Biblical Hebrew Forum

[bhebrew AT shields-online.net]

Rolf,

"And I am not aware of any writing from Assyrian or Babylonian times which 
indicate that the people of that time believed in a solid vault with water 
above. it seems that they had many cosmological ideas that paralles our 
modern ideas."

Take a look at Horowitz's Babylonian Cosmic Geography. It includes numerous 
such texts, many of which depict a "firmament" made of stone (usually blue in 
colour, or else transparent with something blue above it). Similar ideas are 
evident in ancient Egyptian depictions of the cosmos. If anything, the 
evidence seems to point to the solid barrier above the atmosphere as being 
the default understanding of the cosmos in the ancient world.

Regards,

Martin Shields,
Sydney, Australia.