unknown4

I know the viewpoint that this passage is saying the earth is not supported by anything, so supposedly this passage agrees with modern science and couldn't have been known by Job. I'd like to know if this translation is the most accurate. I have a difficult time even thinking the passage means hang the earth upon anything at all, since didn't the ancient Hebrews think the earth was supported by pillars? What then would be the use to "hangeth the earth", even if it be on top of "nothing"? Do we know that "upon" is the best translation? And what about the word translated "nothing"?

Anyway, any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Wallener

JPS: "suspended earth over emptiness"

A more literal reading would be something like "...and suspends the earth over what?" leaving the "nothing/emptiness" as an implication of the question. I don't see how it is possible to read this as evidence of correct Jewish Text cosmology when elsewhere are references to a "fixed" or "immovable" earth. Even passages elsewhere in Job refer to things like "hard as copper" vault of heaven (ie, G-d can walk on the, ah, surface of the sky).

Poetry, man, can't take it too literally.

John Kesler

If you encounter someone who claims that Job 26:7 evidences great scientific foreknowledge, ask him or her about the scientific accuracy of the surrounding verses.



"Shades" are the dead who live in Sheol, the shawdowy underworld. Do vv 5-6 display great scientific truth? What about verse 11's reference to the "pillars of heaven"? It's uncanny how some verses are dismissed as "figurative" or "poetic," while verse seven is not. But even if verse seven is read "literally," it isn't as clear-cut as one might think.

It's unclear exactly what "nothing" means, but it appears to parallel "void," and could simply mean that God positioned earth over the empty underworld as is Zaphon, the abode of the gods. Here is how The New English Bible renders verse seven:

At best, you have a verse which is ambiguous, and even so, there are numerous Bible verses which teach an inaccurate cosmological view.

Malachi151

Don't forget that the Greeks were developing atomic theory and a view of an infinite universe, with earth floating in space, by the 6th century BCE. I'm not sure when Job was written, but I suspect its after the ideas of Thales, Axanemander, Democritus, et al., and their ideas certainly were much more advanced than anything in any part of the Bible, Old or New testament.

If they bring this passage to you, reply with this:

tjakey

I don’t see much of a puzzle in this passage. Just spend a few nights gazing at a full moon. How much of a leap of imagination would it be to then say something like “hangeth the earth upon nothing?” If there were a god trying to teach mankind about astrophysics using the writer of Job, you would think there would be some reference to motion, orbits, the sun being the center of the solar system, other planets…something. If Einstein didn’t need a god to come up with his 4 dimensional space-time to explain gravity, surely the writer of Job could come up with “hangeth the earth upon nothing” without divine intervention while contemplating the night sky.

Malachi151

These types of passages are really commentaries on existing ideas of the time, they can't be taken in isolation. All of this stuff was a huge matter of discussion from around the 7th century BCE to the 1se century BCE.

pharoah

Any theist that claims that Job 26:7 exhibits modern scientific knowledge will need to explain this verse from the same author:

Job 9:6 Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.

John Kesler

Of course, and the link that I provided in my post mentions references to the earth's pillars. But a perfect example of the double standard of interpretation is found in Robert Turkel's article, "What Shape is the Earth In?" Speaking of references to pillars, Turkel offers this:

But look at how Job 26:7, just four verses earlier than 26:11 and also "charged with poetic indications," is interpreted in a more favorable light:

rob117

Most estimates I've seen put Job in its final form largely in the Babylonian Exile or shortly after, with a few large interpolations dating to the later Persian period. But comparing it to pre-Socratic Greek literature is not exactly accurate; it is written in the tradition of Egyptian and Mesopotamian "wisdom" texts that contemplate on why the gods allow man to suffer (sound familiar?). This tradition of wisdom literature goes back to the Ur III period (2112-2004 BC); see here.

spin

So does the narrative literary tradition go back to the Sumerian period, but you wouldn't want to insist that any narrative is derived from the Sumerian period.

You have no markers from the text to supply a latest date, so this text could be as late as the 1st c. BCE, but let's assume that the mention of Job in Ezekiel along with Noah and Daniel, puts Job back before the 2nd c. BCE, when literary interest existed for both these latter figures. (Ezekiel's interest in the sons of Zadok should place him not too distantly from the time when those Dead Sea Scrolls that deal with the sons of Zadok.)


spin