(March 15, 2023 at 9:51 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: From the Book of Job: "Who has put wisdom in the innermost being, Or given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds by wisdom, And pour out the water jars of the heavens."
So how do you recommend approaching such a text? Well, IMNSHO starting with the assumption that ancient peoples believed in literal jars in the sky pouring water from above would be a remarkably ignorant and arrogant hueristic.
Why can’t the jewish god have jars of water or windows in a firmament? Are you saying that the jewish god does the raining using an alternative means or maybe he doesn’t do anything at all?
In the case of wisdom, wisdom is not a material substance therefore they did not write that “god takes the wisdom out of his wisdom jar and poor it into a mind”.
I don’t know what count the clouds by wisdom means. Clouds don’t have an exact boundary but of course, you can set up some arbitrary rule and count them.
I suppose they could have written that he has bottles of wisdom but they did not go into that direction.
For water, it is normal for humans to go into the water in a jar direction. That is how primitive humans handled water. They did not write about pools of water being suspended using force fields because they didn’t have the imagination to go in that direction.
Primitive humans were not even aware that water can become a gas. They didn’t even know that clouds were small particles of ice.
What they were sure of was that their god is in space and he controls the rain.
Primitive humans were not aware of the hydrological cycle so even something as basic as that was said to be done by their god.
Job 38:35 KING JAMES VERSION
Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? {38:36} Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? {38:37} Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven,
^^^^^Also, I suppose that they are claiming that their god does lightning.
