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Response to comment [from a Christian]: "expanse or firmament". If the separation of the waters is literal, and the separator can be described as a "vault", I don't think its describing how we understand the sky to be today.

"Separated by this firmament, or atmosphere, the two bodies of water henceforth were ready for their essential functions in sustaining future life on the earth. The actual process of separation was possibly implemented by converting a portion of the liquid water into the vapor state, perhaps through application of divine heat energy. The reactions so induced on the watery suspension also released the other gaseous components of the atmosphere, which became the “firmament” holding up the lighter water vapor above.
The “waters above the firmament” thus probably constituted a vast blanket of water vapor above the troposphere and possibly above the stratosphere as well, in the high-temperature region now known as the ionosphere, and extending far into space. They could not have been the clouds of water droplets which now float in the atmosphere, because the Scripture says they were “above the firmament.” Furthermore, there was no “rain upon the earth” in those days (Genesis 2:5), nor any “bow in the cloud” (Genesis 9:13), both of which must have been present if these upper waters represented merely the regime of clouds which functions in the present hydrologic economy.
The concept of an antediluvian water canopy over the earth has appeared in many writings, both ancient and modern. A number of writers have visualized it as a system of rings like those of the planet Saturn, composed possibly of ice particles orbiting the earth. Others have described it as an orbiting “shell” of ice or liquid water. Some have thought of it merely as dense banks of clouds surrounding the earth, possibly analogous to the cloud cover around the planet Venus (the latter, however, is now believed to be composed of carbon dioxide rather than water).
A vapor canopy seems more likely, however, both because of the inferred manner of its formation and because it would have to be transparent in order for the heavenly bodies to “give light upon the earth” and to “be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years” (Genesis 1:14, 15). Water vapor, even in vast amounts, is invisible, whereas clouds, fog, and so forth, are composed of minute droplets of liquid water and are therefore opaque.
Furthermore, a vapor canopy could be more easily maintained aloft and would serve much more effectively as a marvelous sustainer of vigorous life conditions on the earth. It can be shown that such a canopy would accomplish the following services, for example:
(1) Since water vapor has the ability both to transmit incoming solar radiation and to retain and disperse much of the radiation reflected from the earth’s surface, it would serve as a global greenhouse, maintaining an essentially uniformly pleasant warm temperature all over the world.
(2) With nearly uniform temperatures, great air-mass movements would be inhibited and windstorms would be unknown.
(3) With no global air circulation, the hydrologic cycle of the present world could not be implemented and there could be no rain, except directly over the bodies of water from which it might have evaporated.
(4) With no global air circulation, and therefore no turbulence or dust particles transported to the upper atmosphere, the water vapor in the canopy would have been stable and not precipitate itself.
(5) The planet would have been maintained not only at uniform temperatures but also at comfortable uniform humidities by means of daily local evaporation and condensation (like dew, or ground fog) in each day-night cycle.
(6) The combination of warm temperature and adequate moisture everywhere would be conducive later to extensive stands of lush vegetation all over the world, with no barren deserts or ice caps.
(7) A vapor canopy would also be highly effective in filtering out ultraviolet radiations, cosmic rays, and other destructive energies from outer space. These are known to be the source of both somatic and genetic mutations, which decrease the viability of the individual and the species, respectively. Thus the canopy would contribute effectively to human and animal health and longevity.
(8) Some have objected to the idea of a heavy vapor canopy because of the great increase in atmospheric pressure which it would cause at the earth’s surface. Rather than being a problem, however, this effect would contribute still further to health and longevity. Modern biomedical research is increasingly proving that such “hyperbaric” pressures are very effective in combating disease and in promoting good health generally. There should be no problem in organisms living under high external pressures, provided their internal pressures had time to adjust correspondingly.
(9) Later, when needed, these upper waters would provide the reservoir from which God would send the great Flood, to save the godly remnant from the hopelessly corrupt population of that day (the content of water vapor in the present atmosphere, if all precipitated, would cover the earth only to a depth of about one inch).
Although the waters above the firmament were condensed and precipitated in the Flood, they will apparently be restored in the millennial earth and in the new earth which God will create. Psalm 148:4, 6 speaks of the “waters that be above the heavens” which, like the stars, will be established “for ever and ever.”"

Morris, H. M. (1976). The Genesis record : A scientific and devotional commentary on the book of beginnings. Includes indexes. (59). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Response to comment [from an atheist]: "Seems like a lot of bending over backwards to try and fit everything."

It is really a battle over religions--man's view over God's view. The same problem took place in the Garden of Eden.

Response to comment [from a Christian]: "The main point of the story (and what would have stood out to the original hearers) isn't to tell how creation happened because there are extremely few details, but instead how God interacts with creation, what God's relationship to man is."

Genesis is gives an account of origins and reveals God's interaction with man (the story of the Flood speaks of sin, judgment, redemption, new life). We do not have to spiritualize the book. Every time we depart from God's revealed word, we trust in men not God. There are quite a few details jam-packed into Genesis. It is an extraordinary book. Is God the best at brevity or what?

Response to comment [from an atheist]: "The problem is that 24 comes after 20, wherein we have avian species, which did not precede terrestrial organisms according to our current understanding of evolution."

After the creation of animal life, and its impartation to air and water creatures on the fifth day, only one day of divine work remained. Animals must be formed for the land surfaces—the lithosphere and biosphere.

It is noteworthy that the record says that God “made” (Hebrew asah) these land animals; whereas He was said to have “created” (bara) the air and sea animals. It would seem, if anything, that the land animals were of a higher order than the others and therefore they should have taken a higher category of divine activity.

The reason for this apparent anomaly undoubtedly is that the act of creation (verse 21) was that of “every living soul,” not only of sea and air creatures. Since this “soul” principle was created on the fifth day, there was no need to mention it again on the sixth day. The formation of land creatures merely involved new types of organization of materials already in existence, including the nephesh as well as the physical elements. There was no intrinsic difference in the actual “making” of land animals from that of the marine animals or, for that matter, of the making of plants. All involved the same fundamental biochemical structure and reproductive mechanisms.

The land animals made during the early part of the sixth day are categorized as “cattle, creeping things, and beasts of the earth.” This description is evidently intended to be comprehensive, in so far as land animals are concerned. Very likely, the term “cattle” refers to domesticable animals, “beasts of the earth” refers to large wild animals, and “creeping things” refers to all animals that crawl or creep close to the surface of the ground.

This classification has no correlation with the arbitrary system of man-made taxonomy (amphibians, reptiles, mammals, insects), but is a more natural system based on the relation of the animals to man’s interests. Thus the term “beasts of the earth” includes the large mammals such as lions and elephants, and probably also the large extinct reptiles known as dinosaurs. “Creeping things” includes the insects and smaller reptiles, and probably also most amphibians and many small mammals (e.g., moles, rats; note Leviticus 11:29–31).

All three categories of land animals were made simultaneously, as is evident from the inverted order of listing in verses 24 and 25. Once again, it is obvious that there is not the slightest correlation with the imaginary evolutionary order (that is, insects, then amphibians, then reptiles, then all mammals). As a matter of fact, evolution places insects, amphibians, and land reptiles all before the birds that Genesis says were made the day before.

There was no evolutionary struggle for existence among these animals either, for “God saw that it was good.” Neither could one kind evolve into a different kind, because God made each category “after his kind.”

All these land animals were said to have been “brought forth” from the earth, or ground. That is, their bodies were composed of the same elements as the earth; and when they died, they would go back to the earth. They also all had “souls,” because they were said to be “living creatures” (nephesh again). In this respect, they were like air and water animals (Genesis 1:21) and also like man (Genesis 2:7).

Morris, H. M. (1976). The Genesis record : A scientific and devotional commentary on the book of beginnings. Includes indexes. (70). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Response to comment [from other]: "Why is the canopy theory so much more risible than the hydroplate theory?"

"[T]he flood was initiated by God as a consequence of man’s sin. We may never understand the precise event that God used (or allowed) to physically trigger the flood; however, once started, other events must have occurred whose consequences, or “wreckage,” we can still see. Examples include earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, rapid burial and preservation of trillions of organisms as fossils in layered rocks; the crumpling of major mountains; fossils of sea creatures on every major mountain range; the jigsaw fit of the continents; the formation of strange features on the ocean floor; the gouging out of canyons; comets, asteroids, and meteorites; and hundreds of other features. One can place many of these consequences in a cause-and-effect sequence that (1) conforms to scientific laws, (2) best explains details of these observations, and (3) provides a greater understanding of this global cataclysm. That is the purpose of the hydroplate theory..." Full text: Hydroplate Theory

"While Genesis 1:20 (KJV) does say that birds fly in the firmament, suggesting the earth’s atmosphere, it also says that the sun, moon and stars reside there (Genesis 1:14-17), suggesting the entire sky from the earth’s surface outward, where birds fly and celestial objects reside. The Hebrew word alternatively translated “firmament” in some translations and “expanse” in others is raqiya. It appears nine times throughout the first chapter of Genesis (in verses 6-8, 14-18 and 20), and eight more times throughout the rest of the Old Testament (in Psalms, Ezekiel and Daniel).

According to Genesis, before there was air or land or any form of life, the earth was a formless mass of primordial water. On the second day of creation God created the raqiya, placing it in the midst of the water, thereby separating it into two parts: “the waters above the firmament [raqiya]” and the waters below it. The waters below the raqiya He named “sea” (yam in Hebrew) and the raqiya itself He named “heaven,” “air” or “sky” depending on your translation of the Hebrew word “shamayim”. But Genesis does not provide a name for the waters above the raqiya, nor is there any water above our atmosphere today, assuming that raqiya does mean atmosphere.

Advocates of the canopy theory once speculated that the collapse of such a vapor canopy might have provided the water for the heavy rains which inundated the earth during Noah’s flood..." Full text: What is the Canopy Theory?

Response to comment [from a Christian]: "[N]umerous layers that are distinct from one another in composition."

" Today, sediments are usually deposited in and by rivers—along a narrow line. However, individual sedimentary rock layers are spread over large geographical areas, not along narrow, streamlike paths. Liquefaction during the flood acted on all sediments and sorted them over wide areas in weeks or months.

4. Sedimentary layers are usually thin, sharply defined, parallel, and horizontal. They are often stacked vertically for thousands of feet. If layers had been laid down thousands of years apart, surface erosion would have destroyed this parallelism. Liquefaction, especially liquefaction lenses, explain these sharp boundaries.

5. Sometimes adjacent, parallel layers contain such different fossils that evolutionists conclude that those layers were deposited millions of years apart, but the lack of erosion shows that the layers were deposited rapidly. Liquefaction resolves this paradox.

6. Many communities around the world get their water from deep, permeable, water-filled, sedimentary layers called aquifers. When water drains from an aquifer, the layer collapses, unable to support the overlying rock layers. A collapsed aquifer cannot be replenished, so how were aquifers originally filled?

Almost all sorted sediments were deposited within water, so aquifers contained water when they first formed. Today, with aquifers steadily collapsing globally, one must question claims that they formed millions of year ago. As described in this chapter, liquefaction sorted sediments relatively recently.

7. Varves are extremely thin layers (typically 0.004 inch or 0.1 mm), which evolutionists claim are laid down annually in lakes. By counting varves, evolutionists believe that time can be measured. The Green River Formation of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, a classic varve region, contains billions of flattened, paper-thin, fossilized fish; thousands were buried and fossilized in the act of swallowing other fish. [See Figure 7 on page 11.] Obviously, burial was sudden. Fish, lying on the bottom of a lake for years, would decay or disintegrate long before enough varves could bury them. (Besides, dead fish typically float, deteriorate, and then sink.) Most fish fossilized in varves show exquisite detail and are pressed to the thinness of a piece of paper, as if they had been compressed in a collapsing liquefaction lens.

Also, varves are too uniform, show almost no erosion, and are deposited over wider areas than where streams enter lakes—where most lake deposits occur. Liquefaction best explains these varves..." Full text: The Fountains of the Great Deep. Chapter: Liquefaction: The Origin of Strata and Layered Fossils. Testing the Theories