I Dare You Not to Have Typos in Your Book

Richard DeRuiter said:

Either "ignore" should be changed to "acknowledge," or else either "cannot," or "refuse to" should be dropped.  Dropping "cannot" makes the sentence more positive, telling us what we should do, rather than not do. Dropping "refuse to" makes the sentence more emphatic. Changing "ignore" to "acknowledge" works, but IMHO is the weakest option (least positive, less emphatic) that makes the same point.

Joseph Turner said:

David Paul said:

If the sky was solid, how could birds fly in it? NO ONE ever thought the sky--the atmosphere--was solid. They thought it was material, yes, and having substance that was spread out and powerful ("strong", like blowing wind is powerful). But not solid.

Here is an explanation from John Walton:

Sky

The boundary between the heavens and the earth I will call the sky. Its main function is to hold back the waters above. Some mountains are identified as intersecting the sky and perhaps holding it up. In other contexts (e.g., Enuma Elish) there is no mention of what holds up the sky. Besides the sky being portrayed as a pavement of blue (Mesopotamian saggilmud-stone = blue/lapis/sapphire), Mesopotamian literature at times suggests that it is some sort of skin.13 It is represented by Nut in Egyptian iconography. In Pyramid Text 1040c the mountains hold up the sky, which can only happen if it is considered solid. The Hebrew term used for “sky” (raqi‘a) is of unspecified material, but in at least one text the reference is to something solid (Ezek. 1:25–26). We have no reason to suppose that the Israelites thought about the composition of the sky any differently than those around them. We know from Exodus 24:10 that they shared the idea of a pavement in God’s abode—and it is even of sapphire, as in the Mesopotamian texts.
P. Seely has traced the developments of beliefs about the sky. He demonstrates that intertestamental and rabbinic speculation sometimes focused on the material that the raqi‘a was made of and how thick it was. The church fathers likewise were united in their belief that the raqi‘a was solid. Seely concludes: “Astonishing as it may seem to the modern mind, with very rare exceptions the idea that the sky is not solid is a distinctly modern one. Historical evidence shows that virtually everyone in the ancient world believed in a solid firmament.”

John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 168–169.

Job 37:18 also clearly assumes that the skies are solid:  

Job 37:18 (ESV)

¹⁸  Can you, like him, spread out the skies,

hard as a cast metal mirror?  

Lee said:

Is this ANE mythology, or prescient wisdom? Most objects would find the sky impenetrable due to extreme temperatures and radiation... Anyway, it's metaphorical, e.g. skies as brass = no rain.

Metaphorical? Actually, that's exactly NOT what people are saying. The commentators are not suggesting that the ancient Israelites (and others) spoke of the sky as "being like" or as "compared" to solid substance. Folks shake their head (see Walton's quote of Seely) and say flat out that the ancients thought the sky was solid--even though "solid" as we mean it isn't at all the concept in view in most of the verses in question.

So I wonder, did the ancients then consider the seas to be solid as well? I think we need to give a little bit of credit here, a little bit of consideration to the likelihood that they weren't flat out stupid. If we don't, chances are that we will be the ones having that adjective pinned to our lapels. Let's review...

Is air nothing? No, we all know that air is there, it's stuff, it's tangible...though in a highly intangible way. You can move it--you just can't take hold of it. And then there is the wind. Though we can't hold air, wind "holds" kites and airplanes up...though it is invisible. Ask Job about the wind (Job 1:18, 19) or Yeishuu`a (Jn. 3:8) or the apostles (Acts 2:2) or Paul (Acts 27:14, 15). They all knew perfectly well that air was SUBSTANCE...not nothing. Because it had force and power is precisely why the word-concept (the logos) is pneuma, (or ruuahh) encompassing spirit and air and wind and breath--invisible yet having active (and activating) agency.

So, let's turn the tables. I'm going to ask you now...is water solid? (Think "3 states" here...) No, it's a liquid, which means you can dive into it from that board in your back yard--or from the Acapulco cliffs. Now jump off the Golden Gate...is water solid? Well, now let's just say "it's solid enough". In certain circumstances it may as well be solid--it's "as good as" solid--because it "gets the job done". In other words, it "acts" like it is solid. When you hit the water at high speed, it "feels" solid. Hey...Yeishuu`a even walked on water! But...

....is water solid? No. It isn't. That kinda is and was the whole point...that's precisely why Him walking on water is intended to be perceived as a remarkable thing, because we know it isn't solid. But we may well talk about it like it has properties of seeming solidity. If we talk about it in that way, and then someone comes along later and says we believe that water is solid, is that accurate--or disingenuous? In fact, what I've just pointed out is probably the exact reason the Bible speaks about air in the way it does. It has some of the same remarkable properties that water has, only more so. It CAN be talked about as having solid properties, so they described it that way. Why? Because this brings glory to the Creator, who is able to make invisibility powerful.

I repeat...these people, based on sheer experience, knew pretty much what we know about air. In has substance, yes. Power, yes. Strength, yes. But is it SOLID? We don't think so and neither did they. 

This is where I now borrow your descriptor, Lee. The places where the Bible talks about the air in these ways are almost always employing figurative language. In most of these cases, yes, the language is metaphorical. The problem is that the commentators are not saying that. They are saying that the ancients thought the sky was literally solid. Not substancy--but SOLID. That's bunk.