So I assume you guys may have seen me talking earlier in the thread how the Bible says that there is a hard structure above the earth, translated as the "firmament" (that is also referred to as "the heavens" or "sky" in the scriptures), which contains our atmosphere.
As anyone should understand from basic physics, our atmosphere must have a
container. A gas cannot maintain a pressure unless it is contained. And it is impossible for our atmosphere on earth to exist right next to a supposed "vacuum of space". If a gas is exposed to a vacuum, it would be sucked away. If the earth were a ball flying through space at hundreds of thousands (or millions) of miles per hour, the atmosphere would blow away or be sucked away by the vacuum of space.
Anyways, the "Complete Jewish Bible" and well as the "Contemporary English Version", the "New American Bible" and the "New Revised Standard Version" translations of the scriptures translates this "firmament" as a
"dome". Genesis 1:6-8 - God said, "Let there be a dome in the middle of the water; let it divide the water from the water." 7 God made the dome and divided the water under the dome from the water above the dome; that is how it was, 8 and God called the dome Sky. So there was evening, and there was morning, a second day.See the many other translations of Genesis 1:6
here, with it often translated as "firmament" instead of "dome", and also as "vault".
If you look up the Hebrew word that is translated as "firmament" or "dome" (see
here), it comes from Strong's Hebrew word
#7549, which is transliterated as "
raqia", and has the definition/meaning of an "extended surface that is solid".