What is it?
Well, people have made different suggestions.
I rather like Karl Barth's suggestion that it's in the genre of saga.
you might say theologically informed saga,
legend, if you want, myth, if you want, though that word is so easy to misunderstand.
I've used the language of theological poetry.
If some ancient Hebrew scribe were planning to write a narrative of how the world began,
and in his daily life he observed only the sun, moon, and stars circling the earth each day,
why would he concoct such a far-fetched scenario in which a previous light shined on the earth
only to have it replaced by the sun after three days.
No writer hoping to sound credible and win over his audience
would fabricate such a fantastic story.
Except, of course, if it was absolutely true and because the Creator told him to.
What exactly is the firmament?
What is it made of?
What did it look like and does it still exist today?
The first thing we know for sure is that the firmament is a real physical substance of nature in the created world.
There's nothing supernatural about it, apart from it having been
supernaturally created by God.
There is so much water everywhere that where we once thought carbon was the basis for organic life,
that paradigm may now be changing.
If it is true that God allows for the natural functioning of the physical elements,
then a natural means God might have used to form the hydrogen for a moment
could have been to use the hydrogen from the water He had already made.
Outer space contains thousands of water clouds ranging in length to about 80 billion miles.
Sadly modern man has rejected this biblical foundation is now suffering the
consequences of his hubris. For every alternative model he has proposed so far
has failed.
Thank you.
Oh, my God.