An Encounter With Some Preachers

[Hungry Hungry Hippo]

I 'dialogued' with some local JWs several years ago. I agreed to a meeting and there was one guy, and the second time there were two guys, and third time was at the Kingdom Hall with three guys, at least one of them was in the hierarchy. They pointed to a verse in Isaiah that referred to the 'circle of the Earth'. showing that the prophet knew the Earth was round. I pointed out that circles are flat. We went round and round over that.

I know, it's incredible how underwhelming when they point to these things as advanced scientific knowledge. I guess that's what's troubles me about this verse. With the others that they cite it's oftentimes not difficult to go "Whoa, hold up there! That's a load of BS..." and point out a flaw, but with this one I'm honestly just kind of stumped, I'm kind of surprised as it seems that the bible has a pretty accurate depiction of how the water cycle works. At first I thought maybe they used the word "distilled" because the verse they read to me came from the New International Version of the Bible, so I thought that maybe older versions wouldn't reflect our understanding of the water cycle, but I looked up the verse in the King James version, and even it seems to use similar terminology which describes water as evaporating, and condensing into rain, and from what I've read, humanity never had an accurate understanding of the water cycle until the 1700's. Still though, my gut reaction is that there's a major problem with using this as scientific revelation, and it frustrates me that I can't put my finger on it.

Job 36:27-28
27 “He draws up the drops of water,
    which distill as rain to the streams;
28 the clouds pour down their moisture
    and abundant showers fall on mankind.