Firmament: Abzu Tiamat : Raqia #7549 sheet of hammered brass, the firmament was engineered by the Anunna Gods, when they opened the “magic” windows of heaven, in Genesis 7:11, to create the Great Flood. Sumerians envisioned the universe as a closed dome surrounded primordial sea.
Underneath the terrestrial earth, which formed the base of the dome, existed an underworld and a freshwater ocean called the Abzu. The deity of the dome-shaped firmament was named An; that of the earth was named Ki. First the underground world was believed to be an extension of the goddess Ki, but later developed into the concept of Kur. The primordial saltwater sea was named Nammu, who became known as Tiamat during and after the Ur III period. In ancient near eastern cosmology, the firmament means a celestial barrier that separated the heavenly waters above from the Earth below. In biblical cosmology, the firmament (Hebrew: רָקִ֫יעַ rāqīaʿ) is the vast solid dome created by God during the Genesis creation narrative to separate the primal sea into upper and lower portions so that the dry land could appear. Today it is known as a synonym for sky or heaven. Rāqīaʿ land could appear. Today it is known as a synonym for sky or heaven. Rāqīaʿ derives from the root rqʿ (רָקַע), meaning “to beat or spread out thinly”. The Hebrew lexicographers Brown, Driver and Briggs gloss the noun with “extended surface, (solid) expanse (as if beaten out)” and distinguish two main uses: 1. “(flat) expanse (as if of ice), as base, support”, and 2. “the vault of heaven, or ‘firmament,’ regarded by Hebrews as solid and supporting ‘waters’ above it.” A related noun, riqquaʿ (רִקּוּעַ), found in Numbers 16.38 (Hebrew numbering 17.3), refers to the process of hammering metal into sheets. Gerhard von Rad explains: Rāqīaʿ means that which is firmly hammered, stamped (a word of the same root in Phoenecian means “tin dish”!). The meaning of the verb rqʿ concerns the hammering of the vault of heaven into firmness (Isa. 42.5; Ps.136.6).
