“Hanging the earth upon nothing”

by FFGhost 36 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

FFGhost

For those of you not up to speed on the latest JW trends, one of the key scriptures the JWs are using in field serve-us lately is Job 26:7, wherein the writer describes the earth as “hanging upon nothing”.
This text is used to indicate the Bible’s “reliability”. The reasoning goes something like this:
“See, centuries ago, people thought the world was flat, or was resting on elephants or turtles, or some such nonsense. But the writer of Job had it right all along, centuries before anyone else had figured it out! Ipso Facto, because the Bible got this detail right, everything it says is absolute truth.”
It’s a big deal in JW circles now. It is the “suggested conversation” for use in making return visits, there’s videos on how to use it, it’s in the meeting workbook. Scarcely a week goes by without a reference to using this scripture in field serve-us.
Aside from the numerous logical fallacies contained in this line of “reasoning”, something was bugging me about the use of this scripture in trying to justify the Bible’s “accuracy when it touches on scientific matters”. I finally figured out what was bothering me.
The Bible contains dozens of other descriptions of the earth which don’t indicate “accuracy”. But if you point this out to JWs, they’ll counter with “oh those are just poetic or symbolic references, not meant to be taken literally”.
Well, why? To wit:
The earth has “pillars”:
Job 9:6 “oh that’s poetic”
Psalm 75:3 “poetic”
The earth has “corners”:
Isaiah 11:12 “oh that’s symbolic”
Acts 10:11 “symbolic”
Revelation 7:1 “symbolic”
Revelation 20:8 “symbolic” says the JW
The earth has a “foundation” like a building:
Isaiah 48:13 “oh that’s just symbolic and poetic”
Isaiah 51:13 “symbolic”
Isaiah 51:16 “symbolic”
Ezekiel 13:14 “symbolic”
Zechariah 12:1 “oh, hey, symbolic”
And so on, you could cite dozens more examples….all “symbolic” or “poetic”.
But now, Job 26:7 “Yes,see? This is a hyper-literal scientific statement describing the orbit of a spherical earth wherein the effect of the sun’s gravity makes it appear, to an observer hundred of thousands or millions of miles away, to be hanging on nothing.”
Is it just me, or is this a little, I don’t know, what’s the word…inconsistent?
”Yes, the Bible’s descriptions of the earth should be taken symbolically 99% of the time, except for this one obscure reference that kind of sounds like something vaguely accurate. That one instance is proof of the Bible’s reliability.”
Example #8,478 of how JW “reasoning” falls apart after just a few minutes of thought.
waton

Good point, the bible is only 0.16 % accurate, scientifically.
Disturbing too, that the Son, when on Earth, sent to speak truth, did not correct the flat earthers, like "Satan" , who showed him all the kingdoms of the Earth, from the heights, offered them on a platter so to speak. ***
It is not just a wt, but a bible problem, starting with Genesis 1:1. which has the Earth 13.8 billion years old.
the sky hook for the Earth is energy, its velocity. "dynamic energy" eternal, uncreated, together with time.
*** bible writers lacked imagination, they should have depicted the 2 sons of God on the moon, viewing Earth for 24 hours, showing all the empires, , China and it's wall, visible from space. .
FUN FACT: The planet's "hanging" orbital velocity is exactly 1/10 000 of the universal speed limit, the speed of light "c" --30 km /sec. amazing, look it up.
punkofnice

Good post. Nice one Cyril!
There are so many things 'symbolic' that the Bible must be a load of old 'bolics.
TonusOH

If I understand it correctly, doesn't the Earth actually move upon the fabric of spacetime, instead of hanging? The idea of an object hanging somewhere does not give the impression that it is actually rotating around another object, which would imply that the Biblical writer believed that the sun rotated around the Earth. I like the poetry of the line, but it's too vague to be of practical use in determining how scientifically accurate it is.
truth_b_known

This is the ancient Jewish cosmology of the Earth:
It is literally a flat-Earth construct. Remember, it is the "circle" of the Earth that hangs upon nothing in the source scripture quoted. The literal translation is a flat Earth. The author did not pen "the globe of the Earth hangs upon nothing".
The scripture cannot be used to provide evidence that the Bible's writers were given special scientific knowledge as the Watchtower claims.
nowwhat?

Along the same thought. The jdubs are always bragging about their Bible education work. Their message is to have faith in the Bible. Correct me if I'm wrong but are not Christians commanded to preach the gospel of Jesus and have faith in the redeemer and messiah? Not the book itself?
WTWizard

No wonder they want people to flunk science. Anyone with half a brain realizes that the earth is not hanging at all--and neither are the other planets (or the moon, for that matter). They are locked in orbit around the sun, itself in orbit in our galaxy around a point that is near 27 degrees of Sagittarius (the center of the galaxy). Hanging is not the correct word for this.
Instead, they are held in place by the force of gravity. The earth is kept in check by the sun's gravity, while its momentum creates a force that holds it where it is (centrifugal force). When the two are in balance, the planet is in orbit and will remain that way until something disrupts it. (Such as joke-hova blowing up Phaeton and ruining Mars, which disrupted all the planets around it from Mercury to Jupiter.) There is no way that this is "hanging", let alone "on nothing".
FFGhost

This is also another fine example of
The FFGhost golden rule of Biblical Eisgesis for fundamentalist religions
Namely:
”Any Biblical text which supports my preferred doctrinal understanding is to be understood as literal; any Biblical text which contradicts my preferred doctrinal understanding is to be understood as symbolic”
To be fair, JWs are only one of hundreds of religions which apply this rule.
Diogenesister

I'm been given to understand that the Ancient Hebrew word "circle" is entirely different from the word which means "sphere" or 'ball' which is the root of the modern world for ball כַּדוּר (not Chutzpah lol😁) 'bôl'. I was told that the word for ball is elsewhere in the Bible, so if they really thought it was a sphere and not a circle they could have used that word.
Disillusioned JW

Thank you FFGhost for the list you provided of verses where the Bible's description of the Earth conflicts with scientific accuracy. However, the TNIV Bible (and most likely the latest NIV translation of Bible) does put most of those verses in poetic format, thus I do think most of the verses are poetic. However, despite the poetic nature of most of the verses you are correct in saying the cited Bible verses are expressing ideas of the Earth which disagree with scientific truth.
Readers: Note that some of the cited verses are explicitly stating that Yahweh God (Jehovah God, the LORD God) himself stated what is said in the verses. Those particular verses are not merely saying it is the idea of a human character in the biblical books or the idea of the human writer of the biblical books, but rather the actual statement of the biblical god himself. That is important to keep in mind as you evaluate the degree of accuracy of what the Bible teaches regarding the structure of the Earth, and thus also regarding even the claim of the existence of Yahweh God.
truth_b_known you are correct in what you said about the ancient Jewish cosmology. What the illustration provided by you says of the ancient Jewish idea about the structure of the Earth (including of Sheol) and the visible heavens (sky), and the location of alleged divine beings (whether those the Jews believed or whether those the pagan neighbors of the Jews believed) was also the idea of ancient non-Jewish peoples of Mesopotamia. That is mentioned in various scholarly publications, including in the 1991 edition of the NAB Bible (a Catholic Bible). The "Saint Joseph Edition", "Illustrated", of that Bible edition, in between the page numbered 4 and the page numbered 5 of the OT section, has a page with an illustration and a description of the illustration. The title of the illustration and its description is called "The World Of The Hebrews". The last sentence of that description says the following. "This was the same prescientific concept of the universe as that held by the Hebrews' pagan neighbors." That Bible edition is where I first learned that concept. That concept was a shock to me, since I was still a Bible believer at the time.
Because of the above, the verses cited by FFGhost, including the verses which are poetic, are literally stating what the Jewish biblical writers of those verses believed to be part of the structure of the Earth. For example, where they say the the Earth has a foundation and pillars they mean the Earth literally has both a physical foundation and physical pillars!
Diogenesister you are very correct in all of what you said about the Ancient Hebrew word (at Job 26:7) meaning "circle" and of the Hebrew word which means "sphere" or 'ball', and that if the writer of Job 26:7 had sphere/ball in mind he could have easily used the Hebrew word which had that meaning.
Readers: If the writer of Job 26:7 had the specific meaning of sphere/ball he should have used at Job 26:7 the specific Hebrew word which has that meaning, yet he didn't use that word at Job 26:7.

“Hanging the earth upon nothing”

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