Job; a Jewish perspective

[cnorman18]

I actually found the quote in the "Wouk on belief" thread while I was looking for the one below. Funny; I should have been looking here, because the first part of the passage I was seeking was posted here, by me, in August of 2012. Here's what I wrote then:

---

Job, in its narrative roots, may be the oldest book in the Bible. Similar stories have been found in Sumerian, Babylonian, and Egyptian literature. The question of "why the righteous suffer" is among the first and most ancient philosophical/religious questions in human consciousness, and it remains in our consciousness today. The fact that it now has a name -- "Theodicy" -- does not mean that a solution has been found.

I could say more -- I was cast as Mr. Zuss (the God character) in a college production of J. B., Archibald MacLeish's verse drama based on the book of Job (and did very well at it, too) -- but the most insightful and frankly stirring analysis I have ever seen came in Herman Wouk's book, War and Remembrance. The passage is reprinted as an appendix in Wouk's latest book, The Language that God Talks; On Science and Religion (for the curious, the title refers not to Hebrew, but to calculus. It was a remark made to Wouk by Richard Feynman).

It is in the form of a lecture from Aaron Jastrow, a character in both The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, in the Theresienstadt concentration camp shortly before Jastrow is sent to Auschwitz. Here it is:

"In Job, as in most great works of art, the main design is very simple. His comforters maintain that since one Almighty God rules the universe, it must make sense. Therefore Job must have sinned. Let him search his deeds, confess and repent. The missing piece is only what his offense was.

"And in round after round of soaring argument, Job fights back. The missing piece must be with God, not with him. He is as religious as they are. He knows that the Almighty exists, that the universe must make sense. But he, poor bereft boil-covered skeleton, knows now that it does not in fact always make sense; that there is no guarantee of good fortune for good behavior; that crazy injustice is part of the visible world, and of this life. His religion demands that he assert his innocence, otherwise he will be profaning God's name! He will be conceding that the Almighty can botch one man's life; and if God can do that, the whole universe is a botch, and He is not an Almighty God. That Job will never concede. He wants an answer.

"He gets an answer! Oh, what an answer! An answer that answers nothing. God Himself speaks at last out of a roaring storm.'Who are you to call me to account? Can you hope to understand why or how I do anything? Were you there at Creation? Can you comprehend the marvels of the stars, the animals, the infinite wonders of existence? You, a worm that lives a few moments and dies?

"My friends, Job has won! Do you understand? God with all His roaring has conceded Job's main point, that the missing piece is with Him! God claims only that His reason is beyond Job. That, Job is perfectly willing to admit. With the main point settled, Job humbles himself, is more than satisfied, falls on his face.

"So the drama ends. God rebukes the comforters for speaking falsely of Him, and praises Job for holding to the truth. He restores Job's wealth. Job has seven more sons and three more daughters. He lives a hundred and forty more years, sees grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and dies old, prosperous, revered."

The rich flow of literary Yiddish halts. Jastrow goes back to the lectern, pulls the notes from his pocket, and turns over several sheets. He peers out at his audience.

"Satisfied? A happy ending, yes? Much more Jewish than the absurd and tragic Iliad. Are you so sure? My dear Jewish friends, what about the ten children who died? Where was God's justice to them? And what about the father, the mother? Can those scars on Job's heart heal, even in a hundred and forty years?

"That is not the worst of it. Think! What was the missing piece that was too much for Job to understand? We understand it, and are we so very clever? Satan simply sneered God into ordering the senseless ordeal. No wonder God roars out of a storm to silence Job! Isn't He ashamed of Himself before His own creature?

"Hasn't Job behaved better than God?"

Jastrow shrugs, spreads his hands, and his face relaxes in a wistful little smile that makes Natalie think of Charles Chaplin."

---

That was as much as I quoted two years ago. This time, I shall go on. Jastrow continues:

"But I am expounding on the Iliad. In the Iliad, unseen powers are at odds with each other, and that brings about a visible world of senseless evil. Not so in Job. Satan has no power at all. He is not the Christian Satan, not Dante's colossal monster, not Milton's proud rebel, not in the least. He needs God's permission to make every move.

"Then who is Satan, and why does God leave him out of the answer in the storm? The word satan in Hebrew means adversary. What is the book telling us? Was God arguing with Himself? Was He asking Himself whether there was any purpose in the vast Creation? And in reply pointing, not to the dead glittering galaxies that sprawl over thousands of light-years, but to man, the handful of dirt that can sense His presence, do His will, and measure those galaxies? Above all, to the upright man, the speck of dirt who can measure himself against the Creator Himself, for dignity and goodness? What else did the ordeal establish?

"The heroes in the Iliad rise superior to the squabbling injustice of weak and contemptible gods.

"The hero in Job holds to the One Almighty God through the most senseless and horrible injustice; forcing God at last to measure up to Himself, to acknowledge that injustice is on His side, to repair the damage as best He can.

"In the Iliad there is no injustice to repair. In the end there is only blind fate.

"In Job God must answer for everything, good and bad, that happens. Job is the Bible's only hero. There are fighting men, patriarchs, lawgivers, prophets in the other books. This is the one man who rises to the measure of the Universe, to the stature of the God of Israel, while sitting on an ash heap; Job, a poor skeletal broken beggar.

"Who is Job?

"Nobody. 'Job was never born and never existed,' says the Talmud. 'He was a parable.'

"Parable of what truth?

"All right, we have come to it now. Who is it in history that will never admit that there is no God, never admit that the Universe makes no sense? Who is it who suffers ordeal after ordeal, plundering after plundering, massacre after massacre, century after century, yet looks up at the sky, sometimes with dying eyes, and cries, 'The Lord our God, the Lord is One'?

"Who is it who in the end of days will force from God the answer from the storm? Who will see the false comforters rebuked, the old glory restored, and generations of happy children and grandchildren to the fourth generation? Who until then will leave the missing piece to God, and praise His Name, crying "The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away, blessed be the Name of the Lord"? Not the noble Greek of the Iliad, he is extinct. No! Nobody but the sick, plundered skeleton on the ash heap. Nobody but the beloved of God, the worm that lives a few moments and dies, the handful of dirt that has justified Creation. Nobody but Job. He is the only answer, if there is one, to the adversary challenge to an almighty God, if there is One. Job, the stinking Jew."

"Jastrow stares in a stunned way at the still audience, then stumbles toward the first row. Udam jumps up and gently helps him to his seat. The audience does not applaud, does not talk, does not move.

"Udam begins to sing....

The resonance of this lecture lies in the context of its being given during the Holocaust, to a group of innocents who have been rendered bereft, boil-covered skeletons themselves. The entire passage -- not to mention the entire book, or books -- is well worth reading.

I like that Jastrow describes Job as "the only real hero in the Bible"; indeed he is, for all that he never existed. Job stood up to God, so to speak, face to face -- and defeated Him on His own turf.

This is, of course, a Jewish perspective, and one (among many Jewish perspectives) that both Christians and atheists often have great difficulty understanding, and for many reasons -- not least that the hero here is a man whom we acknowledge never actually lived at all. But perhaps more difficult still is the attitude, or approach, or understanding depicted here about man and God and what lies between them, even given that no "nature of God," as in what kind of Being or Thing or Force God may be, is taught here, not to mention the fact that no "proof of God" is offered or, indeed, is of any interest. Note Jastrow's next-to-last phrase: "...God, if there is One."

But none of those are the particular perspective of which I speak. I have very often spoken of it; that God is, for Jews, as much Adversary as Master, Creator and King, and that Covenant means that God is as answerable to us as we are to him.

This is about as excellent an example of the meaning of that teaching as I can give.

[Divine Insight]

This is, of course, a Jewish perspective, and one (among many Jewish perspectives) that both Christians and atheists often have great difficulty understanding, and for many reasons -- not least that the hero here is a man whom we acknowledge never actually lived at all. But perhaps more difficult still is the attitude, or approach, or understanding depicted here about man and God and what lies between them, even given that no "nature of God," as in what kind of Being or Thing or Force God may be, is taught here, not to mention the fact that no "proof of God" is offered or, indeed, is of any interest. Note Jastrow's next-to-last phrase: "...God, if there is One."

But none of those are the particular perspective of which I speak. I have very often spoken of it; that God is, for Jews, as much Adversary as Master, Creator and King, and that Covenant means that God is as answerable to us as we are to him.

This is about as excellent an example of the meaning of that teaching as I can give.

Charles, I actually have no problem understanding your explanation of Job. In fact, I will even go as far to say that your explanation makes perfect sense in terms of how the Jews view God.

You are viewing the story of Job entirely as a parable of a man who never actually existed and an incident that never truly happened. Instead, you see this as a parable that is basically saying that "Yes God is the ultimate power, authority, and truth of the universe, and the main moral of the story is that to keep undying faith in God no matter how difficult life may become will ultimately pay off in the end, precisely because God is ultimately just in the end".

And it's certainly understandable to view this story in this way. I will even go as far to suggest that the Jews may actually be perfectly correct in that this may very well be the intended moral of the author of this story.

But this is where it ends. Then the question becomes, "Who was the author of Job?"

And I'm not asking here for any specific human individual, but rather to simply ask, "Was this story itself written by a Jew (i.e. an Israelite), or is it the inspired word of a God who is wants to convey this message to us?"

That is the ultimate question.

If the story itself was merely a parable written by a mortal Jew (or Israelite), then is it any wonder that the author of the story was attempting to convey this very message. The idea that this God is ultimately just and to question him is futile, and to simply keep undying faith will ultimately pay off in the end?

Of course that's the message that people who believe like this would want to convey.

So, in that context, there are no surprises. And I am in complete agreement with you that in the Jewish faith this parable makes perfect sense, especially considering that you are viewing it as an incident that never actually happened, and it's supposedly just a parable that suggests that keeping undying faith in the Jewish God will ultimately result in the best ending.

~~~~

However, if we actually bring a "Real God" into this picture I have problems.

Even if Job isn't real, I still hold that if this story was a "message from God", even the God is to be questioned still.

Is it even true that undying faith in God will always end in "Happily Ever-after"? Ironically that's a part of the story that we must take on faith alone once again.

And there are other problems as well,

For example, Job supposedly doesn't know what his sin was. But should that even matter?

From your experts:

"Therefore Job must have sinned. Let him search his deeds, confess and repent. The missing piece is only what his offense was."

Why should it even be necessary for a person to actually know what their sin was? Shouldn't sincere repentance be sufficient?

Can't a person simply say to God, "Please forgive me for anything I might have done that has displeased you in any way or has violated any of your rules."

Why should a person need to actually sit down and try to figure out precisely what it was that they had done, especially if they are at a loss to even know where to begin. Such a sin most certainly could not have been perpetrated intentionally with premeditated malice, for if it had been surely Job would have no problem knowing precisely what it had been.

So I have a problem with a lack of mentality in this story to being with. The author of the story appears to have it in his mind that we should need to confess our since explicitly even when we don't know what they are, whereas a truly divine mind would know that this doesn't make sense.

In other words, for me, this is already a hint that this story was written by mortal and flawed imagination rather than by some divine being who should know better than this.

I also have extreme problems with the following interpretations:

"He gets an answer! Oh, what an answer! An answer that answers nothing. God Himself speaks at last out of a roaring storm.'Who are you to call me to account? Can you hope to understand why or how I do anything? Were you there at Creation? Can you comprehend the marvels of the stars, the animals, the infinite wonders of existence? You, a worm that lives a few moments and dies?

To begin with, I agree that this is indeed an answer that answers nothing.

However, I would also suggest that this interpretation is also potentially biased in that it seems to have missed some other aspects of this exchange. In this exchange God also brags about having created a fire-breathing animal that no man can harness. So yes, God is not only suggesting that Job is a mere worm, but God also appears to be bragging about his abilities in this story.

The fact that this an "answer that answers nothing" is precisely what many people, including myself have a huge problem with.

"My friends, Job has won! Do you understand? God with all His roaring has conceded Job's main point, that the missing piece is with Him! God claims only that His reason is beyond Job. That, Job is perfectly willing to admit. With the main point settled, Job humbles himself, is more than satisfied, falls on his face.

And I would suggest that this is once again where I would suggest that this does indeed sound like the kind of story a mortal man would make up, and certainly not a point that any almighty omnipotent God would want to make.

So once again I'm led to conclude that it makes more sense that this story is nothing more than the religious beliefs of the author and not a message to humanity from any God who has supposedly bragged about creating a fire-breathing animal that no man can harness or tame.

So while I agree with your "interpretation" from a cultural religious perspective, I must also conclude that this just confirms my suspicions that this is indeed all that the story is. It didn't come from any God. It's just a story written by men who apparently view their imagined God in this way.

"So the drama ends. God rebukes the comforters for speaking falsely of Him, and praises Job for holding to the truth. He restores Job's wealth. Job has seven more sons and three more daughters. He lives a hundred and forty more years, sees grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and dies old, prosperous, revered."

And here we have the standard fairytale ending that is basically claiming that if you simply keep your faith in God everything will ultimately end with "Happily Ever-after" and all the wrong-doers will be chastised by God for their wrongful judgements against you, and bingo, the God created by the imagination of the Jews (or Israelites) triumphs in the end thus proving that keeping faith in this God is paramount and will always pay off in the end.

I don't doubt that this was indeed the intent of the authors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And now I would like to address another point entirely, yet it is a central point to this story of Job and the Abrahamic philosophy in general.

From you post:

The question of "why the righteous suffer" is among the first and most ancient philosophical/religious questions in human consciousness, and it remains in our consciousness today. The fact that it now has a name -- "Theodicy" -- does not mean that a solution has been found.

I agree, this is a deeply philosophical question. However, there can be many different answers to this question. This question also has entirely different meanings in different philosophies on life.

For example, the answer to this question in pure secular materialism is quite simple. There is no justice and the reason righteous people suffer is because the universe doesn't even recognize the human concept of "righteousness".

In other words, in any atheistic philosophy this question is utterly meaningless to even ask. And therefore it doesn't even require an answer.

This question only becomes troublesome when we imagine that there is some sort of righteousness in the world. In other words, it's fundamentally a religious question entirely. It doesn't even become meaningful until we postulate the existence of a God of some sort.

And even then the question has entirely different meanings in different religious philosophies.

For example, in the Abrahamic religion (for the most part) people believe we are created at birth and we die at the end of life. Therefore everything within this single lifetime must be explained and justified based entirely upon this lifetime alone. Of course, in this picture the problem of why righteous people suffer is an extremely difficult question to answer because it's easy to see very young children suffering greatly and it's hard to imagine that they could have done something to deserve such suffering.

So then we have two other schools of thought. One is that perhaps we pay for the sin of our ancestors. This concept has certainly been entertained in the Abrahamic religions to be sure. In fact, as you well know, may forms of Christianity push this idea clear back to "original sin".

So that is one attempt to address this apparent problem.

Another way is to allow for reincarnation. Once reincarnation is allowed then understanding how very young children or babies can suffer is a lot easier because we can simply imagine that they did something in a past life and are now paying for it.

But in the end, I hold that this story of Job doesn't even answer the question at all.

As you say, God's answer to Job in this parable is "No answer at all". And this is why this very problem is still unanswered in the Abrahamic religions.

So the parable of Job doesn't even answer this question even though this question is always associated with the story of Job. How ironic is that?

I was introduced to Job quite early in my religious life when I was still a devout Christian. And I was indeed told that Job is the story that answers the question of why righteous people suffer. But as you know, it doesn't. It doesn't answer this question at all. All it suggests is that we shouldn't even ask the question and instead we should just keep the faith, and according to this parable if we do keep the faith, everything will have a fairytale ending of "Happily Ever-after".

So really Job is actually just a parable telling us to place blind faith in this religion and claiming that if we do things will ultimately work out "Happily Ever-after".

But for me, this story doesn't appear to have come from any all-wise supreme being. Instead it appears to have been entirely written by mortal men who are indeed just trying to convince us to have faith in their fairy-telling.

With no proof or evidence that they have any clue what they are talking about.

So we're right back to square one and the book of Job didn't get us anywhere toward any actual knowledge of anything.

~~~~

But YES, I do understand the Jewish perspective. I simply don't see where it has any value. It's just a cultural fairytale. Where is there any reason to believe that any actual God had anything to do with this parable?

And if no God had anything to do with it then we may as well be talking about a Greek fairytales of Zeus and company. We can make sense of their fairytales too.

But that doesn't get us any closer to having any reason to believe in a God.

[cnorman18]

This is, of course, a Jewish perspective, and one (among many Jewish perspectives) that both Christians and atheists often have great difficulty understanding, and for many reasons -- not least that the hero here is a man whom we acknowledge never actually lived at all. But perhaps more difficult still is the attitude, or approach, or understanding depicted here about man and God and what lies between them, even given that no "nature of God," as in what kind of Being or Thing or Force God may be, is taught here, not to mention the fact that no "proof of God" is offered or, indeed, is of any interest. Note Jastrow's next-to-last phrase: "...God, if there is One."

But none of those are the particular perspective of which I speak. I have very often spoken of it; that God is, for Jews, as much Adversary as Master, Creator and King, and that Covenant means that God is as answerable to us as we are to him.

This is about as excellent an example of the meaning of that teaching as I can give.

Charles, I actually have no problem understanding your explanation of Job.

I disagree. You seemed to have entirely missed the point. Several of them, in fact.

In fact, I will even go as far to say that your explanation makes perfect sense in terms of how the Jews view God.

That’s pretty problematic right there, since there are MANY ways that “Jews view God,� including the acknowledgment — found in this post — that there may not be a God at all.

You are viewing the story of Job entirely as a parable of a man who never actually existed and an incident that never truly happened. Instead, you see this as a parable that is basically saying that "Yes God is the ultimate power, authority, and truth of the universe, and the main moral of the story is that to keep undying faith in God no matter how difficult life may become will ultimately pay off in the end, precisely because God is ultimately just in the end".

And that is where you begin to miss the point. Did you overlook this passage in my post?

�Satisfied? A happy ending, yes? Much more Jewish than the absurd and tragic Iliad. Are you so sure? My dear Jewish friends, what about the ten children who died? Where was God's justice to them? And what about the father, the mother? Can those scars on Job's heart heal, even in a hundred and forty years?

"That is not the worst of it. Think! What was the missing piece that was too much for Job to understand? We understand it, and are we so very clever? Satan simply sneered God into ordering the senseless ordeal. No wonder God roars out of a storm to silence Job! Isn't He ashamed of Himself before His own creature?

"Hasn't Job behaved better than God?�

Have you forgotten the context of this lecture? The Holocaust? No “happy endings� there. Have you forgotten all the many things we have talked about in the past — e.g., that we Jews have no formal teachings about an “Afterlife,� and that death, for us, is a journey into the dark? In our funeral services, there is no talk of the dead being “in a better place� or that we “will see them again one day� or any of that. We speak of their still living in our hearts and in our memories, and in the good deeds that they have left behind. And that is all.

Once again, your pet stereotypes of what religion “has to be� have interfered with your actually understanding what I have to say.

And it's certainly understandable to view this story in this way. I will even go as far to suggest that the Jews may actually be perfectly correct in that this may very well be the intended moral of the author of this story.

As if “the Jews� agreed with any of this crypto-Christian nonsense that you have imposed on the story.

But this is where it ends. Then the question becomes, "Who was the author of Job?"

And I'm not asking here for any specific human individual, but rather to simply ask, "Was this story itself written by a Jew (i.e. an Israelite), or is it the inspired word of a God who is wants to convey this message to us?"

That is the ultimate question.

No, it’s not, as we will see.

First, you KNOW that I have no truck with the idea that the Bible is �the inspired word of God� — that is, again, a Christian formulation.

Second, this so-called “ultimate question� was answered at the very start of my post, before I even began quoting Herman Wouk: “Job, in its narrative roots, may be the oldest book in the Bible. Similar stories have been found in Sumerian, Babylonian, and Egyptian literature.�

But perhaps you missed that too.

If the story itself was merely a parable written by a mortal Jew (or Israelite), then is it any wonder that the author of the story was attempting to convey this very message. The idea that this God is ultimately just and to question him is futile, and to simply keep undying faith will ultimately pay off in the end?

Of course that's the message that people who believe like this would want to convey.

But that isn’t the point of the story, as SHOULD have been clear from the start.

Let’s go on, after I dispense with a bit of repetition:

….

From your experts:

"Therefore Job must have sinned. Let him search his deeds, confess and repent. The missing piece is only what his offense was.�

Gppd example of your failure to grasp the ideas being presented here. THAT wasn't one of them. THAT is one of the ideas that the book of Job, and Job himself in the story, rejects and refutes. Do you actually not know that? Did you actually not NOTICE the passage immediately following?

"And in round after round of soaring argument, Job fights back. The missing piece must be with God, not with him. He is as religious as they are. He knows that the Almighty exists, that the universe must make sense. But he, poor bereft boil-covered skeleton, knows now that it does not in fact always make sense; that there is no guarantee of good fortune for good behavior; that crazy injustice is part of the visible world, and of this life.�

Are you getting this at all? The idea here is that we do not know, and cannot say, that God is either Just or Good, at least in human terms and in human understanding. The entire book of Job is not a paean to “worshiping God no matter what to get your eternal Heavenly cookie as a reward�; it is a challenge to God Himself. “Are you as good and noble and just as that which you have created?�

Does God measure up to Man?

That, at least, is the point of the passages from Wouk’s work that I have quoted, and the point that I was trying to make.

In other words, for me, this is already a hint that this story was written by mortal and flawed imagination rather than by some divine being who should know better than this.

Um… Duh. When have I ever defended the idea that God wrote the Bible? Who on this thread has?

Who are you talking to?

And then, after talking a bit about “repentance,� which is, again, one of the points that Job rejects and refutes, you seem to have missed the central and most obvious point of this:

"My friends, Job has won! Do you understand? God with all His roaring has conceded Job's main point, that the missing piece is with Him! God claims only that His reason is beyond Job. That, Job is perfectly willing to admit. With the main point settled, Job humbles himself, is more than satisfied, falls on his face.

And I would suggest that this is once again where I would suggest that this does indeed sound like the kind of story a mortal man would make up, and certainly not a point that any almighty omnipotent God would want to make.

Um… What?

What about the part that says “Job has won!� Does that, even as admitted fiction and parable, have no importance or point at all — even when it runs directly counter to your contention that this story is just about unquestioning acceptance and worship of God?

So once again I'm led to conclude that it makes more sense that this story is nothing more than the religious beliefs of the author and not a message to humanity from any God who has supposedly bragged about creating a fire-breathing animal that no man can harness or tame.

And that’s it? It’s not from God Himself, so it’s worthless?

Ah, the usual. "If it’s not direct from God it has no value at all."

As if the ideas of HUMAN BEINGS can have no value at all...

Well, at least not if they appear in a book that YOU THINK should be "from God," apparently, and which you INSIST must be its only raison d'être.

….
But YES, I do understand the Jewish perspective.

No. You very clearly do not.

Let me spell it out for you:

Once again, Job — both the book and the man (fictional though he be, there are many like him, good men — and women, of course — who suffered, and suffer, without cause) — is a CHALLENGE to God, not an example of mindless worship and adoration. The point of Job is the nobility of Man, not of God; that MAN is the answer, not God. The PRINCIPLES of Man, the IDEAL of “justice,� the STANDARD that WE set and challenge God Himself to meet.

WHO, in this passage, is the answer? Read it again:

�Nobody but Job. He is the only answer, if there is one, to the adversary challenge to an almighty God, if there is One.�

Do you get this yet? Whether God exists or not — and it does not, in the end, matter — these ideas are worth believing in.

I myself said it long ago, and have repeated it many times since:

To say, "I believe in God" is not necessarily quite the same as to say "I believe that God objectively exists." There are those who question that assertion, but it is true; and I am not the first or only person to take that approach. Here is an essay on that subject and others related to it from MyJewishLearning.com.

"I believe in God" may mean no more than "I believe in God as a moral principle, an ideal, a way of understanding and approaching existence; and I HOPE that there is a truth - the nature and details of which I cannot know - that validates that belief."

I believe in God, in precisely that way; but I do not, and cannot, know with certainty if that belief is true or false, valid or in vain. Even so, I choose to believe in that ideal, because even if the good and the noble and the holy are mere inventions of man - and even if man is therefore a higher and better and nobler being than his nonexistent God - they are still worth believing in. That is precisely why I call it "faith." Faith in those ideas - not necessarily in a God that I am not wholly certain exists, never mind whether He is benevolent or omnipotent or any of that.

Perhaps that belief, in those ideals, is, in the end, all there really is. And perhaps that is enough to justify them.

Before we go to "But why bother with..."

Of COURSE one could pursue the good and the noble without reference to any God, to any pseudohistorical narratives, without referring to anything at all but the abstract ideals themselves; but that seems to be the province of philosophers. The rest of us - common humanity - have always found such ideas more comprehensible and accessible, not to say inspiring, when expressed in a STORY. If that story is linked with an ancient and honorable tradition and one's personal heritage, being about about one's own ancestors, so much the more.

Whether or not the story is literally or historically true has rather rarely been the point.

And, one more time: I concur with your rejection of stereotypical, supernaturalistic “revealed� religion and its dependence on anything being the Direct and Literal Word of God. Those ideas have nothing whatever to do with anything I am talking about here, and I wonder, also once again, why you feel so compelled to argue against them when speaking to me.

And, yet again one more time; I have no intention of giving anyone "any reason to believe in God." I don't think "belief" is important to ANY degree, and I have no interest in convincing anyone of anything. Indeed, as I have often said, I hold no conventional, supernatural "belief in God" myself. I am just trying to explain a different perspective on religion that is not widely understood -- a fact which has, once again (though predictably) been proven, here, today, in this thread.

[Divine Insight]

That’s pretty problematic right there, since there are MANY ways that “Jews view God,� including the acknowledgment — found in this post — that there may not be a God at all.

In that case why entitle your thread a "Jewish perspective", when all it really amounts to is a "personal perspective".

Judaism is typically seen and recognized as a "religion". Now I don't know how much the Jewish pharisees described in the Christian New Testament have to do with reality, but they were clearly building temples and supposedly worshiping a God.

In fact, they were often accusing Jesus of blaspheme and threatening to stone him to death per the commandments of their God. There are also stories in these rumors that the Jews were stoning sinners to death, again, due to commandments they believed came from God.

Jesus himself is said to have been a Jew, and he was clearly preaching of a "Father God" etc. And ironically he was also preaching of an after-life, that many Jews have claimed they don't even believe in.

If Jesus was a Jew and Jews don't typically believe in an afterlife then where did Jesus come up with these ideas?

Or do you believe that Jesus was an entirely fictional character made up by some non-Jewish people?

You say,

As if “the Jews� agreed with any of this crypto-Christian nonsense that you have imposed on the story.

I haven't imposed any crypto-Christian interpretation onto the the story of Job. On the contrary all of my comments were entirely from a purely atheistic perspective.

I think most Christians are likely to believe that the story is real. That Job actually existed and had this exchange with God, and that somehow God did justify himself and set job straight. In fact, most Christians I have talked with about the book of Job seem to be convinced that it does give justification for why righteous people suffer.

I never made that argument. On the contrary, I agree that the answers given by God in this parable are no answers at all. They are utterly stupid responses to the questions.

In fact, I recall vividly the very first time I really sat down in earnest to seriously read this story and try to understand it. I came away from it shaking my head saying, "You've got to be kidding. People accept this story as a meaningful explanation of why righteous people suffer?"

It totally fails to explain anything of the sort. And it does basically amount to a proclamation by these authors that simply because God has supposedly created everything that should be sufficient to shut anyone up who even questions God.

For me, this story amounts to nothing more than proof positive that it was written just to shut up any skeptics by trying to make it sound like questioning God is simply absurd.

It doesn't explain anything. And it does appear to me that you are in agreement with at least that conclusion. Correct me if I'm wrong on that.

But for you to say that this is a "Jewish Perspective" is meaningless. Especially when you then turn around and proclaim that all Jews think differently when it comes to religion and God. If that's true then what sense does it even make to say that it's a "Jewish perspective"? Just because you identify with Judaism? Or are you speaking from a national pov. Where "Jewish" simply means that you are Jewish in the same way that Albert Einstein was Jewish?

Being "Jewish" by genetics and being "Jewish" because you believe in Judaism are two entirely different things. Einstein was Jewish too, but I don't think he believed in Judaism.

For Einstein to give his personal views on Judaism and call that a "Jewish Perspective" simply because he was Jewish by heritage would be totally misleading and a misrepresentation of Judaism.

So when you say that you are giving a "Jewish Perspective" exactly what do you mean by that?

[cnorman18]

[Replying to post 4 by Divine Insight]

I said "A Jewish perspective," not "THE Jewish perspective" -- and I did NOT say that "all Jews think differently." I said that "there are MANY ways that 'Jews view God,'" which has a very different meaning. (Herman Wouk is a Jew, too.)

I would note two more facts, and stop there:

(1) You insist, once again, on drawing your understanding of what Judaism is and what Jews believe from the New Testament, which you reference in six of your first eight paragraphs. As I've noted before, that's like drawing your understanding of Judaism from reading the Qu'ran. You STILL apparently have no interest in learning anything about Judaism from actual JEWS.

And, more importantly:

(2) You have not responded to -- nor even so much as acknowledged -- ANY of my remarks about what the point of this post actually was.

Beyond that, I see no particular reason to speak further.