noun: (usually uncountable, literary, poetic, also figuratively) The vault of the heavens, where the clouds, sun, moon, and stars can be seen; the heavens, the sky.
noun: (countable) The field or sphere of an activity or interest.
noun: (uncountable, astronomy, historical) In the geocentric Ptolemaic system, the eighth celestial sphere which carried the fixed stars; (countable, by extension) any celestial sphere.
noun: (uncountable, obsolete except biblical) The abode of God and the angels; heaven.
noun: (countable, obsolete) A piece of jewellery worn in a headdress with numerous gems resembling stars in the sky.
noun: (countable, obsolete, also figuratively) A basis or foundation; a support.
noun: (countable, obsolete) The act or process of making firm or strengthening.
"All machinery is derived from nature, and is founded on the teaching and instruction of the revolution of the firmament." [Marcus Vitruvius Pollio]
The concept of the firmament as a veil or barrier between the physical and spiritual realms
has been found in a number of philosophical and mystical traditions. In Gnosticism, for
example, the firmament was thought to be a realm of spiritual ignorance or deception
that separated the material world from the realm of spiritual truth. In some forms of
Kabbalah, the firmament is seen as a barrier between the world of creation and the
infinite light of God. In Hermeticism, the firmament is often associated with the concept
of the "Astral Light," which is seen as a kind of universal medium or field of energy that
permeates all things and serves as a link between the physical and spiritual realms. [ChapGPT via Daniel Stupa]
Nikola Tesla
"Earth is a kingdom, not a planet. It is not an object, hence it has no edge. Earth would be easier to define as a systemic medium. Earth is also a machine, it is a Tesla coil.
The sun and moon are wirelessly powered by an electromagnetic field (Aether). This field also suspends the celestial spheres by electromagnetic levitation.
Electromagnetic levitation disproves gravity because the only force you have to oppose is the electromagnetic force, not gravity. The stars are attached to the firmament." [Nikola Tesla]
DP: Can you do an analysis of the word "firmament" from origin of the word to present?
ChatGPT: Great question. Here’s a compact, scholarly arc for firmament—from roots to modern sense, with the key translation/cosmology pivots called out.
Etymology and the biblical pipeline
Latin: firmāmentum = “a support/prop; that which makes firm,” from firmus “firm, steadfast.” Mid-13th-century English uses already mean “the vault of heaven/sky,” borrowed via Old French and the Latin Vulgate. [Etymology Online]
Greek (Septuagint): Hebrew rāqīaʿ is rendered στερέωμα (stereōma, “solid/firm structure”), which Jerome then calqued as firmamentum in the Vulgate—this is the immediate source of the English “firmament.” [Wikipedia]
Hebrew: רָקִיעַ (rāqīaʿ) from the verb רָקַע (rāqaʿ) “to beat/hammer out; spread thin,” as one does with metal sheet—hence the idea of an extended, beaten-out expanse (often conceived as solid in ancient contexts). [Wikipedia]
Ancient Near Eastern and biblical cosmology
In ANE thought (Mesopotamian, Israelite, etc.), the firmament is a solid barrier/expanse separating the “waters above” from the “waters below.” Genesis 1 uses rāqīaʿ for this dome-like divider; stars are placed “in” it and its “windows” open for rain—motifs shared across the region. [Wikipedia]
Classical → Medieval development
Jewish and Christian readers absorbed the ANE picture into Greco-Roman models, yielding layered heavens and (in medieval Latin Christendom) crystalline/solid spheres, with the firmament often tied to the sphere of fixed stars beneath higher heavens. The solid-expanse reading remained common until early modern astronomy displaced the scheme. [Wikipedia]
Early modern shift
With Copernican/Keplerian/Newtonian astronomy (16th–17th c.), the physical dome/sphere conception was abandoned. “Firmament” persisted in English Bibles (e.g., KJV) and literature, but increasingly as poetic or traditional diction rather than a scientific term. Wikipedia
Modern translators split between:
“Firmament” / “vault”: preserves the ancient solid expanse sense and historical cosmology of the text. Common among scholars who emphasize the ANE backdrop. [BioLogos]
“Expanse” / “sky”: stresses breadth rather than solidity; preferred by many conservative/evangelical translators/readers to harmonize with modern cosmology [Answers in Genesis]
Present-day usage in English
Outside technical biblical studies, firmament now mainly means “the sky/heavens” in a poetic or figurative sense (“the firmament of jazz,” “stars of the cinematic firmament”). Dictionaries still trace the term to Latin firmāmentum “support.” [Merriam-Webster]
One-line synthesis
Firmament began as a Latin calque (firmāmentum) of the Septuagint’s stereōma for Hebrew rāqīaʿ (“beaten-out expanse”), naming the solid sky-dome of ANE cosmology; after astronomy shed the physical dome, the word survived chiefly as a literary name for the sky—and as a focal point in translation debates about how best to render the ancient worldview for modern readers. [Wikipedia]