Chapter 4The Foundation The First Two Days The Second Day: the Canopied Earth And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the water. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament the waters which were above firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. Genesis 1:6-8. THREE HEAVENSThe firmament that God created He called, "Heaven." Paul told the Ephesians that "the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known" (Eph. 3:9b & l0a), which indicates more than one heaven. Moses declared, "Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is Yahweh's thy God" (Deut. 10:14), which also demonstrates the multiplicity of heavens in God's creation. Paul said that he knew a man [usually assumed to be himself] that was "caught up to the third heaven" (2 Cor. 12:2b). The three heavens have been identified by theologians to be first, the firmament or atmosphere; second, all of outer space; and third, the spiritual domain of God and the angels. This spiritual domain is more than space. It is a geographical place. We know this to be so because two people have been transported there in their physical bodies. Enoch, the seventh from Adam walked with God "and he was not; for God took him" (Gen. 5:24). Elijah, too, was taken "up by a whirlwind into heaven" (2 Kings 2:llb). There is no indication that they have been transformed into spirit beings. In fact, they are sinners by birth and "it is appointed unto men once to die" (Heb. 9:27) which means they still have to experience death just like everyone else. So, at this time, there are two ordinary human beings in heaven in mortal bodies which means that heaven is a physical place of geography. Paul identifies the domain of the fallen angels as the atmosphere - "according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2). Since Satan could go to the throne of God (Job 1:6) it is this writer's contention that they were not confined to the atmosphere until Jesus Christ came. It is believed by many that this exile occurred earlier. The Hebrew word translated into "heaven" is the word, shamayim .*/:, which literally means the "sky." The English word, heaven was chosen for the translation because it specifically refers to the spiritual domain where God and the angels dwell. Its root is "haven," as in a harbor where ships can dock and be protected from a storm. The two men in heaven are dwelling in the haven of God. When believers die, they go to heaven as a haven until the Lord's return. It is often assumed that heaven is the eternal home of the believer. This is incorrect. The Earth was created for habitation by people, whereas heaven was created for the angels. People take refuge in heaven, but will live eternally on the Earth when Jesus returns. The eternal Earth, however, will be a New Earth brought in after the White Throne Judgment (Rev. 21:1). At this point the narration is specifically speaking of the atmosphere around the earth. After the sixth day, however, the Bible begins chapter 2 by saying, "Thus the heavens [in the plural] and the earth were finished," and is spoken of in the plural throughout chapter 2. THE CANOPYIt seems from these verses that God took the formless and void earth that is covered with water and created a gaseous atmosphere between the watery earth and water in space. How much water is the Bible talking about? Is the amorphous water the substance for all the created cosmos, as Dr. Humphreys suggests? We don't know for sure. It is assumed by Dr. Baugh and other creation scientists that the water was the amount needed for the earth, atmosphere, and a canopy. 
This division of water from water is explained today as the creation of the canopy over the earth. Canopies are not uncommon in our planetary system. The planet Venus, for example, is covered with a deep cloud cover that provides a canopy over the planet. So, too, are the rings of Saturn and Jupiter considered to be canopies that might have been destroyed. There are different suggestions as to what this canopy might be like. Dennis Lindsey in his book, The Canopied Earth: World That Was, Vol. 4, suggests that the canopy was a water vapor whereas Dr. Carl Baugh suggests in his book, Panorama of Creation, that the canopy was solid crystalline ice [see illustration]. More than just ice, though, he suggests that it was thin transparent ice beaten by God. He argues that the Hebrew word, raqiya 3*89, which is used for the English word, "firmament," means to compress or pound out. He believes that beating of the hydrogen and oxygen in water, separated the hydrogen into a stretched out thin, metallicized sheets of ice that formed the canopy. He disagrees with just a vapor because the stars would only have been seen in 80% of detail whereas the Bible says the stars were set, or "enhanced" in the firmament. He further cites an experiment conducted by Dr. Dan Cook at Laurence Livermore National Laboratories for hydrogen bombs. Dr. Cook compressed water under super cold, cryogenic circumstances. The results were the separation of the oxygen from the hydrogen molecules. The oxygen turned blue, whereas the hydrogen became near metallic as a crystalline, transparent, fiber optic which was super conducive and ferromagnetic. With this evidence, Dr. Baugh suggests that the canopy would create a pink light when the sun shone on it and that the sounds emanating from the stars would be heard as music to the inhabitants [14]. Even our English word, "firmament," lends support to Dr. Baugh's argument. It comes from the Latin word, firmamentum, which means "a support," and is derived from the Latin verb, firmare, which means to "make firm." Therefore the word suggests a firm support, or a solid structure. The King James translators must have understood the significance of the Hebrew word, raqiya. Even in the ancient literature we see support for the argument. The Egyptians looked upon the sky as the goddess Nut, who was always depicted as standing on the Earth in the east, arching stomach downward with her hands in the west. According to Richard Carlyon, "her star spangled belly forms a canopy for the earth" [15]. We assume it was just a perceptual description, but it is possible they understood that it was firm at one time. Even the ancient story of Chicken Little, reflects the understanding that the canopy was firm, when she cried that the sky was falling. Although the story mocks Chicken Little, it must hark back to stories shared by the children of Noah after the Flood. 
The water vapor canopy proposed by Dennis Lindsey would be part of a system of protective shields for the Earth. At the outermost above the canopy and between outer space was the Ozone layer that protected the earth from the initial cosmic radiation. The vapor canopy would block out further harmful radiation, which was under girded by the Earth's electromagnetic field which shielded out solar radiation. Dr. Baugh suggests that the electromagnetic field is what held the ice canopy in place. The ozone in his scenario would have been directly underneath the canopy as a further shield of protection. Another creation scientist, Donald Patten who thinks the ozone was beneath the canopy, suggested that the break up of the canopy at the Flood would have washed down the ozone which suddenly permitted ultra-violet radiation into the atmosphere which would be responsible for the exponential decay curve of post-diluvian man's life span [16]. In the last twenty years there has been an environmental fear that the ozone layer has developed a hole so that it is not protecting us as effectively as before. The fear is that more ultraviolet radiation is coming through that will increase skin cancer in people. Environmentalists have blamed chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which is the refrigerant, freon, on the depletion of the ozone. Dr. Dixie Lee Ray, the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, has written a book called, Environmental Overkill: Whatever Happened to Common Sense?, in which she addresses this and other issues. This "hole" that is over the Antarctica was first measured and described in 1956-57, long before CFCs were in common use [17]. Furthermore, she says, "All the claims about climate change are based on computer projections" [18]. Because of computer simulations, she says, "CFCs have been impugned only because of theories, computer models, simulations, and forecasts of disaster that are not substantiated by either the evidence or the measurements gathered in nature over the past 35 years" [emphasis mine] [19]. In other words, the scare and legislation being imposed is not based on facts, but theories created in computer simulations. Finally, as regards to ozone layer, we have a tendency to think of it as a separate layer like a skin on the top of the atmosphere, which is partially true, yet, the ozone gas (triatomic oxygen, 03) occurs at ground level and goes throughout the atmosphere to the top layer. This is why some cities call for "ozone alerts" when the ground level air pollution gets to high. The abundance and separation at the top is the ozone layer that Lindsey refers to as a shield to short-wave radiation. 
Both writers agree that a green house effect would keep the atmosphere an even temperature (Lindsey says 88 degrees as an average at the equator and Baugh says 78 degrees world wide during the daytime). This would be an environment that would have little seasonal changes, if any at all. Perhaps this is why the Lord says there needs to be lights in the firmament "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" (Gen. 1:14b) on the fourth day of creation. They both agree that the weight of the atmosphere would be greater creating a hyper baric pressure. Dr. Baugh built a hyper baric pressure tank to experiment on growth. All plants grew larger due to the increased pressure. Wounds were found to heal faster as well [20]. How high was the canopy? Baugh says about 11 miles up [21] which would be the top of the Troposphere underneath the Stratosphere which is the ozone layer. Today's atmosphere runs a maximum of 300 miles up at the Exosphere (see illustration). Presumably all the gasses that extend up to 300 miles today were under the ice canopy which resulted in the increased air pressure. Dr. Baugh states that today's air pressure at sea level is 14.7 pounds per square inch. Pre-flood air pressure would be 2.18 times more, or, 32.05 pounds per square inch [22]. Most clouds float from a range of 100 feet off the ground with Cumulonimbus rain clouds and up to the 10 mile height of the Troposphere where are the light and wispy Cirrus clouds. At that height the temperature can drop as low as -80 degrees Fahrenheit. Under the canopy, however, there were no clouds since the atmosphere was different. We are told by the Bible that "there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground" (Gen. 2:6) which must have begun on day three after the land and vegetation was created. The ozone of today is still close to the Earth in its range of 10 to 30 miles up in the Stratosphere. Because of ultraviolet rays interacting with the triatomic molecules of the ozone, temperatures can rise to a pleasant 65 degrees. From 30 to 50 miles up we have the Mesosphere where temperatures drop as low as -225 degrees where occasional ice crystal clouds called Noctilucent Clouds may form. In contrast to the Mesosphere, the temperatures of the Thermosphere from 180 to 300 miles up scorch from solar energy at 3,600 degrees! The Ionosphere between the Mesosphere and Thermosphere is electrically conductive due to the radiation stripping electrons from the atoms. The Ionosphere is from 50 to 180 miles up. It has from electrically conductive zones labeled D, E, Fl, and F2 regions [23].
Since the atmosphere of today with its extremes in temperatures of different layers didn't exist under the canopy, then there would be no wind either. Wind occurs because the warm, buoyant air rises as cold, dense air flows in to replace it. The green house effect of the canopy would cause the warm air to return as it bounced back to the earth. If anything, there might have been a gentle warm breeze at most. Neither, of course, would there be any clouds in the sky, nor rainfall, nor rainbows which all require the atmosphere of today with its layers of differing temperatures to create the fluctuating barometric pressures of today. The canopy remained until the time of the Flood when God broke up the canopy to bring rain and a drastically new climate to the Earth. The canopy will be discussed further when we get to that cataclysm. |