Comment on Job

Hey buds. My friend Henry wrote a really great response to the first reading from Job from a few nights ago. He is currently in seminary and has some serious knowledge on the subject. Check it.

At seminary, the best class by far that I have taken is my course on Job. I really feel for you trying to read the whole book however--in my ten weeks of class, we only read 1-12, 19, and 40-42.

I won't tell you how I read Job, but I'll point out a couple things in the first few chapters that caught my eye.

Job is not a Jew, nor is he an Israelite. Job is from the land of Uz, a place that might not even exist, but is used literately in a way that would translate in today's English as "in land far far away". Jewish and early Christian tradition make Job a contemporary of Abraham, so in a way Job can be seen to precede not only the Moses covenant, but also the Abrahamic. The whole point of me telling you this is to drive home the point that Job lives in a mythic time and place outside of any conception of Jewish law. The question that might follow from this is, what the heck is the book of Job doing in the Bible?

I think you let God off the hook. The character of Satan in the book of Job has no power of his own, only what God allows and actually makes happen. I could go through verse by verse and show this, but that would be too much for a blog comment. All I'll do is draw your attention to verse 2:3. " Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason."

God ruined Job without any reason at all. Wow.

The other bits that I think you might find interesting is that in Hebrew, the word "curse" as in "curse God and die" is actually the word for "bless". Jewish tradition has always insisted that it be translated as "curse" though.

My Job professor pointed out that chapter 3 is quite possible one of the most "blasphemous" parts of Scripture, outside a verse in Jeremiah where Jeremiah implies that God raped him.
But as you probably noticed, it is Job's friends who get condemned by God at the end, not Job himself. They're the ones who keep saying to Job, suffering happens for a reason, you must have done something wrong so God is punishing you, good things will come out of this suffering, etc etc etc. It is Job who says through out the entire story that such justifications for God's behavior are bullshit. Job cries out against God's injustice throughout the entire story, and insists that he will not be silenced.

If you can't tell, I love the book of Job, and I'm excited to follow you as you read through it. Good luck man.