Cold Case Christianity: The astronomical errors of Job and Judges

 This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity:

Is the Astronomy in the Book of Job Scientifically Consistent?

Posted: 17 Aug 2018 01:09 AM PDT

In the past, I’ve posted a number of scientific consistencies found in the Old Testament.

 And we worry about the bible being consistent with science about as much as we worry about ancient Greeks being consistent with science.

While I think there are good reasons why God might not reveal advanced scientific details in Scripture,

 No dice:  God could have been far more explicit in having bible authors predict today's events.  Like your typical spiritist, god's "predictions" of the future are often conveniently vague enough that it is exceptionally difficult or impossible to decide what they are talking about..while the more explicit predictions are either dated after the fulfilling event, or turned out simply to be wrong.

I do expect God’s Word to be scientifically consistent with the world we experience.

That's because you've chosen a model of bible inerrancy that other Christian scholars have rejected:

In The Lost World of Scripture: Ancient Literary Culture and Biblical Authority, (IVP Academic, 2013), John H. Walton and D. Brent Sandy argue that the Israelites literally believed in unscientific concepts:

Even though people in Israel believed there were waters above the earth held back by a solid sky, or that cognitive processes took place in the heart or kidneys, the illocution of the texts is not affirming those beliefs as revealed truth...So for example, it is no surprise that ancient Israel believed in a solid sky, and God accommodated his locution to that model in his communication to them. But since the illocution is not to assert the true shape of cosmic geography, we can safely set those details aside as incidental without jeopardizing authority of inerrancy." (p. 45-46)

Wallace continues:

One interesting scientific consistency seems to exist in the ancient book of Job. I am obviously not a scientist or astronomer, so I’ll try to provide links to the references you might use to further investigate these claims. As you may remember, Job was extremely wealthy and had a large family. Tragedy struck and Job lost his wealth, his children and his wife. Job eventually began to accuse God of being unjust and unkind. In response to Job’s complaining, God challenged Job’s authority and power relative to His own. God asked the following series of questions to demonstrate Job’s comparative weakness:

Job 38:31-32

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?

The text refers to three constellations, Pleiades, Orion and Arcturus (the fourth, Mazzaroth, is still unknown to us). In the first part of the verse, God challenged Job’s ability to “bind the sweet influences of Pleiades.” It’s as if He was saying, “Hey Job, you think you can keep Pleiades together? Well, I can!” As it turns out, the Pleiades (also known as the Seven Sisters) is an open star cluster in the constellation of Taurus. It is classified as an open cluster because it is a group of hundreds of stars formed from the same cosmic cloud. They are approximately the same age and have roughly the same chemical composition. Most importantly, they are bound to one another by mutual gravitational attraction. Isabel Lewis of the United States Naval Observatory (quoted by Phillip L. Knox in Wonder Worlds) said, “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.” Lewis said they are “journeying onward together through the immensity of space.” Dr. Robert J. Trumpler (quoted in the same book) said, “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.” From our perspective on Earth, the Pleiades will not change in appearance; these stars are marching together in formation toward the same destination, bound in unison, just as God described them.

The fact that it says the "sweet" influences ought to indicate it isn't talking about truths of physics.  Unless you think gravitational attraction of stars is something that tastes like sugar?  Furthermore:

 31 "Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, Or loose the cords of Orion?
 32 "Can you lead forth a constellation in its season, And guide the Bear with her satellites?
 33 "Do you know the ordinances of the heavens, Or fix their rule over the earth? (Job 38:31-33 NAU)

Did other cultures also see constellations in the sky? 
Nearly every culture on Earth has seen patterns in the stars.

Job clearly errs by saying Pleiades, Orion, and the Bear "rule over the earth" (33).  No astronomer believes this.

Job has other problems:

 2 "In truth I know that this is so; But how can a man be in the right before God?
 3 "If one wished to dispute with Him, He could not answer Him once in a thousand times.
 4 "Wise in heart and mighty in strength, Who has defied Him without harm?
 5 "It is God who removes the mountains, they know not how, When He overturns them in His anger;
 6 Who shakes the earth out of its place, And its pillars tremble;
 7 Who commands the sun not to shine, And sets a seal upon the stars;
 8 Who alone stretches out the heavens And tramples down the waves of the sea;
 9 Who makes the Bear, Orion and the Pleiades, And the chambers of the south;
 10 Who does great things, unfathomable, And wondrous works without number.
 11 "Were He to pass by me, I would not see Him; Were He to move past me, I would not perceive Him.   (Job 9:2-11 NAU)

 Job apparently thinks earthquakes are caused by God (6) when today we know better.
 Job thinks night comes around because God commands the sun to stop shining (7).  If you can get away from Job's scientific errors by screaming "poetry", why would you insist that the part of the poetry you quote is an exception?

And Job apparently thought the stars really were angels or "sons of God":

7 When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7 NAU)


The Institute for Creation Research wonders at the bible's frequent identification of stars with angels:

The frequent identification of angels with stars in the Bible (note Job 38:7; Revelation 12:4; and many others) is most intriguing, especially in view of the fact that there is no similarity between them whatsoever.

Wallace continues:

The next section of the verse describes the Orion constellation. God once again challenged Job, this time to “loose the bands of Orion.” God was referencing the “belt” of Orion; the three stars forming the linear “band” at Orion’s waist. God appeared to be challenging Job in just the opposite way he had in the first portion of the verse. Rather than bind the Pleiades, God challenged Job to loosen Orion. It’s as if He was saying, “Hey Job, you think you can loosen Orion’s belt? Well, I can!” Orion’s belt is formed by two stars (Alnilam, and Mintaka) and one star cluster (Alnitak). Alnitak is actually a triple star system at the eastern edge of Orion’s belt. These stars (along with all the other stars forming Orion) are not gravitationally bound like those in Pleiades. Instead, the stars of Orion’s belt are heading in different directions. Garrett P. Serviss, a noted astronomer, wrote about the bands of Orion in his book, Curiosities of the Sky: “The great figure of Orion appears to be more lasting, not because its stars are physically connected, but because of their great distance, which renders their movements too deliberate to be exactly ascertained. Two of the greatest of its stars, Betelgeuse and Rigel, possess, as far as has been ascertained, no perceptible motion across the line of sight, but there is a little movement perceptible in the ‘Belt.’ At the present time this 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 (how fine are these Arabic star names!) will approach each other and form a naked-eye double, but the third, Alnita, will drift away eastward, so that the ‘Belt’ will no longer exist.” Unlike the Pleaides clusters, the stars in the band of Orion do not share a common trajectory. In the course of time, Orion’s belt will be loosened just as God told Job.

Once again, the ancient Greeks were not inspired by God, but they obviously knew that certain stars cluster together.  And Job 38:31 doesn't say God will ever loose the belt of Orion.

In the last section of the verse, God described Arcturus, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. God challenged Job to “guide Arcturus with his sons.” With this challenge, God appeared to be saying, “Hey Job, you think you can direct Arcturus anywhere you want? Well, I can!” While Arcturus certainly appeared in antiquity to be a single star, in 1971 astronomers discovered there were 52 additional stars connected directionally with Arcturus (known now as the Arcturus stream). Interestingly, God described Arcturus as having “sons” and Charles Burckhalter, of the Chabot Observatory, (again quoted in Wonder Worlds) said “these stars are a law unto themselves.” Serviss added, “Arcturus is one of the greatest suns in the universe, is a runaway whose speed of flight is 257 miles per second. Arcturus, we have every reason to believe, possesses thousands of times the mass of our sun… Our sun is traveling only 12 ½ miles a second, but Arcturus is traveling 257 miles a second…” Burckhalter affirmed this description of Arcturus, saying, “This high velocity places Arcturus in that very small class of stars that apparently are a law unto themselves. He is an outsider, a visitor, a stranger within the gates; to speak plainly, Arcturus is a runaway. Newton gives the velocity of a star under control as not more than 25 miles a second, and Arcturus is going 257 miles a second. Therefore, combined attraction of all the stars we know cannot stop him or even turn him in his path.” Arcturus and “his sons” are on a course all their own. Only God has the power to guide them, just as described in the ancient book of Job.

I doubt it was God’s intention to teach Job astronomy in this passage. Instead, God wanted to challenge Job and remind him who had the power, authority and wisdom to control the fate of the universe.

You obviously aren't writing to convince skeptics.  Of that we can be sure.

In a similar way, God wanted to remind Job who had the power to control Job’s fate and the wisdom to care for him, even when Job felt unloved. While it wasn’t God’s purpose to reveal hidden scientific truths to Job in an effort to demonstrate His Deity, the ancient text accurately describes the nature of these constellations and stars. Like other Old and New Testament passages, it is scientifically consistent, even if not scientifically exhaustive.

Not by a long shot.  Earlier parts of the bible even allege that the "stars" fought for an earthly army:

 19 "The kings came and fought; Then fought the kings of Canaan At Taanach near the waters of Megiddo; They took no plunder in silver.
 20 "The stars fought from heaven, From their courses they fought against Sisera.
 21 "The torrent of Kishon swept them away, The ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon. O my soul, march on with strength.
 22 "Then the horses' hoofs beat From the dashing, the dashing of his valiant steeds. (Jdg. 5:19-22 NAU)

 The phrase 'from their courses' makes it clear that the author is not merely recharacterizing angels as stars.  In normal speech, nobody says angels have "courses", but stars certainly would have been viewed by ancient man as having "courses". 

Inerrantist Christian scholars admit, perhaps reluctantly, that yes, this is talking about the literal stars leaving their normal orbits in order to cause a flood on earth...a concept whose foolishness is apparent to everybody else:

5:20–21 Undoubtedly Sisera expected a swift and easy victory for his vastly superior military forces. There was no way he could have prepared for what actually happened: the intervention of heavenly forces on Israel’s behalf, the sudden flooding of the Kishon, and the crippling of the chariotry.⁴¹⁸ The first phenomenon is described in magnificently enigmatic form: the stars left their courses⁴¹⁹ and fought against Sisera from heaven.

-----footnote 419 Most interpret מִמְּסִלּוֹתָם, “from their courses,” to mean that the stars functioned like an army, each in its place, but it is preferable to see here the heavenly bodies leaving their normal orbits to fight against Israel’s enemy. Weinfeld (“Divine Intervention,” 127) suggests “a comet fell out of its fixed place.” J. F. A. Sawyer (“From Heaven Fought the Stars,” VT 1 [1981]: 87–89) sees here a reference to the total eclipse of the sun in the vicinity of Megiddo and Taanach in 1131 b.c., in which case at least the nucleus of the song is to be dated early, its composer being an eyewitness of the eclipse.

Block, D. I. (2001, c1999). Vol. 6: Judges, Ruth (electronic ed.).
Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 236).
Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

(There was an ancient belief that the stars were the source of the rain.)

Auld, A. G. (2001, c1984). Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.
The Daily study Bible series. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.

 

I think Wallace is getting just a little too happy about his errant conclusions regarding the bible's alleged scientific accuracy.  The model of Gentile evangelism and apologetics in the bible neither expresses nor implies that Christians have a duty to prove the accuracy of the scriptures to any doubters.  To stick with just the biblical model, is to leave oneself no compelling reason to defend the scientific accuracy of the bible.

 

On the other hand, seeking to defend the scientific accuracy of the bible does indeed imply that the apologist doesn't have too much faith in the power of the Holy Spirit to make unbelievers believe whatever he wants them to (Ezra 1:1), especially if the apologist pays more attention to marketing his own bells and whistles than he pays to doing things the way the bible says they should be done.