Can Poetry State Fact?

[Micaiah]

Job 38.

31"Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
Or loose the belt of Orion?
32Can you bring out Mazzaroth[1] in its season?
Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?
33Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you set their dominion over the earth?

Here is some poetry from the book of Job.

 

[PotLuck]

The fact that Job was humbled by that poetry, which was God's intent, I'd have to say yes. If you're refering to can God actually do those things then again I'd have to say yes.

I can well imagine the reaction of Job's friends as well. All were humbled before God. God never gave Job a reason for his suffering but God gave Job a reason not to question Him.

 

[gluadys]

Can Poetry State Fact?

Here is some poetry from the book of Job.

Of course it can.

Here is a familiar bit of secular poetry.


"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
between the crosses row on row..."


Factual description of WWI cemeteries in a poetic setting.

But later on the same poem reads:

"We are the dead, to you,
from failing hands we throw,
The torch...be yours to hold it high.
If you break faith with us who die
We shall not rest though poppies grow
in Flanders fields."

Is the torch literal?

Of course not.

Same with biblical poetry. It can state fact and it can use symbols.

Let's try this passage:

Bless the LORD, O my soul.
Oh LORD my God, you are very great.
You are clothed with honour and majesty,
wrapped in light as with a garment.
You stretch out the heavens like a tent,
You set the beams of your chambers on the waters,
you make the clouds your chariot,
you ride on the wings of the wind,
you make the winds your messengers,
flame and fire are your ministers.
You set the earth on its foundations,
so that it will never be shaken.
You cover it with the deep as with a garment.
The waters stood above the mountains.
At your rebuke they flee.

Psalm 104-1-7a

What's fact and what's not in this passage? How do you tell?

 

[artybloke]

Here is some poetry from the book of Job.

Hmmm... so according to this poem, there's a great big bear in the sky that is leading its cubs, and there is a big bloke called Orion up there, who wears a belt. Yeah, sure it's stating fact...

You do realise, don't you, that the constellations are really only the shapes we impose on the universe when we look at them with the naked eye; they don't really exist that far out in space, and other cultures (the Chinese, say) would probably see different shapes? Orion and the Great Bear are both figures from Greek mythology who didn't themselves exist but whose stories were pretty familiar to the ancient world.

But the theological idea (that God sustains the heavens) is a perfectly valid and true one.

 

[Micaiah]

31"Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
Or loose the belt of Orion?

Any astronomers among us who know about bound and loosed star clusters.

What are they?

Are Pleiades and Orion bound and loosed clusters respectively?

How did the author know about such things those many years ago?

 

[herev]

Any astronomers among us who know about bound and loosed star clusters.

What are they?

Are Pleiades and Orion bound and loosed clusters respectively?

How did the author know about such things those many years ago?

for those of us that are not astronomers, would you elucidate?

 

[Micaiah]

Remember the story of Job? Job was extremely wealthy — enjoying a wonderful family. Then tragedy struck. He lost his wealth. His children were killed and his wife deserted him. Then Job lay in excruciating pain, covered with sores from head to toe. All this was too much for Job. He accused the Lord of being unjust. God didn’t answer Job’s accusation directly. He merely raised questions concerning the wonders of His creation. Three of these questions found in Job 38:31, 32, illustrate the dynamic logic conveyed in God’s questions.

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?

ORION

"Canst thou . . . loose the bands of Orion?" Garrett P. Serviss, the noted astronomer, wrote about the bands of Orion12 in his book CURIOSITIES OF THE SKY.




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At the present time this band consists of an almost perfect straight line, a row of second-magnitude stars about equally spaced and of the most striking beauty. In the course of time, however, the two right-hand stars, Mintaka and Alnilam, will approach each other and form a naked-eye double; but the third, Alnitak, will drift away eastward so that the band will no longer exist.





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In other words, one star is traveling in a certain direction at a certain speed, a second one is traveling in a different direction at a second speed, and the third one is going in a third direction and at a still different speed. Actually every star in Orion is traveling its own course, independent of all the others. Thus, these stars that we see forming one of the bands of Orion are like three ships out on the high seas that happen to be in line at the present moment, but in the future will be separated by thousands of miles of ocean. In fact, all these stars that at the present time constitute the constellation of Orion are bound for different ports, and all are journeying to different corners of the universe, so that the bands are being dissolved.



THE PLEIADES

"Canst thou bind the sweet influence of the Pleiades . . . ?" Notice the amazing astronomical contrast with the Pleiades. The seven stars of the Pleiades are in reality a grouping of 250 suns. Photographs now reveal that 250 blazing suns in this group are all traveling together in one common direction. Concerning this cluster, Isabel Lewis of the United States Naval Observatory tells us: 13

Astronomers have identified 250 stars as actual members of this group, all sharing in a common motion and drifting through space in the same direction.





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Elsewhere Lewis speaks of them as "journeying onward together through the immensity of space."



From Lick Observatory came this statement of Dr. Robert J. Trumpler:14

Over 25,000 individual measures of the Pleiades stars are now available, and their study led to the important discovery that the whole cluster is moving in a southeasterly direction. The Pleiades stars may thus be compared to a swarm of birds, flying together to a distant goal. This leaves no doubt that the Pleiades are not a temporary or accidental agglomeration of stars, but a system in which the stars are bound together by a close kinship.





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Dr. Trumpler said that all this led to an important discovery. Without any reference whatsoever to the Book of Job, he announced to the world that these discoveries prove that the stars in the Pleiades are all bound together and are flying together like a flock of birds as they journey to their distant goal. That is exactly what God said. "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?" In other words, Canst thou keep them bound together so that they remain as a family of suns?



INCREDIBLE! God's laws of cosmology are loosing or dissolving the constellation Orion. Sometime in the far distant future, Orion will be no more. Conversely, wonder of wonders — every last one of the 250 blazing suns in the Pleiades are ordained of God to orbit together in their symmetrical beauty throughout eternity.

The author of this link http://www.bibletoday.com/archive/proof_text.htm believes that what Job said was correct. Orion is a loosed star cluster, and Pleiades is a bound star cluster.

How would you explain that? Another Mesopotamian legend doing the rounds at the time.

 

[artybloke]

Does anyone have a source from a respectable scientific establishment, not one of these creationist sites? I'm afraid I don't trust them not to be quote-mines, and a quick search on google for "loosed star clusters" only ever brought up creationist sites with anything approaching this definition. Anyway, the author of Job is probably going to have been aware of Babylonian/Sumerian and Egyptian astronomy, which was more advanced that some people give it credit for.

 

[Micaiah]

Those ancient civilisations can be very advanced when they need to be. I thought they were only good for making up legends and myths.

You have no problem ascribing what seems to be supernatural insight to those ancient civilisations, yet are instantly dismissive of the author gaining this insight from God.

Why should I be surprised.

 

[lucaspa]

Here is some poetry from the book of Job.

MIcaiah, what people are telling you is there are different kinds of fact or truth. The passage from Job is true in that God sustains the universe. It is not fact if you take the literal bear cubs or a literal Orion the hunter.

Once you realize that there are different types of truths, then interpreting the Bible becomes a lot simpler. For that matter, life itself becomes simpler.

 

[lucaspa]

The author of this link http://www.bibletoday.com/archive/proof_text.htm believes that what Job said was correct. Orion is a loosed star cluster, and Pleiades is a bound star cluster.

How would you explain that? Another Mesopotamian legend doing the rounds at the time.

Post hoc explanation. Muslims do this all the time trying to give authority to the Quran.
Notice that the verse in Job refers only to Orion's belt. Not the constellation.

You have to put yourself in the mindset of the people of the time. No one was going to listen if the message was about loosed and bound star clusters. No one had any conception of those. Both constellations, in Greek myth, were placed there by other gods. But Job is having those constellations made by God. This destroys the Greek version of events, doesn't it? If the constellations are created by God and not by other gods as the Greeks, or Babylonians, said, then those gods don't exist, either.

Job, IMHO, is a story about Israel and the Babylonian conquest. It is seeking theological answers for that catastrophe. Why, after all those centuries of prosperity and favor of God, did God allow such a disaster as Israel being conqueored by the Babylonians, its people carried off into captivity? Why did God desert them?

Job, along with Genesis 1, is a huge leap forward in theological thought. Always before the existence of a god was tied to the prosperity of its favored people/nation. But here Israel suffers a complete disaster, and the Jews remain faithful to God. They do not desert to the Babylonian gods, or Greek gods. Instead, people like the authors of Job and Genesis 1 reach a new insight: God isn't tied to prosperity. God can exist when bad things happen to good people. Much of the OT is about Israel coming to terms with the disaster and growing up theologically. Trying to read literal science into it ignores the real meaning and, IMO, demeans the message.

The function of the verses i

 

[lucaspa]

Those ancient civilisations can be very advanced when they need to be. I thought they were only good for making up legends and myths.

You have no problem ascribing what seems to be supernatural insight to those ancient civilisations, yet are instantly dismissive of the author gaining this insight from God.

1. The OT is set in the best "science" of the time -- Babylonian. The Babylonian cosmology of flat earth, crystal firmament above the earth, reservoirs of water above that, stars embedded in the firmament, etc. runs thruout both the OT and gospels. The science is wrong. The theology is not. Remember, Micaiah, different types of truth.

2. We are dismissive that the insight is what you say it is. Namely, science. The insights are theological. Those insights are set in Babylonian science. But you are so focussed on the science that you miss hearing what God is saying. Tragic.