(10 votes, average: 4.60 out of 5)
Loading...In my previous post I explained how the book of Job comprises both a folk-tale written in prose about a righteous man named Job (chs. 1-2; 42) and a set of dialogues written in poetry between Job, his so-called friends, and eventually God (chs. 3-42). These are two different compositions with two different authors living at two different times with two different understandings of why Job and people like him suffer.
To unpack these understandings, I begin with the folktale as discussed in my book God’s Problem (HarperOne, 2008).
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The Folktale: The Suffering of Job as a Test of Faith
The action of the prose folktale alternates between scenes on earth and in heaven. It begins by indicating that Job lived in the land of Uz; usually this is located in Edom, to the southeast of Israel. Job, in other words, is not an Israelite. As a book of “wisdom,” this account is not concerned with specifically Israelite traditions: it is concerned with understanding the world in ways that should make sense to everyone living in it. In any event, Job is said to be “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (1:1). We have already seen that in other books of wisdom, such as Proverbs, wealth and prosperity come to those who are righteous before God; here this dictum is borne out. Job is said to be enormously wealthy, with 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 donkeys, and very many servants. His piety is seen in his daily devotions to God: early every morning he makes a burnt offering to God for all his children, seven sons and three daughters, in case they have committed some sin.
The narrator then moves to a heavenly scene in which the “heavenly beings” (literally: the sons of God) appear before the Lord, “the Satan” among them. It is important to recognize that the Satan here is
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The Satan attacks Job’s household. In one day, the oxen are stolen away, the sheep are burned up by fire from heaven, the camels are raided and carried off, all the servants are killed, and even the sons and daughters are mercilessly destroyed by a storm that levels their house. Job’s reaction? As God predicted, he does not utter curses for his misfortune: he goes into mourning:
Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (1:20)
The narrator assures us that in all this “Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing” (1:22). One might wonder what “wrongdoing” God could possibly do, if robbery, destruction of property, and murder is not wrong. But in this story, at least, for Job to preserve his piety means for him to continue trusting God, whatever God does to him.
The narrative then reverts to a heavenly scene of God and his divine council. The Satan appears before the Lord, who once again brags about his servant Job. The Satan replies that of course Job has not cursed God – he has not himself been afflicted with physical pain. But, he tells God, “stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse you to your face” (2:5). God allows the Satan to do so, with the proviso that he not take away Job’s life (in part, one might suppose, because it would be hard to evaluate Job’s reaction were he not alive to have one). The Satan then afflicts Job with “loathsome sores…from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (2:7). Job sits on a pile of ashes and scrapes his wounds with a potsherd. His wife urges on him the natural course, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die.” But Job refuses, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad”? (2:10). In all this Job does not sin against God.
Job’s three friends then come to him – Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. And they do the only thing true friends can do in this kind of situation, they weep with him, mourn with him, and sit with him, not saying a word. What sufferers need is not advice, but a comforting human presence.
It is at this point that the poetic dialogues begin, in which the friends do not behave like friends, much less like comforters, insisting that Job has simply gotten what he has deserves. I will talk about these dialogues later, as they come from a different author from the prose narrative. The folktale is not resumed until the very conclusion of the book at the end of chapter 42. It is obvious that a bit of the folktale has been cut out in the process of combining it with the poetic dialogues: for when it resumes, God indicates that he is angry with the three friends for what they have said, in contrast to what Job has said. This cannot very well be a reference to what the friends and Job said in the poetic dialogues, because there it is the friends who defend God and Job who accuses him. And so a portion of the folktale must have been cut off when the poetic dialogues were added. What the friends said that offended God cannot be known.
But what is clear is that God rewards Job for passing the test: he has not cursed God. Job is told to make a sacrifice and prayer on behalf of his friends, and he does so. God then restores everything that had been lost to Job, and even more: 14,000 sheep, 6000 camels, 1000 yoke of oxen, and 1000 donkeys. And he gives him another seven sons and three daughters. Job lives out his days in peace and prosperity surrounded by children and grandchildren.
This is an intriguing understanding of why there is suffering — it comes as a test. It is not the view you find in the other part of Job, the forty chapters of poetic dialogue between Job and his “friends.” But what do you think of it as an evaluation for why people (even the Jobs of the world) suffer? I’ll explain what I think of it in the next post.
I think of Job as one attempt to solve the problem of suffering, an attempt which became necessary once the responsibility for sin shifted from national to individual. The book of Job’s answer, as I see it, is that mortal creations have no right to question their creator. (This answer was not satisfactory to many people.)
But of all the problems the book raises, one of the most intractable for me was the killing of Job’s children. Don’t their lives count on their own, aren’t they more than just possessions of their father? What sins had they committed? And why, in the end, should Job be satisfied with new sons and daughters, as though the old ones were like the sheep that were killed and later replaced? Has anyone tried to justify or explain that?
I’ve heard lots of people aghast at it, but I’ve never heard anyone trying to justify it, other than to say that the original seven were rewarded with heaven, so all is well….
How about the 42 lads mauled by 2 she-bears after taunting Baldy… do people say those boys were rewarded in heaven after God whacked them for jeering thin-skinned Elisha?
Hitchens was right about the OT… it is immoral.
Yup, that’s what they sometimes say! And hey, don’t make fun of God’s prophet!
Then Yale Professor Christine Hayes Yale Youtube classes hated this.
Really get rid of there old & in with new kids
[can double check if I am accurate or she changed positions]
“And why, in the end, should Job be satisfied with new sons and daughters, as though the old ones were like the sheep that were killed and later replaced? Has anyone tried to justify or explain that?”
God answers this very question in the myriad of questions he asks…..
Picking specifically on the prose ‘framing’ sections, Bart; one reading has been that these are an earlier folk-tale. The alternative is to see them as literary devices adopting a naive style for sophisticated effect. In favour of the latter is that although Job and God return to their ‘natures’ at the end, neither Job nor God act in the end prose section as they do in the opening. God is now intimately committed with humanity; as is Job in his new function as ‘intercessor’.
Theodicy in Job is concerned with two questions:
-Are the righteous truly righteous? If prosperity rewards virtue and suffering rewards vice, how can righteousness be distinguished from self-interest?
-Is God truly God? If prosperity *does not* reward virtue and suffering *does not* reward vice, how can a just and loving God be distinguished from an arbitrary or disinterested one?
In Job, the first question is posed in the prose section, Job 1:9; and the second question is posed in the poetic section, Job 21:15.
Taken as a unity, the book addresses both questions; but if we read only the prose, the first question is posed but never addressed; and the second, never posed at all.
God in this story is not all knowing, if he was the tests would have been unnecessary.
God in this story also is not loving. A loving God would not inflict such torment just to sate curiosity.
The story hints that God may not be all powerful and is limited by having human emotions.
To me the story speaks more of the shortcomings of God than an explanation of suffering.
Same is true for testing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden… God either was maliciously toying with them, or God is not all-knowing.
There are so many things wrong in the prose fairy tale part of Job, like God colluding with Satan to harass Job, even killing his children, and then giving him more children as if that makes up for the loss of the previous ones. When I was in my OB rotation in residency I was advised never tell a woman who suffered a miscarriage, “Don’t worry, you can always have more!” as that is very insensitive, and may not be true. Apparently the Job story tellers lacked such sensitivity as their solution to the loss of his children is simply to give him more. And what is the message for those who suffer and don’t get the fairy tale ending? It’s really a rather perverse story overall, but conservative believers are saddled with it because it’s in the Bible and therefore must be true, even if it contradicts other teachings in the Bible.
Taking two bites at the cherry..
There are three potential readings of the prose introductory and concluding sections – in relation to the core of poetic discourses;
– that these prose sections are retained fragments of an older folk-tale, inhabiting a straightfoward moral universe in which God rewards people according to their deserts;
– that these prose sections belong entirely within the complex moral universe of the core poetic discourses – where the nature of righteousness, and the reliability of God, are both in question – but presented in folk-tale form as a conscious framing device.
– that these prose sections are a subsequent redaction of the poetic discourses, intended to re-set their their open-ended moral universe in less challenging form.
Against the first reading above, I propose that the Satans’ question “Does Job fear God for no reason?” would be a non-issue in any folk-tale moral universe; it only makes sense in a universe where righteousness and self-interest are considered incompatible. God would have responded “So what?”. Rather the Satan’s question points forward to the poetic presentation of Wisdom and understanding from lived experience, as essential aspects of the “fear of the Lord” (chapter 28).
” Here he is portrayed as one of God’s divine council members”
Was the Satan really thought of as a member of God’s divine council by the Israelites?
Yup. The word means “Adversary”; this is the one who charges others with crimes.
In its earlier meaning, the verb form – satayn – means to oppose or to hinder. In Numbers, when Bilaam agrees to curse the Israelites, God orders an angel to stand in the road “to oppose him”(l’satayn loh). Num 22:22.
So for the Israelites, the divine council was:
Elohim: head god
Yahweh
Asherah, Yahweh’s wife
Baal
Satan
and others (were some of the others nature gods?)
Correct?
No, the names of the divine council are never given, apart from the satan. My sense is there wasn’t a standard list.
I don’t think the story paints a very flattering picture of either God or “righteous” believers. First, God as some sort of narcissistic, sadistic lab scientist that “tests” lab rats to see “just how much the righteous love me.” And Job the self-absorbed lab-rat who only wants to know what hoop he must jump through to get the cheese.
My cynical reductionist perspective is that most philosophy and theology can be summed up by the line from the Princess Bride: “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says different is selling something.”
And the only hope involves what I call the “Carl Spackler Syndrome.” “Yeah, I got that going for me which is nice.”
But I’m not all negative. I do have less jaded perspective on suffering, which perspective most don’t find compelling or appealing. Primarily because it involves introspection and industry.
Job’s own words “ the Lord gave,the Lord took away” acknowledges God as existing “Beyond Good and Evil”. Humankind is to be grateful, not judgmental of God. At the end of the road,our mores and God’s are not the same.
And,finally,”Thy will be done”. This,to a Father who crucifies his son from the blameless son himself.
This is all quite foreign to the Torah.Abraham confronts and manipulates God: “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:23-25).
Moses protests no less severely:
“Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, “ Lord,why have you brought this trouble on your people?Is this why you sent me here?I went to the king and said what you told me to say, but ever since that time he has made the people suffer. And you have done nothing to save them”(Exodus 5:22-6:13).
Was any of the Job writers a pagan?
No. But it *is* interesting that Job himself is not an Israelite!
Gee, that complicates things a bit, no?
The writers had a choice of protagonist for a book which they wrote in Hebrew or Syriac.
Why pick a non-Israelite?
Job seems to be in line with Ruth the Moabite or even Abraham, an originally pagan immigrant.
Is Job understood to be an Idumean ( Edomite?), like Herod the Great?
I wonder if the writers’ point was that even a non-Israelite is under Israel’s God’s watch. This God, cited as both YHVH and EL, would then be a universal God.
Job is as pious as an Israelite is supposed to be, including sacrifices. But why does he “ act Israelite” if he is not, and how could God say that Job is “ his” servant?
Is there a missionary agenda here?
Are Job’s friends themselves Israelites?
In Job, is “Israelite” the same as, say,”Jew” ( though Jew or even Judean seem anachronistic), meaning a person whose religion is the same as Israel’s?
Did Israel even have “one” religion then?
What language would Job and his friends speak?
And so on, many more to go.
If you have time for just one question, is there any other story in the Bible, both HB and NT, that bears any similarity to Job’s?
I thnk they are all non-Israelites. And nope, nothing like it in the HB or NT, which is probabyl why so many people have to try to make it fit in with everything else. (Well, there’s PLENTY like the prose narrative at the beginning and end: pass the test and get a reward. Buy the more powerful poetic dialogues? The *friends* views are well represented, the the *author’s* view as played out in the voice from the whrilwind — Yikes. No where else)
How many people suffered and died so just one person could be tested? So was their suffering a test or is suffering sometimes collateral damage for others’ test? Rhetorical questions of course.
I’ve read the book many times and really appreciate it and its almost Platonic style of dialogue and debate, (although not as explanatory), as the book challenge a reader, like myself, to resist reducing complex questions to simplistic answers—which is so popular among many so called fundamentalists and literalists.
In my opinion, this book challanges the question about the nature of reality and in my mind even the nature of God.
The idea that suffering is sent by God as a form of “test” is a rather weak and pathetic attempt at explanation. Perhaps the problem of suffering can be explained by nothing more complicated than the fact that we live in a dangerous and indifferent universe and we’ve evolved brains big enough to give it a label and philosophize about it. Perhaps, but I still can’t shake a deep feeling or sense that our lives have some greater meaning or purpose, and that part of that purpose is to learn and evolve while we are here. I think that part of our dilemma lies in the fact that we, at least in the Western world, still have an image of God as a Grandfatherly figure dispensing and withholding favors and doling out punishments where needed. Whoever or whatever God is (if he, she, or it exists) can’t be anything at all like this simple conception.
Apropos of nothing — the Eliphaz et al visit is reprised in Herman Broch’s novel “The Death of Virgil.” Plotius and Lucius seem to be modeled on Virgil, who is bedridden, heartbroken, ill, considering burning the Aeneid and generally in a bad way. I would be curious if anyone here has drawn out the parallels.
Interesting. I didn’t know that.
Today I ran across a good friend of mine, and as we were approaching each other he was noticeably distressed. He told me that his mother died two days ago… He looked really shattered. He could barely speak. You could sense that he could burst into tears at any time. I told him I’m very sorry, but out of respect not much more. I just held his shoulder and told him I’m there for him should he need anything or someone to talk to.
When I got back home, I sent him a message telling him that my thought and love is with him, and he replied just a few minutes ago that he, his brother and his father are deeply saddened, that they cry in the middle of the night in a silent house, and that they were very close to each other as family.
I just wanted to share this because I am very sympathetic to your view with regard to how to be a good friend to someone who suffers for having lost someone he/she loved.
Thanks so much. And well done. In my view, that is the *perfect* thing to do, far better than offering facile commonplaces and assurances…. Peole need love and support, not simplistic answers or false comfort.
I watched a lecture of Prof. Robert Miller II, he stated that Job could be considered untranslatable. I am not very well read, in fact the only reference I can recall where god noticed a death was when a bird fell to the ground. There are five mass extinctions in earth’s history. Such extinctions have happened in an instant or taken millennia. Some say that earth is experiencing a sixth mass extinction right now and it could be the only one god does not have a hand in.
I try not to consider myself a lab rat, but I do remember when Sear & Roebuck had their products listed a good, better, and best. And Bible list male and female as very good. Maybe Jesus was trying to move that to better. I guess we can rate his effort as a ‘good try’.
Yes, I know some Hebrew linguists who tell me that Job is a flippin’ nightmare in places.
Bart,
Questions:
1. Do we know if Job and Ecclesiastes were composed *before* some Jewish thinkers began to modify their concept of the afterlife to..well include one…ie a bodily resurrection and ideas about an afterlife of heaven or annihilation.
Knowing about that would help me with a meta context for these two books (probably my two favs in the Hebrew Bible).
2. Do we know if Josephus Jewish War directly influenced any material we find in the NT? (I’m assuming Antiquities was too late to do so?) How can reading Josephus help an autodidact punter like me understand early Christianity better?
TY,
SC
1. Yup, almost certainly — though of course books could have been written after an apocalyptic view developed and not have been apolcalyptic. 2. Probably not — but some scholars have recently argued that the book of Acts depends on Josephus Antiquities and so date it (Acts) to 120 CE or so. That’s becoming a more popular view these days.