But to just say there was torrential rain would have been very clear.
Not for something on the scale of the flood.
Adding "the windows of heaven were opened" has to be a figure of speech.
Of course it's a figure of speech.
But it's describing what literally happened.
Fountains push water into the air.
Floodgates let water fall.
Geshem rain doesn't last for forty days.
So where did the rain come from?
The sluices of the heavens.
Where did the water behind those sluices come from?
The fountains of the great deep.
No need to add anything to scripture.
For us, and probably most other languages (polyglots please comment) and cultures, it probably means something like "it rained so hard as if floodgates from above were opened", but since it's a figure it has to be explained.
It's explained by the fountains of the great deep breaking forth.
It could also mean that every time it rained, at least to Noah, that he wanted to differentiate rain from normal watering he was used to since he hadn't seen rain like this before. So he added a phrase to let people know this wasn't the usual water the way they normally got it, but a crazy new form that came from the heavens in such great amounts it was like floodgates were opened.
This idea falls apart when you remember that Moses wrote all of Genesis (barring the last few verses), not Noah.
Also, as far as we know, it didn't rain before the flood.
kgov.com
But again, it has to be explained because today we would simply say it was a torrential rain and we wouldn't add 'and it came from up in the sky' like Noah might.
You're missing the important part.
It's a cause and effect sequence.
Fountains broke forth.
Windows of heaven were opened.
Rain fell for forty days and nights.
You know what a fountain is, and how it works.
You know what a sluice is, and how it works.
You know what rain is, but you don't know how it falls for forty days and nights.
A canopy cannot answer that question, not without appealing to miracles, which the Bible does not imply occurred. You have to read such a miracle or phenomena into the text in order for your belief to work.
HPT, on the other hand, can and does answer the question, and sufficiently, as to what "the windows of the heavens"
The point being that 'windows of heaven' has to be referring to something that has to be explained and a canopy is just as much a something as the event of water returning to earth as torrential rain.
Except that the Bible doesn't say canopy.
It says Fountains of the Great Deep broke forth. Which means that water goes up into the air.
It says the Windows of the Heavens were opened. Which means that the water that went up, or at least some of it, came back down.
It says the geshem rain fell for forty days and forty nights.
It says that after those forty days and nights, the Windows of Heaven were closed, and the rain ceased, but the waters remained on the earth for another one hundred fifty days.
It doesn't say or allow for a canopy, of any kind.
Now if you want to say the better translation would be 'sluices' or 'floodgates', then that supports the idea of a canopy more than the idea that rain just fell back down to the earth
No, it doesn't.
because a canopy is a thing like a floodgate or sluice while rain falling back down is an event.
A canopy cannot be opened or closed.
The 'windows of heaven' is referring to a canopy.
Saying it doesn't make it so, Yorzhik.
"the rains stopped long before the water receded" explains what was happening with a canopy just as well.
But you have to read "canopy" into the text to get to that point. Eisegesis is not a good way to study the Bible.
We call it a canopy today, but the person that designed it just called it the atmosphere.
What are you talking about? Of course the canopy was ripped through before it came down.
Begging the question.
That's probably what brought the canopy down.
If it was brought down, then why does Genesis 8:2 say that "the windows of heaven were also stopped", after it was supposedly brought down?
I'm still not seeing why you think the rain happening after the fountains broke open does not allow for a canopy when that's exactly how a canopy being brought down would be described.
Again, it's a cause and effect sequence. Water launched into the air, water comes back down (as though floodgates were opened), and water continues coming down for forty days. After forty days, the waters remained on the earth for one hundred fifty days, despite the windows of heaven being closed.
There's no reason to assume "canopy."