Where are the sun, moon, and stars?

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
SoulWeaver

SoulWeaver

Senior Member
#141
Oct 25, 2014
4,889
2,534
113
#141
I am prone to believe that firmament/Heaven is not the atmosphere of the Earth, but space in general.
If the firmament was only the Earth's atmosphere, then the stars would be outside of it... But then God sets the moon, sun and stars in the firmament (fixes them in their positions in space).

Firmament, in the sense that you can fasten/make firm/fix things now (instead of fluidity of "waters") by attaching them to a point in space, and you can also separate things using space. So firmament introduces structure, as the word suggests. Just light and darkness did not require this, you can have light and darkness in non material world without space, but already the next day after firmament God is creating planets for which space is needed. "The waters are gathered together into one place and dry land appearing" looks to me like gas condensing into a solid, with also seas condensing on the surface.

In this view, it would seem that "waters" is matter/energy and other such manifestation in our physical world, and space divided "waters from the waters". Waters suggest fluidity as indeed matter and energy flow one into another all the time. Matter and energy are under the firmament - within physical space, and beyond space there is spiritual reality. I agree with many that Earth's atmosphere is the first Heaven. I believe firmament is actually second heaven.

What waters are above, in third heaven? I am thinking something along the lines of:
Revelation 14:2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters,
Revelation 7:17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters:

Of course, I could be amiss, Genesis is extremely difficult. This is only what I've got so far.
 
GaryA

GaryA

Truth, Honesty, Love, Courage
#142
Aug 10, 2019
9,835
4,321
113
mywebsite.us
#142
SoulWeaver said:
I believe firmament is actually second heaven.
Click to expand...
I believe the firmament is the first heaven and second heaven together - as one 'expanse' - with atmosphere in lower part - and, upper part is where sun, moon, and stars are.

Remember - the birds fly in the firmament.
 
SoulWeaver

SoulWeaver

Senior Member
#144
Oct 25, 2014
4,889
2,534
113
#144
GaryA said:
I believe the firmament is the first heaven and second heaven together - as one 'expanse' - with atmosphere in lower part - and, upper part is where sun, moon, and stars are.

Remember - the birds fly in the firmament.
Click to expand...
They do fly in space. Space does encompass the first heaven/atmosphere too... I agree.
Thus the distinction of first and second heaven based upon height... Third heaven is beyond space.
 
JamOn

JamOn

Banned
#145
Jun 10, 2019
4,304
1,659
113
#145
SoulWeaver said:
No. That is what people imagined at the time based on Genesis 1. Nowadays people imagine different things based on the same text. In the Medieval age they also had imaginations. The Word doesn't change, but people's perceptions are influenced by the information they start with. Cultures always read into what is said in the Bible at all times in history including ancient Hebrews... Just saying... I am not against you, you were simply bringing up information.
I believe one should look at what is written in the Bible, and try hard just to take what the Bible says without adding mental images to it. I honestly feel like I am way closer to the true perception when I paint creation in a fractal way without trying to comprehend it, than when I try to imagine it cerebrally. Especially Genesis 1 describes Creation on levels that are hard to comprehend even today, lest thousands of years ago. We suffer from creating imaginations, and slapping them onto what is actually said in the Word. This is why people argue and have different perceptions all the time. They start off the assumption-charged text.
I will give you that how they imagined it has some preeminence over how it was imagined later, because it's likely closer to the truth (there was less info to un-learn and a more accepting it as it is). I do not believe this is the full understanding though.
Click to expand...
Perceptions that is interesting, the Bible mentions two shapes of earth round and circle. the ancient people didn’t have a telescope or anything like that just their human eyes. The closest object in Space to earth is the moon,

it is in eye perspective a circle and round, because unless a person is large enough to see the complete circumference, height and width of the moon, it simply looks just like this basketball round and a circle.
489E3F36-84C5-45F0-99D0-776CF13A9648.jpeg

Person on the earth at ground level has the same effect, standing on a shoreline looking out at the sea the horizon will flatten out because the human eye doesn’t have enough info for the mind to perceive that it’s curved. our eyes can play tricks on the mind street art is a good example of that. the artist uses this perception to change the image from a flat surface to a three dimensional surface.

EF29E7F8-2B12-4076-B070-2BDD9C66D056.jpeg
 
JamOn

JamOn

Banned
#147
Jun 10, 2019
4,304
1,659
113
#147
GaryA said:
I already know something about the site in the quote above; the one below is new to me, but looks like it should be worthwhile:

https://www.flatearthdoctrine.com/
Click to expand...
that site is saying scripture proves a flat earth when a line can be stretch around a basketball a sphere as well. 29.5 inches in circumference.

A line can be straight or curved.

Job 38
5Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

yea I can debunk every one of their claims as proof.
 
JamOn

JamOn

Banned
#148
Jun 10, 2019
4,304
1,659
113
#148
It’s a trap man do buy it, but if you prefer dig in it.
 
inukubo

inukubo

Active member
#150
Jun 27, 2019
169
166
43
45
#150
No. This is not just what the Hebrews read into the text. This was their cultural background. YHWH reveals Himself through our existing cultural framework and assumptions unless they conflict with the Truth He wishes to reveal. His point in Genesis 1 is not to provide the Hebrews with a thorough scientific model of how the universe works and was formed. If it was, Scripture would be 10 times longer than it is now, and He would have never gotten to His actual point and we would all still be lost with no knowledge of Him.

His point is to introduce who He is, who we are, and why we are here. That is what is important and all debates about the when, what, and how of Creation are pointless distractions from the Truth the Scripture is trying to reveal to us.
 
G

garee

Banned
#154
Mar 28, 2016
15,954
1,528
113
#154
firmament -"to hold firmly, support"

God holds all things together by the power of His word. The sola system , gravity , erosion. He tell the sea how far to flow. The distance from the Sun the ring around Saturn all things under the Sun

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

Under the firmament..... the lakes and seas
Above the firmament:.... moisture in the air
 
G

garee

Banned
#156
Mar 28, 2016
15,954
1,528
113
#156
GaryA said:
There is moisture in the air one inch above the earth.

;)
Click to expand...

yes. It would appeared as invisible up until Noah when it would seem cloud formation began . Change in humidity ?
 
GaryA

GaryA

Truth, Honesty, Love, Courage
#157
Aug 10, 2019
9,835
4,321
113
mywebsite.us
#157
GaryA said:
I think this is significant.

Why would God include [specific] knowledge about the "upper" water in scripture? Why would He want us to know about the separation of the "waters" into the "upper" and "lower" waters?
Click to expand...
. . . if the "upper" waters were an unimaginable distance away?

"Think about it..."
 
GaryA

GaryA

Truth, Honesty, Love, Courage
#158
Aug 10, 2019
9,835
4,321
113
mywebsite.us
#158
GaryA said:
If you really-and-truly want to know the truth of the Bible with regard to something -- you absolutely MUST learn how to "suspend" all that you think you know about that something while you are studying to determine what the Bible is actually telling you about that something.

You absolutely MUST learn how to wrap your life knowledge and experience around what the Bible actually says - NOT the other way around.
Click to expand...
If you ever tell yourself that something the Bible says can't possibly be true because it does not agree with what you have been taught by modern science --- "forget" what modern science has taught you and then ask yourself:

"What does the Bible actually say?

Then, believe what the Bible says.
 
iamsoandso

iamsoandso

Senior Member
#159
Oct 6, 2011
8,048
1,609
113
#159
lol, It's 2019,,,book an around the world flight and fly around the world and witness it. It's a paperless world but somewhere on the edge of the world there's still an newspaper and there's a comic strip of this in the funny papers.
 
KJV1611

KJV1611

Banned
#160
Nov 23, 2013
13,684
1,212
113
#160
GaryA said:
If you ever tell yourself that something the Bible says can't possibly be true because it does not agree with what you have been taught by modern science --- "forget" what modern science has taught you and then ask yourself:

"What does the Bible actually say?

Then, believe what the Bible says.
Click to expand...
Psa 150:1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.

Gods sanctuary is heaven right? That is the FIRMAMENT of his power.

Are you saying that Gods sanctuary (heaven) is under this upper dome of water that covers the earth?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.