Reading 3 - The book of Job

[Bio-logical]

Our third reading is one of the more controversial stories in the bible - the book of Job

This book is essential to the questions:

Why does evil exist if God is good?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why do evil people prosper?
Why do suffering and death exist?

What do you think?

[Goat]

Our third reading is one of the more controversial stories in the bible - the book of Job

This book is essential to the questions:

Why does evil exist if God is good?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why do evil people prosper?
Why do suffering and death exist?

What do you think?

Although it only covers the first section, a wonderful analysis of it can be found at
http://www.torah.org/learning/iyov/archives.html

It only goes up to chapter 8, but it shows the kind of detail that the Jewish scholars treat scripture. It shows why there are so many Jewish lawyers ,

[Cathar1950]

Our third reading is one of the more controversial stories in the bible - the book of Job

This book is essential to the questions:

Why does evil exist if God is good?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why do evil people prosper?
Why do suffering and death exist?

What do you think?

Although it only covers the first section, a wonderful analysis of it can be found at
http://www.torah.org/learning/iyov/archives.html

It only goes up to chapter 8, but it shows the kind of detail that the Jewish scholars treat scripture. It shows why there are so many Jewish lawyers ,

I had to pause with this:

1. Who wrote it?

From chazal (our Sages) z"l, it is clear that the authorship of this book is attributed to Moshe (Moses) Rabbeinu (our teacher). This point is discussed in the tractate Bava Bathra page14b. The Malbim explained that Moshe wrote it to console the Hebrew nation when they were enslaved and suffering under Egyptian oppression.

I guess it isn't just Christians that like to sermonize.

[myth-one.com]

I initially felt we should study the Bible from the first page sequentially to the last page. However, the fact that the Book of Job is chronologically before God created His covenant with the Children of Israel is significant. Under the Old Testament covenant, if the children of Israel kept God's commandments, God would cause them to prosper:

If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit . . . . . . (much more good stuff) (Leviticus 26:3-4)

Now observe the biblical description of Job:

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil. (Job 1:1)

Now if Job lived after God's covenant with the children of Israel was created, would God have been able to treat Job as He did without violating that covenant? God promised to reward those following His commandments; Job followed God's commandments; and gets dumped on. What kind of example would that be for the others?

Reading the Bible sequentially from first page to the last page, God's treatment of Job appears to have occurred after God created His covenant with the children of Israel!

While God's allowing Satan to treat Job poorly may remain mysterious to me, believing He did so after promising blessings upon His chosen people who keep His commandments seemed even more unjustified!

Thanks Bio-logical!

[Cathar1950]

I have always enjoyed this writing on many levels.
But I thought we should look at the background before we press on.
I try to remain mindful of the evolution of the writings where it seems many times the prophets came before much of the actual writings including much of the historical ideology invented later. Job seems to have been written at about the same time other writing were being produced that later become the context and the stories or writing often tells us more about the author’s time and situation then was being told about the supposed or portrayed times of the stories’. I find it interesting that El is used for God throughout much of the polemics.

I have looked at Job a number of time including college classes and a rereading when I was looking at “Why bad things happen to good people� some many years ago. I never failed to come away with a little more each time. I kind of see it as a satire or polemic story. The story seems to be a critic of other’s views of justice.

I can’t recall where I read it but I recall an optional translation of the passage� I know my redeemer lives� to “I want to be redeemed while I am alive�. It seemed earthy and interestingly enough it seems to be the end results of Job’s trials even if he suffered the “temporary� loss of wealth health and family. At least he got rewarded here an often questionable result found in life. But I don’t have to agree with every thing it says but I can admire the questions it raises and the points it makes.

Here we have Job the righteous man which would seem to contradict another Bible writing that insists there is none righteous, another thing I don’t have to believe just because it was the opinion of one of the authors or claims that is what God says.
Just for fun I was reading about sacrifices and was reminded that “righteous� is more of a qualification for ritual sacrifice in many contexts and not necessarily a moral quality. They often get confused by the pious reading their ideology into the material rather then actually understanding it.

1. Who wrote it?

From chazal (our Sages) z"l, it is clear that the authorship of this book is attributed to Moshe (Moses) Rabbeinu (our teacher). This point is discussed in the tractate Bava Bathra page14b. The Malbim explained that Moshe wrote it to console the Hebrew nation when they were enslaved and suffering under Egyptian oppression.

The actual writer of the Book of Job is revealed within the text of the book itself. In Chapter 32, Elihu is quoted by the writer in verses 6-14. In verses 15-16 the writer narrates and in verse 17 begins to quote Elihu again. However, in this quote of Elihu, the writer uses the first person I and me, thus identifying himself as the writer. Therefore, from the text, we observe that the writer of the Book of Job is none other than Elihu.[dubious – discuss]

In contrast, comparative literary and historical examinations of the text more generally conclude that, though archaic features such as the "council in heaven" survive, and though the story of Job was familiar to Ezekiel (Chapter 14 verse 14), the present form of Job was fixed in the postexilic period 6th century BCE - 5th century BCE.[6] The story of Job apparently originated in the land of Edom, which has been retained as the background. Fragments of Job are found among the Dead Sea scrolls, and Job remains prominent in haggadic legends. The later Greek Testament of Job figures among the apocrypha. Scholars agree that the introductory and concluding sections of the book, the framing devices, were composed to set the central poem into a prose "folk-book", as the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia expressed it. In the prologue and epilogue, the name of God is the Tetragrammaton, a name that even the Edomites used. The central poem is from another source.
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls is the Targum of Job 11Q10. Another example of text from the last chapter or epilogue of Job can be found in the book The Dead Sea Scrolls a New Translation, showing examples of how fragments of The Book of Job found among the scrolls differ from the traditional text. If the prologue and epilogue were added to the central poem, then this would have happened before 100 BCE or the time attributed to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The medieval exegete Abraham ibn Ezra believed that Job was translated from another language and it is therefore unclear "like all translated books". (Ibn Ezra Job 2:11)
Possible Sumerian source
The Assyriologist and Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer in his 1959 book History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine "Firsts" in Recorded History (1956), provided a translation of a Sumerian text which Professor Kramer argued evinces a parallel with the Biblical story of Job. Professor Kramer drew an inference that the Hebrew version is in some way derived from a Sumerian predecessor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Job

I recall reading that it was thought to be a writing borrowed from one neighbors of the Hebrews. I can’t find my commentary (It is in a box upstairs someplace under a bunch of other boxes of books) and if I start now I might find it by the time we get to Revelations, provided we are studying at least one of the Christian Bibles and not the Jewish Bible.

Here it suggests that it might have come from Edom or even Summer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Job

Later interpolations and additions
The most common such claims are of two kinds: the "parallel texts", which are parallel developments of the corresponding passages in the base text, and the speeches of Elihu (Chapters 32-37), which consist of a polemic against the ideas expressed elsewhere in the poem, and so are claimed to be interpretive interpolations. The speeches of Elihu (who is not mentioned in the prologue) are claimed to contradict the fundamental opinions expressed by the "friendly accusers" in the central body of the poem, according to which it is impossible that the righteous should suffer, all pain being a punishment for some sin. Elihu, however, reveals that suffering may be decreed for the righteous as a protection against greater sin, for moral betterment and warning, and to elicit greater trust and dependence on a merciful, compassionate God in the midst of adversity.
The status of Elihu's interrupting didactic sermon is brought further into question by his extremely sudden appearance and disappearance from the text; he is not mentioned in Job 2:11, in which Job's friends are introduced, nor is he mentioned at all in the epilogue, 42:7-10, in which God expresses anger at Job's friends. It is suggested that had Elihu appeared in the original source, his spirited and virtuous defence of the divine right to punish would have been rewarded by God in the conclusion, or at the very least mentioned. Additionally, Elihu's first spoken words are a confession of his youthful status, being much younger than the three canonical friends, including a claim to be speaking because he cannot bear to remain silent; it has been suggested that this interesting statement may have been symbolic of a "younger" (that is to say, later and interpolating) writer, who has written Elihu's sermon to respond to what he views as morally and theologically scandalous statements being made within the book of Job, and creating the literary device of Elihu to provide what seemed to be a much-needed faith-based response to further refute heresy and provide a satisfying counter-argument, a need partially provided by God's ambiguous and unspecific response to Job at the end of the book.
Subjects of further contention among scholars are the identity of claimed corrections and revisions of Job's speeches, which are claimed to have been made for the purpose of harmonizing them with the orthodox doctrine of retribution. A prime example of such a claim is the translation of the last line Job speaks (42:6), which is extremely problematic in the Hebrew. Traditional translations have him say, "Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." This is consonant with the central body of the poem and Job's speeches, other mortal encounters with the divine in the Bible (Isaiah in Chapter 6, for example), and the fact that there would have been no restoration without Job's humble repentant acknowledgment of mortality faced with divinity in all its majesty and glory. However, other scholarly interpretations of this verse also exist.

[myth-one.com]

In the book of Luke, Satan offered Jesus power over all the kingdoms of the earth if Jesus would worship Satan:

And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whosoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. (Luke 4:5-7)

So Satan rules the earth. But if God rules the entire universe, how does this "power" sharing work on the earth? Some hints are provided in Job:

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord ... (Job 1:6)

A meeting of the angels was held. And Satan attended:

And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. (Job 1:7)

Apparently Satan was not invited because God asked "What the hell are you doing here?" (paraphrased). Satan responded that he was messing with the earth -- as was his job. God takes a moment to brag about how His man Job is able to eschew evil and resist Satan's earthly influence. Satan responds:

Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. (Job 1:10)

Although Satan rules the earth on a day-to-day basis, God protected Job from Satan's harm. Thus proving that God can and does limit Satan's rule over the earth on occasions.

Satan dares God to remove His protection and see what happens. God agrees within limits -- and the trials begin.

[Bio-logical]

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord ... (Job 1:6)

A meeting of the angels was held. And Satan attended:

So this is you saying that sons of God means angels? I thought you said in Genesis it meant something different? This is where I was confused in the sons of god taking wives and having children from Genesis 6.

I think for the purposes of this study it makes the most sense to let the bible define its own terms and in this case, it clearly defines "sons of God" to mean angels.

[Heterodoxus]

I think for the purposes of this study it makes the most sense to let the bible define its own terms ....

Agreed, within reason, and in Job 1:6

• * Hebrew = בְּנֵ֣י ×”Ö¸×�ֱלֹהִ֔י×� = "sons of the Elohim" in WLC (cp. MT; does anyone not know to what these acronyms refer?);
  
  * LXX Greek = οἱ ἄγγελοι τοῦ θεοῦ = the messengers/envoys of the supreme Deity within Judaism and Judaism-influenced Christianity; and,
  
  * in the Christianized English seen in the KJV & modern Bible versions = "the sons of God"; i.e., angelic beings.

Caveat: allowing an English language Bible to "define its own terms" can misinform the reader.

[myth-one.com]

So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.

Death is the permanent cessation of all vital life functions. But according to the Bible, two separate and distinct "deaths" can befall mankind. The first and most obvious death ends our short one hundred and twenty year maximum life which we are presently living on the earth. Our second possible physical death is described in the book of Revelation:

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:14-15)

Individuals whose names are not written in the book of life after their resurrection and judgment are cast into the lake of fire and suffer their second death. Notice that this death is actually labeled as a death! That is, it is final and eternal. There is no recovery or return from the second death! This truly fits our definition of the word death. They will never live again.

When the first death of any man is discussed in the Bible, the words used to describe that event are sleep or rest. Only man, among all the animals is said to sleep, slumber, or rest when he dies. When Jesus raised people from the dead, He often stated that they were not dead, but simply asleep.

I believe this is the first occurence in this study where our first death is called sleep. We will see it often:

And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers... (Deuteronomy 31:16)

Once one understands the two deaths described in the Bible, it becomes easier to understand the scriptures. Words such as sleep, slumber, and rest generally refer to man's first death. Words such as die, death, and perish generally refer to man's permanent second death.

Job and Moses are now "Resting In Peace."

What does Job expect to happen when he awakens?

If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

He expects to be changed (or born again) as a spiritual being which will never die again.

[myth-one.com]

Mankind was created originally with only two differences between him and the angels! These differences are body type and knowledge of good and evil. Trees in the Garden of Eden represented each of these differences:

[mrow] Tree[mcol] Result of eating this tree's fruit [row]Tree Of Knowledge of good and evil[col]Ability to distinguish good from evil [row]The Tree Of Life[col] Eternal life -- A spiritual body.

Why does evil exist if God is good?

Man choose to eat from the Tree of Knowledge willingly. Thus mankind understood evil from that point forward.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Doing evil things generally produces bad side affects to others. This includes good people.

Why do evil people prosper?

They do not according to the Bible:

For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?

Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:11)

Why do suffering and death exist?

Man was created as a physical body. He could have eaten freely from the Tree of Life and lived forever. But he chose knowledge of good and evil against God's commandment not to do so. So man remains a physical body, and physical bodies suffer pain and all die by design. Pain is required as a sign that our bodies are being hurt and we should take action. At this point, man had become closer to the angels because he knew good from evil.

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (Genesis 3:22-23)

Mankind was separated from the Tree of Life so he could not become equal to the angels. Man did not deserve to become equal to the angels because he had already disobeyed God as the original angels had done. God did not want to be stuck with more rebels for eternity! Thus an age limit was placed on man and he remains on the earth to learn that his way of life is not the best way to live:

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Proverbs 14:12)

Under the New Testament covenant which will be created, man must believe and accept God's authority and leadership voluntarily as a prerequisite to being born as a spirit and living forever as the angels.