I'm not exactly a bible scholar but I've read most of Genesis
a few times. So how come I never noticed that the sky was
inserted between the waters? I've never heard anyone talk
about this either.

When comparing the Pyramid Texts and the Bible one is sure
to see many striking similarities. These seem to go well bey-
ond mere coincidence.

The Egyptians believed in a primordial waters which envelop-
ed everything with an island arising from it. The waters were
Nun and the island was the Promordial Mound. Utt 513 has a
great flood dwelling in Nut (sky Goddess). or #486; 1039a.
To say: Greetings to you, Waters, which were brought by Shu
and lifted up by the two sources, in which Geb bathed his limbs,
so that hearts were in the following of fear and hearts were in
the following of terror. 1040a. N. was born in Nun, when the
sky had not yet come into being, when the earth had not yet
come into being, 1040c. when the two supports (of the sky)
had not yet come into being, when unrest had not yet come in-
to being...

Nut was also known as the Great Sieve. Perhaps it was more
than mere light and birds, etc, she allowed pass. It was also
water.

So does anyone else see that both these sources seem to state
in clear language that there is (or was) water above the sky?

Yep I've heard of it:

Genesis 1:6 - And Elohim said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

I think this is where the water came from for the 'great flood'.

Genesis 7:11 - In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

Genesis 7:12 - And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

Yep thats were the water came from.....the firmament which dispeared after the flood I think. What I also find interesting is that Moses was a trained Egyptian. Could it be that the storeies in the first five books of the bible (of which he wrote) were mainly influenced by Egyptian 'doctrine'? Of which he new - very well! I think so!

Could be because everything in the OT & NT is just rehashed stories from the Egyptians and the Sumerians.

I hate to sound so blunt, but there is water in the sky. In the form of moisture and rain. The cycling of water was apparently obvious to the ancient Hebrew people. The question of whether or not they believed that there was actual "storehouses" of water in the heavans, and "doors", that opened up to release it is open for debate. Though I think it is unlikely they believed that.

It's also important to note, that books, such as Genesis, are highly symbolic. And this passage may have nothing at all to do with waters. Also important to point out, though maybe not relavant here, is that the term "waters" (in Hebrew water is always in the plural, like "heavans" is) is used in prophetic speach to mean "people". May not apply here at all, however, mankind is an important topic in the Genesis narative.

I for one believe that there can be more than one 'manifestation' of a thing - be it a concept or a tangible object. Take for example a name. Like John. To me John can mean the John who is closest to my heart or all the other Johns I know or all the other Johns I do not know or all the Johns ever known. See my point? So now to apply this concept to the bible - I believe the bible is both literal physically and symbolic at the same time. Meaning that you are right and so is the literal interpretation at the same time. Just as there are moe than one John - so to is it that there is more than one meaning of a thing or manisfestation of it in our realm. Therefore, again, bible concepts are perhaps literally true and symobolic at the same. Just as your John is John and my John is John.

The atmosphere was different before the Great Deluge. There was a layer of water unbroken in the atmosphere and a layer of water beneath the Earth. Perhaps in the way Tenochtitlan was built on water the earth (lower case 'e') floated on it. Either way there was no rain before the Great Deluge, plants were misted from the ground, the first rainbow was indeed after the Great Deluge. When the waters broke from the deep it was with a tremendous force that it gushed up into the atmosphere and created the current atmosphere. This might explain why people lived longer before the flood than the more or less current life expectancy that we have now.

While Genesis 1 tells of 'vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit' the next chapter claims this:

Genesis 2:5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground.

Take note other versions translate the plants from Genesis 1 as grass. Indeed the original words are not the same for plants in each of the chapters. The first is 'deshe' which means 'a sprout or green grass' and the second is 'siyach' which means 'a shoot or bush, plant, shrub'. So on another note there was no plants before the flood either.

This was in reference to Eden and to the garden which was in the
east of Eden. One of these rivers has a name which translates
"gushing forth" from the Hebrew.

I doubt the entire Bible was heavily influenced by the Egyptians but
most ancient thought was very heavily influenced by Egypt. Some
of these oral traditions apparently ended up forming not only the Py-
ramid Texts but Genesis as well.

There's no doubt that the early christians had to be pragmatic to at-
tract the various pagans to their beliefs. What might be more succ-
essfull than adopting some of the pagan tenets? Even if this weren't
intentional the fact still remains that Egypt was an important force in
those days and it is only natural that there would be connections.

It's interesting that you mention Genesis 2; 5 since I suspect it's the
"streams flowing up out of the earth", or the mists from the Earth, or
however one is inclined to translate the original which are most rel-
evant to the pyramids which are the very symbol of the ancient Egyp-
tians. It was these waters of Nun or the mists from the earth water-
ing the whole of the land and forming the headwaters of rivers which
were the motive force employed in building the pyramids. The pyra-
mids (mr) were the (place to ascend) and it was the pagan Gods who
provided the ballast not only for the king's ascension but for construc-
tion of the pyramid as well.

It seems more that Biblical stories, and the resulting Jewish philosophy and mythology, were influenced by the Jews' Babylonian and Persian captivities. One sees the epic of Gilgamesh in the Flood and Jonah-whale stories, as well as Ishtar rehashed as Esther. The ancient Jews didn't seem to believe in an afterlife or heaven/hell until their contact with the Zoroastrian Persians.

That depends upon whom you ask. And I can't help but remember the words of the teacher of my old critical thinking class - "When people speak of 'everything' or 'all,' my first tendency is to slowly back away."

Some modern Christians suspect that "waters" here does not refer to physical water at all but rather to the "quantum soup" from which matter is created.

Yes, good thinking, very interesting.........it fits with some of my own ideas.

Ive analyzed this passage and many more using Strong’s concordance. If you look at Gen 1: 2 KJV with Strong’s numbers the word deep means: “an abyss (as a surging mass of water)” and is from the Hebrew word meaning: “to make an uproar or agitate greatly”. The word surge means: “2. A large wave or billow; a great, rolling swell of water, produced generally by a high wind.” 1913 Webster’s dictionary
I got the mental picture that the earth was a comet and the surging was describing the water streaming off as a tail as it soared through Space. Getting back to your statements about Gen 1: 6, I believe it is a description of the solid mass of water (as ice) being melted into liquid and water vapor as a fog. When this was done it created a vapor ‘environment’ that encircled the comet (soon to be the earth) which is called the “firmament”.

So yes I do agree that it is describing water in the “sky”.

Maybe not in the sense that many would think of, an ocean simply in our atmosphere, however I think based off of the texts that perhaps there is some sort of Heavenly ocean in the other realm, and with this ocean of course God would be able to tap into it.

I really appreciate all the input here.

Just as an aside there is speculation now among scientists that there is vast amounts of water in the Earth's core. It's less than 1% water but that's far more than in all the oceans.

It seems there is a continuity in thought to the very earliest times. This continuity extends to beyond the advent of writing and perhaps to the invention of language itself. These questions interest me so much because I wonder if we can understand ourselves without understanding how we became what we are. There is nothing new under the sun...

Utterance 257.

304a. To say: There is a clamour in heaven.

304b. "We see a new thing," say the primordial gods.

304c. O Ennead, a Horus is in the rays of the sun.

304d. The lords of form serve him,

304e. the Two Enneads entire serve him,

305a. as he sits in place of the All-lord. N. wins heaven, he cleaves its firmness.

305b. N. is led along the ways of Khepri;

...at least not in a very long time.

or the egyptians and sumerians adopted the text for their own use?

Yes, and maybe Vlad Dracul got inspired by Bram Stoker's Dracula.

There's still considerable debate over the priority of the Sumerian and Hebrew creation stories. True, the source documents we have for the Sumerian accounts seem older than the latter. But that may be because the Sumerians engraved their records on stone while the biblical accounts were committed to paper (well, papyrus). Stone tends to outlast paper. (At least it does at my house.)

But is there any actual reason for suspecting this, other than wishful thinking by people who would very much like to think that the key stories in the Bible are not derivative? And I believe the Sumerians mostly wrote on clay tablets.

The problem with "wishful thinking" is that it's a sword which cuts two ways.

And by "stone" I meant geological writing media as opposed to palm fronds, paper and animal hides.

Certainly people who have no love for Christianity wouldn't mind being able to show that the basis for its beliefs is flimsy, but that doesn't really change the reality that the physical evidence we have points one way and not the other. And it would seem quite difficult to verify that source documents on the Hebrew side preceeding those on the Sumerian side never existed, sort of like how it can prove rather challenging to show that invisible pink unicorns don't exist. So are there any convincing arguments for the existence of these documents?