Is the Job narrative evidence of human construction?

[marco]

To many the story of Job is an embarrassment in its artificiality and the ludicrous collusion between heaven and hell. The chorus line that follows each of the disasters that initially beset the man is "and I only am escaped alone to tell thee." Would an author today get off with what seems such a silly scenario?

We can say the story illustrates the goodness and patience of a splendid individual but what can we say about the divinity who presided over Job's tribulations?

Have the writers of the story gone too far this time in trying to illustrate God can do what he likes?

Can we find anything good to say about the God in this story?

Satan turned up at what seems to have been an absurd AGM of angels and their master and instead of being turned away he was listened to and his challenge accepted - to torture a good human being for being good.

Does this suggest the Bible sometimes wanders into nonsensical tales?

Or can we find any good in the God-Satan plot?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 30 by theophile]

So, err, you made so many complaints about what I should prove, and I see nothing in the previous post but a deflection. This means you declare victory by not allowing me to show you the plagiarism?

Macro seems also to be attacking on another front. No worries, I can wait... but what is it you'd like me to convince you of...
first?

Though I really really do not understand your rationale. You know these stories were written in another culture, know they may have (when they are religious stories) been ascribed to other religions, yet still don't think they were transparently copied and poorly applied to the proto-Jewish religion?

This confuses me.

If a story was, say originally ascribed, and divinely inspired by Marduk, say, how does a johnny-come-lately get to be right?

While I think I understand the principle of what you are saying, my only interpretation is that you are building on a sand foundation that is Job, et&al..

Respectfully: It does not seem like a good place to start.

[theophile]

[Replying to post 31 by Willum]

So, err, you made so many complaints about what I should prove, and I see nothing in the previous post but a deflection. This means you declare victory by not allowing me to show you the plagiarism?

What exactly are we debating? Can we clarify? One argument - the only one I can really sense - is that biblical texts were "stolen" from other cultures. That the bible is one big plagiarism, and therefore to be dismissed.

I admitted from the beginning that the bible takes and plays with other texts. If that's "stealing" then okay, it's stealing. I don't see it that way but there is no question that it was influenced by, was a response to, was built upon, other texts of its time. No question of that.

If I asked for more from you, it was to show how it is complete plagiarism. That there is no originality in the bible whatsoever. i.e., that it didn't make something new of what it took...

Though I really really do not understand your rationale. You know these stories were written in another culture, know they may have (when they are religious stories) been ascribed to other religions, yet still don't think they were transparently copied and poorly applied to the proto-Jewish religion?

This confuses me.

Look at the Babylonian "A Man and his God" and the book of Job. They are different. The Job writer(s) took and built upon the former, yes, but the result is something new.

Look at Jesus. Sure, he may have parallels with Osiris or Dionysus but he is not them. His story is different. It has new elements. New meaning. The gospels are not verbatim Egyptian - Greek or Roman myth.

Look at Genesis 1. Sure, it may play with the same themes as the Enuma Elish, and be inspired by it (insofar as it is a response to it), but it is different. It has a different narrative and meaning.

If a story was, say originally ascribed, and divinely inspired by Marduk, say, how does a johnny-come-lately get to be right?

It's easy. For starters, Marduk's creation narrative is not the same as what we see in Genesis 1. We've had this conversation before. Marduk slays Temat in that story. There is no slaying in Genesis 1 (or 2-3). Similar themes, sure, and texts that are clearly in play with each other, but we're seeing something new. New meaning...

Furthermore, the relationship between these texts would be more like that between Aristotle and Newton. Or Newton and Einstein.

Each "Johnny-come-lately" took and built upon what was done before and, yes, was more right!

[Willum]

[Replying to theophile]

No, Jesus is Dionysus, interpolated and forced down proto-Jewish culture.
All the stories, most of the prophesies were obviously re-written.

There is no other way around.

You asked me for "complete" plagiarism.
That is just a very weak way to make your point. Word for word? ("But that's what you said!" is your reply.)

Obviously this debate is over. You lost and are trying to go down any path to save god.

God should be big enough and old enough that he doesn't need weaseling as a defense.

[ttruscott]

[Replying to theophile]Let's scope first: They stole tales.

That a Bible tale comes after the fact of another book on the same subject preceeding it does NOT prove that it stole the ideas since it is very plausible that the Bible was written to refute the wrongful allegations and contentions of the older work.

Your allegations of theft are not proven...

[theophile]

[Replying to Willum]

Obviously this debate is over. You lost and are trying to go down any path to save god.

I concur with Truscott:

Your allegations of theft are not proven...

I'm not talking about changing words on the surface. I'm talking about the meaning of the texts.

I'm saying that Genesis 1-3 has a different meaning than the Enuma Elish. Not that it just changed some words on the surface.

And I really don't get what "God" has to do with this. How am I trying to save God? Again, what the hell are you arguing?

All I've ever tried to argue in this thread is that there is original meaning in biblical texts, while fully agreeing that they borrow, take, adapt, etc, other texts of their time to convey that meaning.

There was no speaking of God, or saving God, or anything like that in anything I said, so please stop putting words in my mouth and making claims to have won an argument that I never even knew I was having.

[marco]

We learn that Satan is willing to monster the most holy old man in humanity just because GOD thinks he is blameless and upright! The depth of his evil is exposed to the whole world.

One calls to mind such things as God is my rock, my strength, none shall I fear; the righteous walk in God's favour... Alas, not so. God permits the very, very righteous to be brutalised.

That Job repents of sin while being characterized as blameless and upright is also interesting in that it is his behaviours where in he is blameless and upright but now, has had his eyes opened that a blameless and upright life doesn't fulfill the criteria for being sinless, bringing him to repentance. In other words, though upright and blameless he was susceptible to suffering and death and only the guilty suffer and die. Since no innocent suffers and dies, he came face to face with his sinfulness though his life was exemplary.

I am not a lover of such reasoning. Either Job was a good man, and he seems to have been gooder than good, so re-evaluating his report BECAUSE he's been tormented and therefore MUST have done wrong is the argument of his comforters if it can be called an argument. If blamelessness isn't good enough, we need a new God, one endowed with reason and the ability to see that when one creates imperfection one cannot demand perfection.

[marco]

Job desires death, yes, but we need to understand why. I would argue it is because he comes to believe that his life has no value (he is "dust and ashes"). That is what he determines as a result of his treatment by God and that is what he needs to be consoled about.

He wants to die because he has lost so much. No matter how good and patient and understanding he has been, it serves no purpose in this life and so this life isn't worth living. One must have the tiniest glimmer of an expectation that goodness will be rewarded and suffering understood with compassion. If each day brings a new torment, what is the point in being alive? Does he live for the amusement of supernatural beings?

The challenge is reading God's speeches real carefully to see what exactly God is saying to Job.

The challenge is to see any goodness in what God is described as doing. It is certainly a challenge to read anything worthy in God's cold response to Job's unspeakable suffering with existential questions.

I hope you can look past your low view of God.

I can assess Shakespeare's characters in the way he wanted them assessed; or I can read more into them, for often an artist or a poet will create something that is imbued with more than he imagined. Pushkin regarded the great poet as a "prorok", a prophet who grasps inspiration from the ether and passes it on to readers, sometimes with a significance he does not fully comprehend. One would like to think the Biblical authors did likewise, and indeed I read David's lament in that way. But in the Job story I feel that God is acting sadistically, and in justification he is saying "Where were you, little man, when I made the heavens? I do what I will." Indeed "deus vult", - it is God's will - was the justification for the massacre of the Cathars in the Albigensian Crusade.

It makes me understand he didn't make the heavens at all, but he was himself made

Read as a fictional human play, Job's story is fine drama.

[Willum]

[Replying to theophile]

Of course it has a different meaning!
It needed to be re-purposed to the new culture. Who is going to admit they worship a false or lesser god? Just like any other story it fits into the "my dad (god) is bigger than your dad," role.

It doesn't change the fact that the origins of the stories were either children's stories, such as the flood, accounts of other gods, such as Cain and Able, or down-right prayers to other gods.

The fact is they came before there was an Abrahamic god.

But what would prove this to you, reading the account of Set and Osiris? Those stories have just as much meaning as Cain and Able.

So you claim that re-purposed stories have a different meaning than their originals, but these new meanings are true.
This statement is interesting:
Pray
tell
how
recycled stories meanings are more true than the originals.
Pray tell, how one knows one is truer than the other.

Actually, you've shown such lines are pointless, no amount of pointing at the "Tower of Babylon" children's fable, that the SUMERIANS made up and didn't believe! will show you that the proto-Jews stole it and made it into a hideous story, that is somehow better, and somehow TRUE! Ho-hum.

If you are really interested in continuing this line, let's not pollute Macro's topic with it.

[marco]

.

Actually, you've shown such lines are pointless, no amount of pointing at the "Tower of Babylon" children's fable, that the SUMERIANS made up and didn't believe! will show you that the proto-Jews stole it and made it into a hideous story, that is somehow better, and somehow TRUE! Ho-hum.

If you are really interested in continuing this line, let's not pollute Marco's topic with it.

I don't mind my topic getting polluted, honest! In fact what you say is very apt and interesting. I studied Sumerian - well, listened to lectures - at uni last year and I was struck by the similarities between their older tales and those in the Bible.

It is absurd to suppose that borrowed tales, however instructive, are rendered true in the hands of biblical writers. Whether Job's tale is borrowed or not, it seems to me that its principal intention is to paint the Abrahamic God as utterly terrifying. To say he's merciful is amusing sarcasm.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 39 by marco]
Sure, join in.

I am at a loss how someone can read tales that were obviously, maybe deliberately copied, and adapted to the OT, and still believe it is a divine work.

Or in any way valid.

If one is going to read a copy in Cain and Able, why wouldn't one believe its precursor in Set and Osiris?

If one can read the Greek comedy about the flood, how can one then think it is a true and holy story?

If one can see the Greek creation, fall of angels from the Greek Titans, and so on, why would one think some other people were in somehow contacted directly with the "truth?" They are getting the second hand version, at best.

Anything?