A Short Rebuttal against Divine Accommodation

by

Gary T. Mayer
(Edited December 9, 2014)

The reason for this paper is to question the accommodation view of divine inspiration. According to this view, the Scriptural passages that teach us about early cosmology accommodate the errors of that day. First, I shall show that although many of the verses which are presented to defend this view admittedly employ the old worldview terms, those who hold the view of accommodation rely too heavily on these words in supporting their case. The reader may visualize a reality behind a word based upon his own cosmology or he may not. God would hardly be wise if He were to use terms that were confusing or unintelligible to the worshippers whose hearts were on fire for God. Second, Genesis 1 tells us that God created something in the sky that the text calls in Hebrew a raqia‘. I shall show that it is not better to interpret the word raqia‘ as it is used here to mean a firmament, denoting a pounded-out solid metal plate supported above the earth by the mountains than to interpret it to mean an expanse, a sheet-like three dimensional volume with reference to a thin open space, such as the atmosphere. The practicality of this discussion is appreciated when we realize that, if we interpret the rest of the Bible using the accommodation approach, we may be led to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ and Paul accommodated themselves to the culture of their day, thus robbing the Word of God of its authority.

Please consider Job 26:11:

   The pillars of heaven tremble,
   And are amazed at His rebuke. [1]

Did most of the early readers believe that this verse was referring to literal pillars that hold up heaven, possibly the mountains? Maybe so, but this is not a necessary reading of this verse. Was the Holy Spirit teaching us that God supports the heavens with His mountains or that mountains sense the awesomeness of God and “are amazed.” For Job to praise God speaking in poetic verse where he uses words such as “pillars of heaven” is one thing, but for God to teach false views of the earth and the heavens in Genesis 1 is another.

Another example is the author’s reference to the windows of heaven in Genesis 7:11-12: “…all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates [lit. windows] of the sky [lit. heavens] were opened. And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.” We find this expression also in Genesis 8:2: “Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates [lit. windows] of the sky [lit. heavens] were closed, and the rain from the sky [lit, heavens] was restrained.” In order for the clouds to continuously rain for forty days, the cloud cover above where the land was being inundated had to be fed with water continuously. The windows of the heavens represented this movement of the waters over the land. God used terms that would make sense to the people of His day. Since, according to the old view, the clouds get their rain water from the high heavens, He says that the windows of the heavens were opened, meaning that the heavens supplied water for the clouds to rain. This is pretty much what actually must have happened. In any case, the windows of heaven may have been interpreted as a dead metaphor by the early Hebrew reader.

What about Job 37:18 which speaks of the raqia‘ as a metal plate mirror:

   Can you, with Him, spread out the skies [raqia‘],
   Strong as a molten mirror?

These were the words of Elihu who was reprimanded by God for not speaking what was right as did Job. It only tells us again that, yes, many people believed that the raqia‘ was a hard dome-shaped plate.

It is true that Job 38:22 speaks of the “storehouses of snow”:

   Have you entered into the storehouses of the snow,
   Or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
   Which I have reserved for the time of distress,
   For the day of battle and war?

But God is saying to Job, Do you really understand all this? You really don’t. You really don’t know what you mean when you speak of these things. You have never even seen them. So these verses also are not a problem. We must see this verse in context with other verses which are not to be taken literally. For example, Job 38:19-21 speaks of “darkness”: “that you should take it to its territory, and that you should discern the paths to its home?”

I could see Isaiah 28:12 as a poetic statement that is describing appearance more than cosmological reality: “Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to live in.” (Green) As for Deut. 28:12: “The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.” This tells us that God’s store house of water is the heavens. It is not His store house “in the heavens.”

Now let us see how God inspires the author of Genesis to describe His creation. Those of the accommodation view tell us that we must interpret Genesis 1 through the eyes of one who believes the old cosmology. A careful look at the Hebrew text will reveal a better interpretation of the text. Please let me give my argument. It would seem that according to the Bible, there are three heavens: the lowest heaven where the birds fly, the heaven which contains the stars, and the heaven where Paradise is. The reference to the three heavens is in 2 Corinthians 12:2. Deuteronomy 10:14 says, “Behold, the heavens and the heavens of the heavens, the earth and all that is in it, belong to Jehovah your God.” (Green) 1 Kings 8:27 says, “…Behold, the heavens and the heavens of the heavens cannot contain You.” (Green) Consider Psalm 148:4: “Praise Him, O heavens of heavens; and O waters that are above [lit. from above] the heavens.” (Green) The “heavens of heavens” are the heavens where the luminaries are (or possibly all the heavens of the universe), but “the heavens” in these two verses means only the atmosphere where the birds fly, above which are the clouds.

Nehemiah 9:6 below speaks of the “heavens,” which must refer to the heavens where the birds fly. Then it mentions the “heavens of heavens” that must mean the heavens where the stars are located because it is in the context of the creation of the universe. The hosts of heaven would therefore be the luminaries.

   Thou alone art the LORD.
   Thou hast made the heavens,
   The heavens of heavens with all their host,
   The earth and all that is on it,
   The seas and all that is in them,
   Thou dost give life to all of them
   And the heavenly host bows down before Thee.

Notice also that this is a list of what God created. We must recognize that “Thou dost give life to them all” means He keeps these aspects of His creation in existence. This is the explanation given by BDB. [2] Otherwise, we would think that hosts must mean the angels.

Interpreting Genesis 1 from this perspective, the Hebrew raqia‘ would be thought of simply as an expanse. This is really a possibility because its verb form is used in the Scriptures with reference to other materials besides pounded metal plate. Isaiah was writing about the expanse of the earth with its vegetation in Isaiah 42:5:

   Thus says God the LORD,
   Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
   Who spread [raqa‘] out the earth and its offspring [trans. note, “or vegetation”]
   Who gives breath to the people on it,
   And spirit to those who walk in it.

Note also in these verses it is said the heavens were stretched out which fits the meaning of raqia‘, although a different word is used here. The Hebrew raqia‘ does not have to mean a pounded-out solid plate.

Next, we need to realize that the early Hebrews realized that clouds contain water. Daniel C. Harlow, in his defense of the accommodation view, interprets the water discussed in Genesis 1:6-7 to be restricted to liquid water; to him they are neither mist nor vapor. He writes, “Only something solid can separate water from water.” [3] Here are some examples in which the Bible expresses otherwise. Psalms 18:11 says,

   He made darkness His hiding place, His canopy around Him,
   Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies [lit., heavens].

Here the Scripture speaks of the clouds as water. Job 26:8 says,

   He wraps up the waters in His clouds;
   And the cloud does not burst under them.

Psalm 77:17 speaks of clouds and water: “…the clouds poured out water.” Every minute of the day somewhere on this earth the atmosphere separates rain water from other water.

It is also necessary to realize that God usually names a small portion of His creation with the same term that the larger complete aspect of His creation has been called. Since in Bible times names were to reflect a characteristic of what was named, God must have named the part of the whole the same term as the whole was called because, in each case, the part was very similar to the whole. Here is a reproduction of table 6 from my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins:

GOD’S COMMON METHOD OF NAMING [4]

Name of the Whole       Name God Calls the Part         Bible Reference

Heaven (sky and sun,      Heaven (sky only)                  Genesis 1:8
moon and stars)

Earth (both land             Earth (land only)                    Genesis 1:10
and sea)

Day (creation days)       Day (12-hour day)                   Genesis 1:5

Man (mankind               Man (Adam and Eve                 Genesis 5:1, 2
in general)                    and their descendants) 


Since God named the raqia‘ “heavens,” it must be a part of a greater, similar something called “heavens.” This greater “heavens” would most likely be a part of God’s created universe, rather than paradise. This means that the raqia‘ of Genesis 1:6 is only a small part of the complete created heaven: “Then God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’” This causes us, therefore, to interpret the expanse of verse 14 to be different from the expanse that was created in verse 6. This is why the expanse in verse 14-15 is called the “expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens”: “Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so.” God set the luminaries “in the expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens” (Gen. 1:17), which is exactly where we would expect them to be placed if this story reflects the thee-heaven model.

God calls the raqia‘ “the heavens” which tells us that this heaven is a part of a much larger heaven and that it is similar to the much larger heaven. If the raqia‘ were the thin metal firmament of the old cosmology, what is the larger metal firmament that is similar to the raqia‘? The ancient cosmology has no larger raqia‘. If we interpret raqia‘ to be an expanse, then the larger expanse of heaven answers to this required likeness.

The raqia‘ of Genesis 1:6 would be the raqia‘ below the clouds: “Let there be an expanse [raqia‘] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” The waters above the expanse would be the clouds. The expanse below the clouds would be the raqia‘ of verse 8: “And God called the expanse [raqia‘] heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.” Verse 9 is also speaking of this same expanse: Then God said, “Let the waters below [lit. from below] the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so.”

Please consider a second argument for the interpretation that raqia‘ as used in the first chapter of Genesis means an expanse, the lower heavens. The Hebrew of Genesis 1:7 actually says that God separated the waters which were “from above” the raqia‘ from the waters which were “from below” the raqia‘. English translations leave out the word “from” but, I believe, this is an error. Brown-Driver-Briggs gives a number of references that are to illustrate that in late Hebrew mie‘al le meant simply ‘al (upon). [6] However, I studied these references and could not agree with this conclusion. For example, possibly Nehemiah 8:5 is the most difficult of their examples to see why the compound preposition “from above” was employed by the Hebrew writer. But a look at it will show that the Hebrew author used this compound preposition for a good reason; this verse does not support the BDB assertion. Here is this verse as quoted from the NASB: “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people….” (italics mine). The word “standing” is not in the Hebrew. This clause could have been translated better retaining the compound preposition as I translate it here: “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was being seen from above all the people….”[italics to indicate supplied words]

These two compound prepositions, “from above” and “from below,” support our understanding of raqia‘ for two reasons: (a) If the waters from above the raqia‘ rested on the a metal plate, how could they have come from above the raqia‘? It is much easier to solve this mystery if we interpret the raqia‘ to be the expanse which extends from just a little above the earth to the portion of the atmosphere that is just above the clouds. The water from above the raqia‘ would then be the primordial clouds high in the air. The waters from below the raqia‘ would of course be the waters which fell as rain to the earth. The waters which were “from above” the expanse were not the waters which were at that time falling to the earth. Such a perspective would be contradictory because the purpose of the expanse was to separate the waters from above the expanse from the waters which were from below the expanse, not to separate them and then immediately rejoin them. Second, (b) The waters that ended up above the raqia‘ are said to be “from above” the raqia‘, but the waters that ended up below the raqia‘ are said to be “from below” the raqia‘. How could a metal plate be the source of water for both the water that was “from above” the raqia‘ and the source of the water that was “from below” the raqia‘? A large primordial expanse could have held much water vapor and clouds; this water could have been separated by some of it rising above the raqia‘ and some of it condensing as rain and falling below the raqia‘. If we read on in Genesis 1:8-9 we are told what happened to the waters that fell below the raqia‘: “‘And God called the expanse [raqia‘] heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. Then God said, ‘Let the waters [from] below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.” The waters which were from under the raqia‘, which God called “heaven,” fell as rain and was gathered off the rising continent as the sea floor fell.

Note that when the author of Genesis writes of the waters upon the earth, he does not write “from upon,” but rather “upon,” unless the water is leaving the land as in the following example: “and the water receded steadily from upon [me-‘al] the earth”(Gen. 8:3. On the other hand, we read in Genesis 7:19, “And the water prevailed more and more upon [Heb. ‘al] the earth so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.” We must go elsewhere in the Scriptures to comprehend more thoroughly what became of the water which came from above the raqia‘. Psalm 148:4 says,

   Praise Him, O heavens of heavens;
   And O waters that are [from] above [me-‘al] the heavens. (Green)

BDB gives this verse as an example that is supposed to show that me-‘al does not mean “from above,” but simply “above.” Actually, it probably has its source in the verse we are analyzing, Genesis 1:7. It should be translated, “O waters that are from above the heavens” (translation mine). Add to this thought Proverbs 8:28, which speaks of the waters “from above”:

   When He made firm [margin, lit. strong] the skies [lit. thin clouds] [from] above,
   When the springs of the deep became fixed.

BDB translates the Hebrew verb as used in Proverbs 8:28 for “made firm” in this way: “of giving clouds their place.” [7] This verse is undoubtedly a direct reference to the first chapter of Genesis. According to this verse, at the time the clouds were given their place, their water came from above something, which was to be understood to be from the lower heavens by inference. So according to the Bible, the raqia‘ separated the waters, some of which became clouds above the raqia‘ and some of which fell to the ground and flowed into the sea. According to the ancient cosmology, the clouds were under the metal-like dome. But according to Proverbs 8:28 the clouds were above the raqia‘.

Now let us look at what Genesis 1 is teaching concerning the raqia‘. Genesis appears to give a perfect description of true cosmology; it does not picture the cosmology of its day. This is another reason we believe the Bible was inspired by God as it claims to be. It was written to direct us to the Triune God and to offer salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Genesis 1:2 speaks of the “deep” and of the “surface of the waters”: “And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” Since we saw above that these waters must have come from an expanse, these waters of the deep must have been in the form of water vapor and mist. This corresponds with science which teaches us that the waters which were in the form of vapor and mist, due to the elevated temperatures of the primordial earth, fell to the earth after the earth cooled sufficiently for this to occur.

Moving on to the second creation day, we read, “Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” The Hebrew actually says, as per Green’s interlinear: “…and let it (be) dividing between the waters….” (Gen. 1:6). Its “action” is ongoing as seen by the particle “dividing.” The Hebrew for “midst” can mean “among” just as the English word midst can. Then the text goes on to say, “And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were [from] below the expanse from the waters which were [from] above the expanse…” (v. 7). The prepositions here, as we have noted, should be translated “from below” and “from above…And God called the expanse heaven [lit. heavens] .” Going on to verse 14: “Then God said, Let there be lights in the expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens to….” As we have seen above, “the heavens,” the phrase used for the atmosphere below the clouds, was only a part of something that was larger which included the lights. So this verse is referring to the heavens in general. Verse 17 likewise refers to the complete heavenly expanse. Then the next verse that some have thought was a problem for those who interpret the raqia‘ to mean expanse is verse 20: “And God said, Let the waters swarm with the swarmers having a soul of life; and let the birds fly over the earth, on [better trans. in front of] the face of the expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens.” (Green) Here the text refers again to the whole created heavens, but the text only speaks of the “face of the expanse of the heavens.” In other words, when you look up into the heavens, you see the birds flying in front of whatever is at that time visible in the heavens above them.

To summarize, it seems that the Bible uses the terms employed by the old world view, especially in poetic verse, but when the Holy Spirit of God describes His acts in non-poetic genre, He describes them according to our view today. God must certainly have inspired the author of Genesis to give an account of creation that set forth a true cosmology.
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1. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 9172, 1973, 1975, 1977, by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Other Scripture taken from:

The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew-Greek-English, © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 2nd ed. 1986 by Jay P. Green, Sr. (Lafayett, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers).

Or the Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, copyright © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985 by Jay P. Green, Sr. This work was contained in the side column of Green’s work referenced above.

2. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., reprinted from the 1906 edition originally published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston,), 311

3. Daniel C. Harlow, “Creation According to Genesis: Literary Genre, Cultural Context, Theological Truth,” Christian Scholar’s Review 37, no. 2 (winter, 2008): 174.

4. Gary T. Mayer, New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Harmonize the Bible and Science (Bloomington, IN and Milton Keynes, UK: AuthorHouse, 2007), 113. This book gives mathematical evidence that the descendants of Adam and Eve married into an existing race, which had a much lower average life span. Such evidence shows that it is best to take the creation account of Adam and Eve very literally.

5. Mankind here includes the pre-Adamites and also Adam and Eve and their descendants.

6. See The Brown-Driver-Briggs, 759. BDB gives a number of references that are to illustrate that in late Hebrew mie‘al le meant simply ‘al (upon). However, I studied these references and could not agree with this conclusion. For example, possibly the most difficult of their examples to see why the compound preposition “from above” was used is Nehemiah 8:5. But a look at it will show that it does not prove their assertion. “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people….” (NASB, italics mind). The word “standing” is not in the Hebrew. This clause could have been translated better retaining the compound preposition as follows: “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was being seen from above all the people….”[italics to indicate supplied words]

7. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., reprinted from the 1906 edition originally published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston). 55.
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