I am not sure what the Sumerian or Akkadian used, but in Hebrew it is
rāqī́aʿ (רָקִיעַ) or ha-rāqī́aʿ (הַרָקִיעַ), which is translated as dome or hemisphere or vault, depending on the translation.
But that's not the issue, in whatever they describe the sky.
The fact of the matter, the "firmament of heaven" or "dome of the sky" for day 4 (creation of moon, sun and stars) and day 5 (creation of birds) fly in the same dome.
Clearly that's not possible, no matter how they translate these passages or how you interpret them.
Second.
There is the fact that moon, Sun and stars are not situated in any dome or hemisphere. It is astronomically wrong, no matter if the texts are in Hebrew, Akkadian or Sumerian, or in English for that matter.
Surely you, living in the 21st century, that there are no hemisphere in which it confine the stars, sun and moon.
Genesis isn't astronomy treatise, and to think birds fly under the same dome as astronomical bodies, and to accept what they say, are just ludicrous.
Yes, when you out of a night you can see the hemisphere - north, south, east and west, they form a hemisphere - half a sphere, sun, moon, clouds, birds.
Yes, Genesis REPEATS itself. Three suns for instance.
From my own notes:
Assume:
- The observer is standing upon the Earth (in reality most readers of Genesis had no concept of space, just as we have little idea of a “multi-verse” of whatever lies beyond this)
- That the “days” are symbols of completeness or periods of creation.
- One event is repeated and one is out of sequence.
KJ version:
[
1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
This is not a preamble to the six days. First the "heaven" and then the Earth. No time or method of creation is stated.
[
2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
We now move to the earth - an oceanic cloud world like most earth size planets are thought to be (Bayesian evidence for the prevalence of waterworlds. Royal Astron Soc. June 2017)
The existence of an early ocean was not accepted until 2005 when Australian scientists were able to study the chemical composition of zirconian crystals dating from the pre-continent age.
[
3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
[
4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
[
5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Assuming a Titan analog, the early Earth would have been dark until the cloud deck cleared, bringing light. This would have exposed the day and night cycle caused by the Earth’s rotation.
Venusian like atmosphere, thick CO2,
Unlocking the secrets of Earth’s early atmosphere | Argonne National Laboratory (anl.gov)
[
6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
[
7] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
[
8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
I do not understand what the “firmament” here means. I checked it in parallel translations. This might mean the air itself as it separates the waters below from the waters above.
[
9] And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
[
10] And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
“Dry land” meant the granite blocks which rose above the submerged basalt crust. The continents required the existence of oceanic water to initiate the motion of plate tectonics (continental drift) and this in turn created the granite necessary for the lighter continents.
2017 study of zircon evidence for lack of continents.
Formation of Hadean granites by melting of igneous crust | Nature Geoscience
Exposed ocean crust - oxygen isotopes evidence for oceanic world. 2020.
Geologists determine early Earth was a 'water world' by studying exposed ocean crust
[
11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
[
12] And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[
13] And the evening and the morning were the third day.
The Earth "creates" life. Of itself. It was believed that life appeared in the oceans first. But new lines of evidence converged in 2017 to suggest that it was the land and not the deep ocean trenches which set in motion the creation of life (David Deamer and Bruce Damer - University of California - Santa Cruz. 2017. August 2017 Scientific America.)
14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
[
15] And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
[
16] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
[
17] And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
[
18] And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
[
19] And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
This repeats day 1.
