Gen 1:6-10

(Redirected from Gen 1:9)

Questions

What is the "firmament" in the midst of the waters?
What are the waters? Why waters rather than water?
It appears that the writer is using an ancient view of the universe, with "waters above" and "waters below," and the land on which we live in between. Is that relevant to understanding this chapter? If so, how?
What do you make of the differences between Genesis 1:6-8 and Abraham 4:6-8?

How are the waters under heaven gathered together? What does it mean that they are together in "one place"?
What is the dry land? Why are we just told that it appears, rather than how it appears?

Many ancient people believed that the sea was a divine power, and some portrayed the creation as a battle between the sky god and the sea god. To those people, this is a rebuke: the waters recede because God commands them to do so; there is no battle between God and the elements and God is in complete control. But we no longer think of the sea that way, so there's no point in rebuking us. Are these verses still meaningful? Assuming that they are, what might these verses say to us?
Why is it that the land and the sea only now receive a name? Didn't they already exist?
How does Abraham 4:9-10 differ from these verses and how are those differences meaningful?
Both the Genesis and the Moses accounts say that God pronounced the earth and seas good, but the Abraham accounts says nothing of this. Instead, Abraham tells us that the Gods saw that they were obeyed. What is the significance of that particular difference?
Does Abraham help us understand better what Genesis and Moses say? Do Genesis and Moses help us understand Abraham?

Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis