I just opened up Job at Chapters 9 and 10, wherein Job says, He destroys the guilty and the blameless.
A remarkable statement from two remarkable chapters.
I think Alter is on to something when he says of the poet that he “displays a virtuosity that transcends all other biblical poetry.”
I was thunderstruck on reading Chapter 3.
I love Alter. I haven’t delved into his Job yet but if my reaction to doing so is anything like my reading of Ezekiel, I will take a deep breath before diving in! These old books are so deep and powerful – and disturbing. Nothing like Sunday School! SS teachers probably think they’re protecting their students but they’re really protecting themselves.
Representative example – Job 13,15:
The pious KJV version –
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
What it really says, courtesy of the NRSVUE –
See, he will kill me; I have no hope; but I will defend my ways to his face.
It is absolutely amazing. The poetry is transcendent.
I had originally planned to read his translation through from the beginning and was doing fine until I got into Leviticus and got bogged down. Next, it’ll likely be Lamentations – a suitable follow-up seeing it is a book that holds no comfort – one long plea to be heard is never answered, as Adele Berlin says in her wonderful ** you do not have permission to see this link **
I’m woefully ignorant of the prophets, both major and minor but have for many years had my eyes set on Amos.
Tjalling, for the most part we don’t really “debate” here. We have vigorous discussions but winning or losing is not the issue. I hope you won’t completely absent yourself. The more perspectives the better.
Let me echo Stephen’s sentiment.
I view the forum as a place to learn from others and share something of what I have learned or am learning.
A place for all of us to try to make sense of things the best we can.
Judith said
Stephen: “A Gift not bestowed on everyone.”
It’s a mystery.
John 6:44: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
John 14:6: “no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”
Is there a glitch there for those who did not grow up in a family and community where faith was ingrained?
I would be careful with the move from “faith is a gift” to “therefore some were never really invited and simply fall outside.” John 6:44 certainly says something radical: no one comes to Christ by native capacity, self-generated decision, or personal claim. Everyone who comes, comes because the Father has drawn.
But I do not think I may reverse that into a statement about those who do not come, as if I could know they were never sought, never invited, or never wanted.
And John 14:6, “no one comes to the Father but through me,” keeps Christ as the only way to the Father. But it does not give me a full map of how God may bring people to Christ, especially people who never received the gospel in a form they could recognize as good news.
So this does not make your question easy. It only keeps me from making one conclusion too quickly. People may be born without a living language of faith, without a believing family, without any trustworthy witness to the gospel as good news. But I do not find warrant in these texts to say: therefore they were forgotten by God or simply left outside.
The Bible does not let me treat faith as something I own, produce, or deserve. Everyone who comes, comes by mercy. But neither does it let me treat another person’s darkness as proof that God has forgotten them. Scripture speaks seriously about judgment, and that has to be spoken of with great care; it is not as blunt or simple as we sometimes make it. But Scripture also gives every reason to speak of patience, warning, tears, searching, waiting, and a God who moves toward the lost.
Stephen, and BJH1960 too,
thank you both for keeping the door open like that. It matters more than I expected.
Stephen, one last small thing about your Blake. “Some are born to endless night” stays with me, but it is the word “endless” I keep turning over. That some begin in darkness, I cannot deny. That the darkness is endless, that I do not know how any of us could know. It is the one word in the line I am not willing to grant him.
And you are right that this is not a place for winning or losing. I have tried to leave the debating posture behind here and I think I succeeded. What I have not managed is to switch off the analytic part of myself entirely. It seems to come with me wherever I go. But perhaps that is all right, as long as it serves the conversation rather than tries to win it.
Tjalling, you may be interested in knowing that Professor Ehrman claims he is not even close to his wife’s level of brilliance. She is a believer.
I have been one of the bloggers since October of 2013 and am still a believer though I no longer think of the Bible as the infallible Word of God. Also, I do not see myself the same way! Never had I ever wanted to be rich but now I do. I could give more donations. Before, I did not care to be an intellectual but now I wish I were in order to make real contributions to The Forum. Also, I would like to be more capable of helping whenever Professor Ehrman asks the bloggers for help.
We hope you stay with us but, if you do, beware of the possibility of being changed, too.
Judith, thank you. The detail about Dr. Ehrman’s wife is one I did not know, and it moves me.
I recognize your wish fully. I run a small business, and for all those years I have prayed for blessing and even for real abundance, not for its own sake but because of the good one could then do with it. So your honesty about wanting to give more, to contribute more, sounded very familiar.
Your warning I take seriously, though perhaps from an unusual angle. For some forty-five years now I have been challenging my own faith, deliberately, again and again. I keep expecting it to give way, and it keeps holding. I suspect part of that is simple good fortune in where I started: I never came from a fundamentalist background, and I was never taught that the text we hold is infallible. So I have never had to defend that particular wall, and its cracks have never threatened the whole house. Perhaps that is why I am not afraid of being changed. What I have found is that the testing changes the shape of faith without dissolving it. Yours, by your own account, has changed too, and is still faith. Maybe that is its own kind of answer.
Thank you for hoping I stay. I will be here more quietly than these past days, but you have made the door feel worth keeping open.
This subject seems to bring out the very deepest considerations from everyone. I enjoy hearing what other people say based on their own experience.
The Bible does not let me treat faith as something I own, produce, or deserve. Everyone who comes, comes by mercy. But neither does it let me treat another person’s darkness as proof that God has forgotten them. Scripture speaks seriously about judgment, and that has to be spoken of with great care; it is not as blunt or simple as we sometimes make it. But Scripture also gives every reason to speak of patience, warning, tears, searching, waiting, and a God who moves toward the lost.
The real problem – and its mostly our problem – is that the writers of the NT, even Paul, were not systematic theologians. For our “scripture” we require a level of consistency and meticulousness that is simply not there. Sadly, much of the history of theology consists of folks taking the passages that seem to agree with their previously arrived at positions and rationalizing the ones that seem to differ. And at some point all sides of the argument are guilty of this. Nothing is more to be feared than uncertainly in our divinely inspired texts!
“Some are born to endless night” stays with me, but it is the word “endless” I keep turning over. That some begin in darkness, I cannot deny. That the darkness is endless, that I do not know how any of us could know. It is the one word in the line I am not willing to grant him.
I’m sure all of us have known folks whose every sowing has turned into a bountiful harvest, and folks whose every attempt is frustrated and spoiled. What are we to make of this? Are there people who are just blessed? And others simply doomed? The psychologist will have one answer, a theologian another. Blake is confronting this great mystery. And asking the question that must always arise – was the Tyger and the Lamb born from the same Root?
What I have not managed is to switch off the analytic part of myself entirely.
Well don’t do that in any case.
… you may be interested in knowing that Professor Ehrman claims he is not even close to his wife’s level of brilliance. She is a believer.
I’ve commented before that one of my best friends is a minister. Talk about smart! He turned down two academic offers for assured tenure track positions because he wanted to pastor people at the local level. I really respect that. And because we both know that we are fundamentally operating in good faith neither of us is frightened by the thoughts of the other. Meanwhile, most of my own family pulls their children away and gives me the sign of the evil eye when they see me. And this they consider spiritual strength! Ha! What they arouse in me is not fear but pity.
…but now I wish I were in order to make real contributions to The Forum.
Oh Judith if I could successfully accomplish but one act it would be to help you see the contribution you make at this forum every time you post.
Judaism, to its credit, certainly had a space in its theological wonderings for debate and argument -even with the Ancient of Days.
For me, such an important space.
It is hardly reasonable to be given a mind but not allowed to use it.
And I do love Judaism caring more about what we do than what we believe. Speaking of which, if Job never receives an answer, and Qoheleth views it as a permanent feature, perhaps the best that can be done is to alleviate suffering and set to repair the world (tikkun olam) – precisely what Bart is doing with his blog.
Stephen and BJH1960, thank you both.
Stephen, your sentence about your minister friend stayed with me: “neither of us is frightened by the thoughts of the other.” That is very close to the kind of conversation I hope for. I am sorry about what you describe with your family. I do not want to be the kind of believer who treats another person’s questions, or even another person’s unbelief, as contamination.
I also think your point about the NT writers not being systematic theologians is important. Perhaps part of the strain comes from asking the biblical texts to give a level of rational neatness and consistency they do not themselves try to provide. They give us stories, letters, warnings, prayers, visions, arguments, memories, commands, wounds. Not a closed doctrinal machine. But that does not mean there is no coherence. Perhaps its coherence is more like a living witness than a diagram.
BJH1960, I also agree with your line that it is hardly reasonable to be given a mind but not allowed to use it. If faith requires me to stop thinking, something has gone wrong. Job and Qoheleth matter here, because they do not let piety become cheap. They keep the wound open.
I also agree that alleviating suffering and repairing the world cannot be dismissed as secondary. Matthew 25 presses that even harder for me. The Jesus who says “follow me” also says: feed, welcome, clothe, visit. He does not answer every question about suffering there. But he refuses to let the question remain only theoretical. The suffering person is not an illustration in an argument about God; he or she is the place where obedience becomes real.
Where I probably remain Christian is that I cannot make the absence of a full answer the same as the absence of God. Job does not receive the explanation he wants. Qoheleth gives us no neat closure. But I also cannot lose the sense that lament, repair, and the search for justice are not merely what we do after theology fails. They may also be signs of the God who has not finished with the world.
So perhaps that is where I can stay in the conversation: asking questions where I think the reasoning goes too quick, and showing where I think Christianity still has something to give. Not pretending the wound is closed, but also not treating the wound as the final word.
Judith, your own example also matters to me: still a believer, but changed in how you think about the bible and perhaps about yourself. That is exactly the kind of distinction I am trying to understand: what may change, what has to change, and what does not necessarily have to collapse.
And what Stephen wrote about you, I can’t wait to read more from you!
Tjalling, an earlier post you mentioned a little of your background (e.g. not coming from a fundamentalist background). If you find the time, and are so inclined, I’d love to hear more of your own journey. We’ve got a ** you do not have permission to see this link ** for that very thing.
BJH1960 said
Tjalling, an earlier post you mentioned a little of your background (e.g. not coming from a fundamentalist background). If you find the time, and are so inclined, I’d love to hear more of your own journey. We’ve got a thread for that very thing.
it’s there now 😉
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)