plate will have a triangular shape. At the same time as Pangaea was breaking up on the opposite side of the world, three transform faults ran into each other on the floor of the Panthallasa Ocean. That temporary setup led to the opening of a gap that filled in with magma, creating the triangular shaped magnetic anomaly found today in the Western Pacific. As time went on, the plates involved in this intersection – the Farallon Plate, the Izanagi Plate, and the Phoenix plate, were mostly subducted away as the Pacific Plate in the middle grew. At one point, 190 million years ago, some of the oldest ocean crust on Earth was generated when there was, for a time, a hole in the bottom of the sea.

​

 

[Tambora]

Dissect this verse as what you think the plain reading is.

Nehemiah 9:6 KJV
(6) Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.

Are there 4 things created (the 4 different color codes) that consist of all?
Or does heaven & the heaven of heavens count as 1 together and with all their host include both?
Or does heaven encompass all 3 that follows (the heaven of heavens, the earth, the seas) since each of the 3 is followed with what they have within them but heaven stands alone without a following of what is within?
Or .... any other explanation?