Philosophy Discussion Forums

3uGH7D4MLj:

Well ok if you want a modern anodyne lesson from the story, or a sunday-school homily, but the story of Job is a full bore Hellenic parable with the Gods in complete control of the lives of humans.

Perhaps you might provide a substantive response instead of a misguided broadside attack. You seem to have a peculiar notion of what anodyne means and what is taught in Sunday school. The question of why all this happened to Job is central, but no satisfactory answer is provided. Job was blameless. The closest we get is that it is beyond human understanding. We are powerless against forces much greater than us. Of the first four calaminites two were of human origin - the Sabeans and the Chaldeans, and the other two were natural events - lightening (fire of God from heaven) and wind. In chapter 2 Job’s suffering was caused by bodily ailments. All of these are things that may inflict any of us. What is the modern anodyne lesson in this? Which Sunday-school homily teaches such a thing?

What is the Hellenic parable? The Greeks were not alone in believing the gods are in control. What is clear in this story is that Job is not in control.

Was God protecting Job? Maybe, maybe not, the disinterested observer may say yes, probably, the way the story is laid out. Doesn't matter.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter to you, but hasatan raises the question. It matters to him. It matters to the story.

The point may be that God does not cause humanity blessing or adversity, but how does the story put that across?

Job certainly believes that God does:

Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10)

As do his siblings and others:

Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him ... (42:11)

The Accuser" a God of some sort …

The Accuser’s status is ambiguous. We are told that he presented himself along with the sons of God, but we are not told whether he was one of the sons or just was present with them. In any case, his powers are secondary to that of God’s. God could have prevented 'hasatan' from afflicting Job but does not. We are not given a reason why he does not intervene on Job’s behalf. The assumption that is was in order to win a bet explains nothing, it only makes it seem all the more capricious.

... afterwards He rewards Job with seven times the wealth he had in the first place (if I'm remembering right). Pretty clear divine intervention.

The question is not whether God intervenes but why he didn’t intervene, why he allowed a blameless man to suffer. The only answer we are given is that we cannot understand the will of God.

One more point on the problem of control and intervention. God creates Leviathan but what Leviathan does is not controlled by God. In other words, all that happens should not be taken as the work of God. God creates the lion, a beast of prey, but what the lion does she does because she is a beast of prey not because God controls her.

I can only come back to questions about, and fascination with, the culture that canonized these wild stories.

It is a mythological telling of something that each of us should be able to relate to - questions of justice, fairness, evil, and responsibility. We see immediately that it is put beyond the bounds of the human, but rather than provide answers it points to the limits of the questioner and, as the story unfolds, raises problems with our ability to be at home in a world that can be hostile to us. These “wild stories” are not simply about the incomprehensible actions of gods but the wildness of an inhospitable world. We, each of us, seek to build a hedge. Some may believe they are safe, but Job comes to know that he is not.

Job had heard what others had said about God, but they were things heard not things known to him:

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you (42:5)

What Job comes to know is the manifestation of God’s power, but he comes to see that this power is not for man’s benefit.

Job gives an inheritance to his daughters. (42:15)

An inheritance is a hedge. Although they were the most beautiful in the land, Job deemed this insufficient. They would not have to rely on what they were given by God, which could be both a blessing and a curse, but, contrary to custom, were given wealth and power to hedge against evil. But all of this could be wiped away in a moment.

Fooloso4 wrote: ↑October 1st, 2018, 11:13 amWhat is the Hellenic parable?

Don't you think it seems Hellenic? The poetic form? And supernaturals up there discussing those below, and meddling, reminds me of the Greek pantheon. Just a thought.

I was responding to your comment,

Fooloso4 wrote: ↑October 1st, 2018, 11:13 amRighteousness does not confer protection or reward. It is not a hedge. That is not the way the world works. We may ask why God does not protect the righteous. This is a form of the problem of evil, but it is a problem without a solution. Things happen as they do. Adversity is everywhere. I think it is wrong to assume that the story is telling us it struck Job because of a bet. But I have changed my mind on this before and might find good reason to do so again.

Seems pretty anodyne to me.

Was God protecting Job? Maybe, maybe not, the disinterested observer may say yes, probably, the way the story is laid out. Doesn't matter.

You're right, did matter to The Accuser, or Satan, hasatan, but I don't know if he's correct (does the story talk about that?). And just my opinion, it doesn't much matter to the story.

Fooloso4 wrote: ↑October 1st, 2018, 11:13 amIt is a mythological telling of something that each of us should be able to relate to - questions of justice, fairness, evil, and responsibility. We see immediately that it is put beyond the bounds of the human, but rather than provide answers it points to the limits of the questioner and, as the story unfolds, raises problems with our ability to be at home in a world that can be hostile to us. These “wild stories” are not simply about the incomprehensible actions of gods but the wildness of an inhospitable world. We, each of us, seek to build a hedge. Some may believe they are safe, but Job comes to know that he is not.

Pretty nice. I completely take your point here. It's the human condition. It blames God though, can't help it. The betting in heaven, the competition, scandalous!

The Eden story also sort of blames God for the human condition. Similar to the Job story, Jah tips his hand as a glory hound with the hardening of Pharoah's heart. :) Who IS this Guy?

3uGH7D4MLj:

Don't you think it seems Hellenic? The poetic form? And supernaturals up there discussing those below, and meddling, reminds me of the Greek pantheon. Just a thought.

No. Such images occur through the Hebrew Bible. Sons of God is a term that is used both for human and divine entities - lesser gods, angels. Their meet together in several places in the books.

Seems pretty anodyne to me.

If righteousness does not confer protection or reward then in what way is it anodyne? It is contrary to the common religious belief that God is a shield for the righteous.

You're right, did matter to The Accuser, or Satan, hasatan, but I don't know if he's correct (does the story talk about that?). And just my opinion, it doesn't much matter to the story.

Job does not curse God. The Accuser is proven to be wrong on that count. It is not clear whether the hedge refers to God’s protection or to Job never having experienced such adversity. If God protects him then why? What happens to him seems to contradict the claim that it is because of his righteousness. Since he is blameless we know that whatever evil befalls him is not his fault, so why would he be protected because he is blameless? Righteousness seems to confer neither reward nor punishment.

It blames God though It blames God though, can't help it. The betting in heaven, the competition, scandalous!

Both good and evil are said to come from God, but unless you think that God protects the righteous then God is not to blame for not protecting him. If God does not protect the righteous then he has not done or failed to do anything other than what he always does. The inclination is to blame someone. Job’s “pious” friends blame him, Job’s inclination is to blame or at least question God, but he learns that human standards cannot apply to God.

The Eden story also sort of blames God for the human condition.

Adam certainly does, he blames both Eve and God for giving her to him. We might blame him for making something so dangerous easily accessible. We might also blame him for the severity of their punishment. And, we might also blame him for destroying Adam’s original wholeness and unity.

Who IS this Guy?

Here we see the influence of Hellenic philosophy. God is so often conceived of as a perfect being, but the God of the Hebrew bible is not perfect. He is a willful god, a jealous god, a wrathful and vengeful god. He is inscrutable. A god who we are told it is wise to fear. This stands in contrast to the later development of a god of reason.

This has not only theological implications but cosmological, metaphysical, and scientific consequences - a rational God who creates a rational order knowable by human reason.

The story of Job shows me that justice is man's striving towards good and that good is eternal and only appears in the relative world in impure and ephemeral forms.

Belindi wrote: ↑October 3rd, 2018, 6:42 am The story of Job shows me that justice is man's striving towards good and that good is eternal and only appears in the relative world in impure and ephemeral forms.

Hi Belindi, can you talk a little about how that works? In what way?

Which? Eternity and temporality? Absolute good? The ontological status of justice? Impure and ephemeral?

Fooloso4 wrote:

Here we see the influence of Hellenic philosophy. God is so often conceived of as a perfect being, but the God of the Hebrew bible is not perfect. He is a willful god, a jealous god, a wrathful and vengeful god. He is inscrutable. A god who we are told it is wise to fear. This stands in contrast to the later development of a god of reason.

I think that God in the Book of Job is portrayed as transition between the willful jealous Jahweh to the Hellenistic perfection of good. This is just me and my personal preference and I offer no scholarly exegesis.

3uGH7D4MLj wrote: ↑October 2nd, 2018, 11:33 amI can only come back to questions about, and fascination with, the culture that canonized these wild stories.

Obedience pays off never mind how badly you get treated along the way. It's the simple principle of using god to enforce the ideas you want your supplicant population to follow. Religion as an unquestionable means of control. I'm sure many other cultures have/had similar stories so I don't think it makes the Jews in way unique or different.

Belindi wrote: ↑October 3rd, 2018, 6:42 am The story of Job shows me that justice is man's striving towards good and that good is eternal and only appears in the relative world in impure and ephemeral forms.

Really?
How weird of you to say that.

Mark1955 wrote: ↑October 7th, 2018, 3:19 am

3uGH7D4MLj wrote: ↑October 2nd, 2018, 11:33 amI can only come back to questions about, and fascination with, the culture that canonized these wild stories.

Obedience pays off never mind how badly you get treated along the way. It's the simple principle of using god to enforce the ideas you want your supplicant population to follow. Religion as an unquestionable means of control. I'm sure many other cultures have/had similar stories so I don't think it makes the Jews in way unique or different.

The story of Job that we know was a take on an old Babylonian tale (this from Karen Armstrong, A History of God). I don't think it was written in order to control the society. In fact it questions the notion of divine blessings for faithfulness, Job does challenge God. Job gives in when God goes into his Do-you-know-who-I-am speech, but the story does raise the issue. It shows God as a knucklehead with no compassion or fairness, Job as a victim of God's capriciousness. I think it was written as literature, with a structure, complexity, ambiguity.

I'd have thought that the story of Job is deterministic. What it does for me is that it is in The Holy Bible, which is strikingly broad minded of the editors.

3uGH7D4MLj wrote: ↑October 8th, 2018, 3:34 pm

Mark1955 wrote: ↑October 7th, 2018, 3:19 am
Obedience pays off never mind how badly you get treated along the way. It's the simple principle of using god to enforce the ideas you want your supplicant population to follow. Religion as an unquestionable means of control. I'm sure many other cultures have/had similar stories so I don't think it makes the Jews in way unique or different.

The story of Job that we know was a take on an old Babylonian tale (this from Karen Armstrong, A History of God). I don't think it was written in order to control the society. In fact it questions the notion of divine blessings for faithfulness, Job does challenge God. Job gives in when God goes into his Do-you-know-who-I-am speech, but the story does raise the issue. It shows God as a knucklehead with no compassion or fairness, Job as a victim of God's capriciousness. I think it was written as literature, with a structure, complexity, ambiguity.

My bold, the point is made, you may argue but you don't win.