Here are some reasons why not:
1. The raqia is equated with the heavens in Genesis 1:8. The heavens (shamayim) refer to the regions where birds are in and where walls of cities touch. Therefore, the shamayim (and hence, raqia) is not solid.
2. In Genesis 1:20, birds are said to fly ‘al pane’ (literally “on the face of”) the raqia. This term is used a number of times in the Old Testament and seems to imply contact with some sort of boundary every time the term is used (whether vertical or horizontal). Since the birds do not touch the solid sky, the raqia here means something else.
3. It is believed by scholars that the tabernacle (later the temple) is meant to represent the cosmos. Therefore, Hulisani Ramantswana writes:
The Tabernacle was structured along graded holiness: Most Holy Place - Holy Place -Court. The Most Holy Place represented the invisible heavenly reality - the throne room of Yahweh (Pss 103:19; 123:1; Is 63:15; 66:1; cf. Is 14:13). The Holy Place represented the land - the locus of human habitation and land creatures. The Table of Presence on which was placed twelve loaves of show bread (Lv 24:5-6) represented the Lord‘s provision for his people Israel – the twelve tribes. The lampstand is often associated with the seven major lights: five planets, sun and moon (Walton 2001:148;Beale 2004:34-35; Poythres 1991:18-19). For others, the lampstand represented the tree of life, which symbolised God‘s provision (Sarna 1991:162-65; Stuart 2008:580). According to Meyers (2005:232), the lampstand – considering the iconographic context of the Mediterranean in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages – represented― the divine power that provides fertility of plant life. The Court where the wash-basin was set up represented the sea (Ex 30:18 – 20; 35:11–18; cf. 1 Ki 7:2 –26). Bloch-Smith (1994:20) notes that the bronze sea in Solomon‘s temple court was so huge that―no practical application is offered for the sea during the time of Solomon which is indicative of its symbolic value as representing the―cosmic waters or the waters of life. The wash-basin in the Tabernacle court and later the bronze sea in the temple court are better viewed as representing the third part of the cosmos – the sea. The pragmatic function of the wash-basin for the washing by priests should not detractfrom the significance of where it is located, the court, which within the graded holiness is the least holy space of the Tabernacle.
What divided the Most holy place from the Holy place was a veil, said to separate (using the same word found in Genesis 1 regarding the function of the raqia). This lines up with the raqia being the heavens that separate God from man in total and not in part. So, the raqia here is not solid.
4. Ezekiel 1 portrays the cosmos in the form of a chariot. Critically, it provides a distinction between the raqia which looks like ice (that is, white) and the throne looking like lapis lazuli ,which is blue and above the raqia (see Exodus 24:10) thus making a distinction between the blue sky and the raqia and placing the raqia beneath the blue sky.
5. Hebrews did not think about the world in a material sense like we do. They thought about the world in terms of what they did. Therefore, the idea that the word raqia refers to something necessarily solid is a non-starter.
6. There is no word in Ancient Hebrew that specifically refers to ‘hardness’. All words that could refer to hardness (e.g. chazaq, amats) are better understood with terms like ‘strong’ ‘powerful’ and ‘mighty’ since they can refer to wind, sound of a trumpet etc.
7. The word raqia itself is used in Psalm 150 to refer to power and in the Dead Sea Scrolls to refer to light. Neither of these things are solid and so the word itself does not necessarily refer to something solid.
8. The word raqia was translated into Greek as stereoma. This word need not refer to something solid (e.g. Col 2:5). It is used of part of an army in 1 Maccabees (all of an army is solid) and a ratification in Esther 9:29. Its verbal and adjective forms are used of famine, wounds, thunder and something smoke does. The Church father Basil rejects the interpretation that the stereoma is solid and instead understands it in terms of strength. The word was then translated into latin as ‘firmamentum’, a word that was previously used in rhetoric and has the meaning of support (in the political sense as well, see Tacitus). One other pre-Copernican translation is expansium, with no connotations of solidity.
9. In Bereshit Rabbah, one interpretation of “Let there be a firmament” is let the firmament gleam, not something associated with solidity, but associated with power.
10. In the Aramaic Targum to Song of Songs, Moses is said to be in the raqia to receive the 10 commandments. In Exodus 24, this refers to a cloud. Further evidence that clouds can be raqia is found in Deuteronomy, where the Hebrew has shachaq (a word normally translated cloud), the Greek has stereoma, commonly translated firmament.
11. Some medieval rabbis (Such as Ibn Ezra and Radak) believed the firmament (of Genesis 16) to be the air. Thus, the raqia here is not solid.
1. The raqia is equated with the heavens in Genesis 1:8. The heavens (shamayim) refer to the regions where birds are in and where walls of cities touch. Therefore, the shamayim (and hence, raqia) is not solid.
2. In Genesis 1:20, birds are said to fly ‘al pane’ (literally “on the face of”) the raqia. This term is used a number of times in the Old Testament and seems to imply contact with some sort of boundary every time the term is used (whether vertical or horizontal). Since the birds do not touch the solid sky, the raqia here means something else.
3. It is believed by scholars that the tabernacle (later the temple) is meant to represent the cosmos. Therefore, Hulisani Ramantswana writes:
The Tabernacle was structured along graded holiness: Most Holy Place - Holy Place -Court. The Most Holy Place represented the invisible heavenly reality - the throne room of Yahweh (Pss 103:19; 123:1; Is 63:15; 66:1; cf. Is 14:13). The Holy Place represented the land - the locus of human habitation and land creatures. The Table of Presence on which was placed twelve loaves of show bread (Lv 24:5-6) represented the Lord‘s provision for his people Israel – the twelve tribes. The lampstand is often associated with the seven major lights: five planets, sun and moon (Walton 2001:148;Beale 2004:34-35; Poythres 1991:18-19). For others, the lampstand represented the tree of life, which symbolised God‘s provision (Sarna 1991:162-65; Stuart 2008:580). According to Meyers (2005:232), the lampstand – considering the iconographic context of the Mediterranean in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages – represented― the divine power that provides fertility of plant life. The Court where the wash-basin was set up represented the sea (Ex 30:18 – 20; 35:11–18; cf. 1 Ki 7:2 –26). Bloch-Smith (1994:20) notes that the bronze sea in Solomon‘s temple court was so huge that―no practical application is offered for the sea during the time of Solomon which is indicative of its symbolic value as representing the―cosmic waters or the waters of life. The wash-basin in the Tabernacle court and later the bronze sea in the temple court are better viewed as representing the third part of the cosmos – the sea. The pragmatic function of the wash-basin for the washing by priests should not detractfrom the significance of where it is located, the court, which within the graded holiness is the least holy space of the Tabernacle.
What divided the Most holy place from the Holy place was a veil, said to separate (using the same word found in Genesis 1 regarding the function of the raqia). This lines up with the raqia being the heavens that separate God from man in total and not in part. So, the raqia here is not solid.
4. Ezekiel 1 portrays the cosmos in the form of a chariot. Critically, it provides a distinction between the raqia which looks like ice (that is, white) and the throne looking like lapis lazuli ,which is blue and above the raqia (see Exodus 24:10) thus making a distinction between the blue sky and the raqia and placing the raqia beneath the blue sky.
5. Hebrews did not think about the world in a material sense like we do. They thought about the world in terms of what they did. Therefore, the idea that the word raqia refers to something necessarily solid is a non-starter.
6. There is no word in Ancient Hebrew that specifically refers to ‘hardness’. All words that could refer to hardness (e.g. chazaq, amats) are better understood with terms like ‘strong’ ‘powerful’ and ‘mighty’ since they can refer to wind, sound of a trumpet etc.
7. The word raqia itself is used in Psalm 150 to refer to power and in the Dead Sea Scrolls to refer to light. Neither of these things are solid and so the word itself does not necessarily refer to something solid.
8. The word raqia was translated into Greek as stereoma. This word need not refer to something solid (e.g. Col 2:5). It is used of part of an army in 1 Maccabees (all of an army is solid) and a ratification in Esther 9:29. Its verbal and adjective forms are used of famine, wounds, thunder and something smoke does. The Church father Basil rejects the interpretation that the stereoma is solid and instead understands it in terms of strength. The word was then translated into latin as ‘firmamentum’, a word that was previously used in rhetoric and has the meaning of support (in the political sense as well, see Tacitus). One other pre-Copernican translation is expansium, with no connotations of solidity.
9. In Bereshit Rabbah, one interpretation of “Let there be a firmament” is let the firmament gleam, not something associated with solidity, but associated with power.
10. In the Aramaic Targum to Song of Songs, Moses is said to be in the raqia to receive the 10 commandments. In Exodus 24, this refers to a cloud. Further evidence that clouds can be raqia is found in Deuteronomy, where the Hebrew has shachaq (a word normally translated cloud), the Greek has stereoma, commonly translated firmament.
11. Some medieval rabbis (Such as Ibn Ezra and Radak) believed the firmament (of Genesis 16) to be the air. Thus, the raqia here is not solid.
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