The Lᴏʀᴅ created the skies. Not some other god.

Genesis 1.6-8.

The creation stories in Genesis were written to rebut pagan creation stories. Young-earth creationists repurpose them to rebut science. Not only was that not the author’s intent, but young-earthers aren’t even consistent with Genesis 1 when they use their theories to describe creation.

Lemme demonstrate. I’ll start with the biblical description of how God created the skies.

Genesis 1.6-8 KWL

6God said, “Be, ceiling in the middle of the waters.

Be, division between waters and waters.”

7God made the ceiling.

He divided between the waters which are under the ceiling,

and between the waters which are over the ceiling.

It was so.

8God called the ceiling skies.

It was dusk, then dawn.

Day two.

This רָקִיעַ/raqíya gets translated “firmament” in the KJV, which is pretty much the way the ancient Hebrews would’ve understood it: A solid wall above us, holding back the waters above, lest they flood and drown the earth. Since firmament isn’t a familiar word nowadays, I went with ceiling to accurately describe the way the ancients imagined the cosmos: The skies have a ceiling. When you look up, whether day or night, you’re looking right at it.

Now, humanity has been to space. We’ve had astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station continuously since 2 November 2000. We launch satellites and probes up there all the time, and use ’em to watch our weather, or map the ground below. We know there’s not a solid wall up there; we’d’ve slammed into it thousands of times.

So if reality obviously isn’t as the bible describes it, how do we then deal with this massive bible difficulty? Well, one of two ways. The less common way is to join the flat-earthers, insist there totally is a firmament, and every space program and satellite service is actually part of a long-term global conspiracy to discredit the bible. (Well, not “global,” ’cause you know, they insist the earth’s flat. “International” would be a better adjective.) Antarctica isn’t real, ’cause that’s where they imagine the base of the firmament is located. And every “space traveler” is a dirty liar; every “space launch” is a dirty trick; every celebrity and millionaire who rode on Jeff Bezos’s rockets was conned. The flat-earther direction is too bonkers for most of us, though they’re gaining in popularity.

The more common way, which you’ll see in a number of present-day bible translations, is to insist raqíya means space, not firmament. The NLT and NLV will straight-up use “space.” More popular is “expanse,” as used by the Amplified Bible, the CSB, ESV, MEV, NASB, and NET. The ICB and NCV use “air,” the Living Bible and Message use “sky.” The NIV went with “vault,” which could be solid or not, depending on the way a preacher cares to spin the word; it’s certainly a useful way for the NIV’s translators to sit on the fence.

The rest of the translators figure, as I do, if raqíya means a solid barrier, that’s the only proper way to translate it. Hence the CEB, GNT, NAB, and NRSV have “dome,” and the NCB and NKJV stuck to “firmament.” Yet even with these translations, you’ll find preachers try to fudge them, and claim the firmament’s not really a solid object. The dome of the skies only appears to be a ceiling, but isn’t really.

Thing is, raqíya’s word-root is the verb רָקַע/raqá, “to pound [the earth], to beat out [metal].” It implies something solid, hammered into shape. God spoke ’em into existence, rather than hammering them up there, but we’re meant to get the sense that they’re a solid, firm object: The skies aren’t going to fall, even though we get rain from time to time.

Young-earth creationists try to weasel around this bible difficulty… instead of matter-of-factly stating the truth: The ancients thought the sky was a solid wall. And the Holy Spirit was informing the people of that day, not ours. He dealt with the cosmos the ancients “knew,” not the cosmos we know. We are meant to recognize the anachronism, and work around it. Not embrace it, and play a game of “Look what ridiculous things I can make myself believe!” chicken with other misguided zealots.

Way bigger than you’re thinking.

You’ve likely seen the diagram I like to use, from the NIV Faithlife Study Bible, which depicts how the ancients imagined the cosmos. If not, I included it here again.
What the ancients believed the universe looks like—which is consistent with a literal interpretation of Genesis. NIV Faithlife Study Bible Thing is, the diagram isn’t to scale—because to the ancients, the sky wasn’t that small. The sky was huge. Way bigger than the diagrams any of us use. There’s plenty enough room up there to include all our satellites and space stations. Space travel wouldn’t have freaked them out at all; they already imagined their gods zipping around up there.

But yeah, they imagined the cosmos was finite. Everything else on earth was finite; space must be as well. Space was huge enough to include planets and stars—and some of ’em actually imagined the planets were large enough for one of us to stand on ’em—but still, to them, finite. And their gods, who shaped ’em, were mighty, but also finite. Human imagination has its limits, so pagan gods likewise have their limits.

Sumerians believed the cosmic ocean was a god, Tiamat. Their high god, Marduk, had conquered her and divided her in two. Part of Tiamat became the waters below—the ocean, lakes, rivers, and seas. The other part of her became the waters above—the blue sky, the source of all the weather; and the clouds. Egyptian and Canaanite creation stories are similar: They gave their own high gods credit for conquering the ocean-god and ripping her apart. (Often the defeated gods or titans are female, but I’m not gonna get into the rampant rapey sexism of ancient creation myths today.)

As I’ve said before, the purpose of the Genesis creation stories is to correct pagan myths. The writer of Genesis is making the point, in today’s passage, the waters are not any god. The LORD conquered no competitor god; there was no such god to conquer. Water’s not a sentient, intelligent being. It’s a substance—the ancients figured it’s an element—with no mind of its own, no matter how much we’d like to project a will and intentions upon it, especially after it destroys stuff and people we like.

And the One God who created water, separated it and put water above and below the cosmic ceiling he created, which he calls שָׁמָ֑יִם/šamáyim, “skies.” Skies would be the ceiling and everything below it. As for what’s above it, the skies of skies… well, that space is reserved for him, and Jewish myths imagined the 10 heavens above it. Which I also won’t get into today.

The ancients figured the sky was solid… but also had openings. Vents. Portals which could release water from time to time. They knew a little about evaporation; they knew things dried up. They didn’t yet realize the water goes back into the sky. They presumed rain fell from the sky because there was water behind the sky. After all, the seas are blue; the skies are blue; it makes sense. Thus they figured the world is simply a bubble between the waters above and the waters below.

Of course we now know the division of waters isn’t meant to be a literal representation of the skies. It represents how God sorted out the skies—not Marduk nor Amun-Ra nor Ba’al. All the other creation stories got the Creator wrong. In this passage the Holy Spirit is teaching us, “No, not Marduk; me.” He’s not teaching us science; he’s not teaching astronomy nor meteorology. He’s telling us he’s responsible for the cosmos.

This is why there aren’t a lot of details in the creation stories. That’s deliberate. The author of Genesis was getting to the point, and the point is, “God, not some other guy.” God doesn’t sweat details. But we humans do. Especially those young-earth creationists who insist we gotta believe as they do, gotta take the bible literally even when we’re not meant to, and if we don’t we’ve undermined Christianity and are going to hell. And I remind you—and them—we’re saved by trusting Christ Jesus, not young-earth creationism. Anybody who focuses on that instead of Jesus the Creator, clearly has their priorities wrong—or has full-on embraced the idolatry of “being right” when they’re actually just being foolish.