Loading...In my last post I began discussing the dialogues at the heart of the book of Job, where Job’s friends declare that he is simply getting what he deserves because he is so sinful, and he defends himself by saying he has done nothing to deserve this. It turns out he’s right. But why then is he suffering? Here is how the dialogue continues, as the “friends” intensify their attacks on his morals and Job stands firm in declaring his righteousness.
******************************
Sometimes the friends bar no holds in accusing Job, wrongly, of great sin before God, as when Eliphaz later declares:
Is it for your piety that he reproves you,
and enters into judgment with you?
Is not your wickedness great?
There is no end to your iniquities.
For you have … stripped the naked of their clothing.
You have given no water to the weary to drink,
and you have withheld bread from the hungry…
You have sent widows away empty handed,
and the arms of the orphans you have crushed.
Therefore snares are around you,
and sudden terror overwhelms you. (22:4-7, 9-10)
That word “therefore” in the final couplet is especially important. It is because of Job’s impious life and unjust treatment of others that he is suffering, and for no other reason.
For Job, it is this charge itself that is unjust. He has done nothing to deserve his fate, and to maintain his personal integrity he has to insist on his own innocence. To do otherwise would
Get access to Dr. Ehrman's library of 4,000+ articles plus five new articles per week about the New Testament and early Christianity. It costs as little as $2.99/mth and every cent goes to charity!
Unlock 4,000+ Articles Like This!
Thanks for providing the text.It reminded me of a similar text.I have been looking for such text.
Jeremiah,Lamentations ch3.
“I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of the Lord’s wrath.
He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light;
indeed,he has turned his hand against me
again and again,all day long.
He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones.
He has besieged me and surrounded me
with bitterness and hardship.
He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.
He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
he has weighed me down with chains.
Even when I call out or cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer.
He has barred my way with blocks of stone;….”
It gets much worse.I sang this entire chapter on the 9thof Av many times.The melody is heartbreaking.
Another interesting thing in this chapter is Jeremiah’s instruction to young men to
“turn their cheek for their enemy to slap to learn humbleness”.
I’m re-reading Job in Robert Alter’s magnificent annotated Bible.He thinks there was one writer writing prose and poetry.He claims the writer could easily have created both styles.Couldn’t any great play-writer fashion completely different characters?
Yup, it’s possible. I don’t thnk it would be easy, especially given teh enormous differences not just in language and style but also in content and outlook. They really do look to be at odds with each other at numerous points, including the really key ones.
It’s possible that suffering can happen for (at least) 3 reasons: God’s punishment for sin, God testing to either strengthen you or as a testimonial to others, or just random suffering as happens in a complex world. The problem I have with this is that it is impossible for an individual to know which is the case in their own life! I think the suffering of many is made worse by wondering if they are being punished for some sin, and if so, which sin? Am I being punished because I support LGBTQ rights, or because I don’t care enough for the poor and the needy? Or because I don’t pray enough? Or I have some doctrinal error? It’s impossible to know! But I suppose God is too busy fixing sporting events and finding people’s car keys to take the time to communicate with each one of us about our personal sins.
This question springs from the realization that none of my Jewish friends actually believes in God. We have ancient Greek philosophical skepticism of course, and there was an ancient Hindu materialist school about whom, alas, we only know through the writings of their pious opponents. But is there any hint of ancient Jewish skepticism? Did the view that maybe Yahweh just didn’t exist have to await modernity?
I don’t know of strictly Jewish philosophical atheism until modern (post-Enlightenment) times, but maybe someone can correct me.
I don’t know of strictly Jewish philosophical atheism until modern (post-Enlightenment) times, but maybe someone can correct me.
Today, I listened to your You Tube conversation with Jeffrey Sikes regarding homosexuality in the Bible. His argument was that we have to remember the culture when the Bible was written and the mind set of the writers during that time = 2,000 to 3,000 yrs ago. I couldn’t agree more…..but….
the average Christian sitting in church does not accept/believe that the Bible contains the thoughts, laws, and concepts of men, brought up in their Jewish culture at the time and their understanding of the world at that time . They believe that the Bible is a book made up of writings accepted as coming from God = The Word of God
Gloria – Asheboro, NC
Yup, that’s exactly right. That’s why God invented podcasts.
And I love them!
Alter acknowledges two interpolations, though, the speeches of Elihu and a Wisdom passage.
BTW, Codex Sassoon, apparently the world’s oldest and most complete Bible, is now exhibited in the Museum of the Jewish People, a great place I support. Will go see it, there’s a lecture too. I wonder what we might learn from the Codex,or if the new owner ( it goes to Sotheby’s soon) will allow scholars to study it.
I’ve been confused by all this news about it. In what sense is it older than Leningradensis?
Codex Sassoon seems to be 100 years older than Codex Leningrad. It seems to be contemporary with the Aleppo Codex. But what makes it unique is that it is a complete (all books of the Hebrew Bible)codex. What I don’t understand is what has been learned from it.Differences, annotations,any other stuff of scholarly pursuit.And what will happen after Sothebys, whether it will still be studied. I have yet to see a book about it.
BTW, I pre-ordered Armageddon and look forward to sinking my teeth. Particularly from this Armageddon country of Israel,where the apocalypse is close ,on account of a racist,murderous,fanatic, fundamentalistic,belligerent
,fascist new government. Nothing has changed in this (inexplicably)holy
land in 3,000 years.Civil War looms.
Hi, Dr. Ehrman. Do you think Paul himself could have been converted by a “Paul”? In Acts, Paul doesn’t believe until Jesus supernaturally appears to him, but he expects the very smart, very self-assured Paul-like guys of the Sanhedrin and the Areopagus to be convinced by all his clever arguments.
Do you think Paul’s speeches and letters would ever have been enough to work on Paul himself?
Paul thought he wsa the last one Jesus appeared to or would appear to to show he had been raised (1 Cor. 15:8). After that it was up to his apostles. And nope, my sense is that it would take more than logic and testimony to convert Paul.
I often wonder what the friends of Job’s dead kids thought of the god who allowed their slaughter so that he might prove a bet with TheSatan.
There in lies the greater sin.
Just a thought.
Yup, lots of issues like that in the Bible. Like all those dead children in Jericho or, later, Bethelem….
Israel didn’t conquer Jericho,as we know today.Though they bragged about it.Horrid fantasies from a still unenlightened people.Where in the Bible were the Jericho children slaughtered?Same for Bethlehem.
Yesterday I learned an
expression attributed to Santa Teresa de Jesus.
“God writes straight through crooked lines”
God didn’t order the slaughter of Jerico’s children. The Israelites, as was the norm with all other peoples we know about, slaughtered everyone and took treasure.
Bethlehem’s sons were slaughtered by Herod. Again, God had nothing to do with it.
I guess ancient peoples ( same as 20th Century people, Milosevich and Saddam Hussein later and Putin today) knew how to proceed barbarically without God’s prompting, by exercising their alleged free will.
I remember one comment that seems all encompassing, “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”