Question:

What is your explanation for the translation “dome” in Genesis 1:6.
Doesn’t this show a Hebrew false concept that the heavens are like a
dome?

Editor’s note: this quote is from the New Revised Standard Version

Answer:

I looked up the Hebrew word in a Hebrew dictionary. They do not use the
word dome in their list of synonyms. The wore raqia is most often
translated as expanse. It means expanse of the sky, the space above the
earth, that holds the visible objects, heavens, skies. So, the word CAN
be used to represent the incorrect notion of the ancients of a dome or a
crystal sphere. However, using Hebrew vocabulary, there was no other word
to use if you want to say “heavens” or “sky.” So this certainly does not
show that Genesis contradicts science. Genesis is not a science book, but
it just so happens that it does not ever contradict science in an
incontrovertible way.

John Oakes, PhD