Thank you Monica Cellio: my approach to the questions I put was precisely as you suggest - trying to see things from a non-Christian perspective. 'Natural Theology' has - as you might expect - several often interrelated definitions and perspectives but essentially it marries the Apostle Paul's encounters in Areopagus with his views on pre-Christian routes to God as seen in Romans 1.18-21 for example: it is 'what might be known about God through looking at the natural world'. Job is exciting in this sense because the text merely talks of a great 'man of the East' so he might not even be Semitic. God reveals Himself in the wonderful final chapters using multiple examples from the natural world. The language might as you say be very early and all the more useful in this instance for that.

If Job is pre-Abrahamic then what we have here is possibly one of the 1st truly written cases of a Natural Theology. A Natural Theology addresses what might be known about God through looking at the natural world. 

Job is exciting in this sense because the text merely talks of a great 'man of the East' so he might not even be Semitic. God reveals Himself in the wonderful final chapters using multiple examples from the natural world. The language might be very early and all the more useful in this instance for that.

It seems to me that, as some contributors have said above, the substance of whom it was that Job felt he was in relationship with, is essential in our understanding of the limits of a knowledge of God without the supreme gift of the Holy Spirit. 'Natural Theology' has - as you might expect - several often-interrelated definitions and perspectives but essentially it marries the Apostle Paul's encounters in Areopagus with his views on pre-Christian routes to God as seen in Romans 1.18-21 for example.

Brilliant thank you 'Monica Cellio': my approach to the questions I put was precisely as you suggest - trying to see things from a non-Christian perspective. 'Natural Theology' has - as you might expect - several often interrelated definitions and perspectives but essentially it marries the Apostle Paul's encounters in Areopagus with his views on pre-Christian routes to God as seen in Romans 1.18-21 for example: it is 'what might be known about God through looking at the natural world'. Job is exciting in this sense because the text merely talks of a great 'man of the East' so he might not even be Semitic. God reveals Himself in the wonderful final chapters using multiple examples from the natural world. The language might as you say be very early and all the more useful in this instance for that.

Thank you Monica Cellio: my approach to the questions I put was precisely as you suggest - trying to see things from a non-Christian perspective. 'Natural Theology' has - as you might expect - several often interrelated definitions and perspectives but essentially it marries the Apostle Paul's encounters in Areopagus with his views on pre-Christian routes to God as seen in Romans 1.18-21 for example: it is 'what might be known about God through looking at the natural world'. Job is exciting in this sense because the text merely talks of a great 'man of the East' so he might not even be Semitic. God reveals Himself in the wonderful final chapters using multiple examples from the natural world. The language might as you say be very early and all the more useful in this instance for that.