Do the Faithful Read Job 5:8-10, and Reject the Water Cycle?

How exactly is Job 5 different from Genesis 1?

Job 5:8-10
I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause:
Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number:
Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields.

The thoughtful Christian does not quote this verse and deny the Water Cycle that creates rain.
Nor should the thoughtful Christian read Genesis and deny Evolution.

And yet we see it all the time… why is that?

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@gbrooks9

I’ll play devil’s advocate for this one. :imp: My guess is that the argument would go something like “It’s apples and oranges George! Apples and oranges!”

This verse lacks the specific details of Genesis 1. Of course Job 5:8-10 does not contradict the water cycle because it says nothing of process, just that God makes it happen. On the other hand, Genesis gives clear 24 hour time periods and an order of creation. It even lists ingredients for creating mankind.

@jlock

Is it really apples and oranges?

Job 38:22 says this: ““Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail,”

it’s a reference to the ancient near east’s belief that snow and hail are stored above the firmament, separate from the heavenly blue ocean.

The ANE had no comprehension that snow and hail were made the same way that rain was made. But modern humans do.

Similarly, ANE had no comprehension for how non-human animals and humans were genetically related …but modern humans do.

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I’ve never seen IDers explain rain.

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Of course, Isaiah 55:10 is more precise at water cycle denial: ““For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return
there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed
to the sower and bread to the eater,”

It just shows how proof-texting is bad, and how we need to read the Bible in context rather than pulling stuff out of a hat. We are all guilty of this at times, and I have found the depth of meaning of scripture to be much deeper when read as it was meant to be, as an intact story, or more precisely, a series of stories leading to the Great Story.

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@jpm

In a hurry, James?

The reason you think Isaiah 55:10 refutes my position is because you forget that the ANE world view had rain coming through windows/holes in the Firmament.

Isaiah puts rain and snow in the same sentence because they both, ultimately, provide water for crops (snow may be seasonal, but its melting feeds the rivers and the springs).

So I’d watch out for that proof-texting … when it doesn’t prove what you think it proves.

If the Hebrew thought rain and snow were made and stored the same way, we wouldn’t have Job making a pretty specific exception for how hail and snow were stored above … compared to rain.

Rain was in the heavenly ocean; hail and snow were kept in special “stores” (i.e., treasures, treasure houses, storehouses)… because if it wasn’t kept separately, the heavenly waters would (of course) melt the hail and snow before it could be used by Yahweh.

Gee, George, I wasn’t trying to refute your position, just observing that we often make the mistake of trying to make scripture say something it does not. Which I think is what you are saying about the water cycle and evolution, is it not?

@jpm

LoL… I think I tickled the Bible until it said what it was trying to say … in a way that the average person can understand.

There is nothing about Creation that makes it immune to “cherry picking” by people who can’t look Nature in the eye and be amazed…

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