From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: Job and melodrama
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 00:43:41 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <rauser.711970637@sfu.ca> rauser@fraser.sfu.ca (Richard John Rauser) writes:
>[...]
>    As for the book being troubling for Christians, I don't see why it
>would. Job's faith is rewarded in the end. The book seems to me to be
>about the importance of faith even in the most desperate conditions...
>faith which is inevitably rewarded.
>

	I believe that anyone wishing to interpret biblical
	passages in support of one viewpoint or another needs
	to be extremely careful, and Job is a perfect case in
	point. The prose prologue and conclusion appear to 
	have a different author than the poetic midsection,
	and there are problems with the text itself: inconsistencies
	in Job's speeches and omission of Zophar's speech indicate
	the hand of later editors.  All this has important
	implications for exegesis, as you might imagine.

	Specifically, the portrait of Job in the prologue is,
	as [1](p548) says, "a model of piety," whereas in the
	body, "Job is anything but a paragon of patience."
	And Anderson[1] goes on to say:
		In the prologue, as we have seen, Job is a very submissive
		man who, despite the enormity of his misfortune, does not
		"sin with his lips."  But in the poems Job is a different
		person altogether.  His accusations are so wildly defiant
		that they must have appeared heretical to any orthodox
		Jew, which undoubtedly accounts for the fact that the
		third cycle of poems was rearranged and the Elihu speeches
		added. ...

>   Pretty troubling, huh?

	Now, an earlier poster mentioned that the BOJ poses difficulties
	for Xians.  If he is referring to Satan's wager with God, it
	seems to me that indeed this *does* pose problems for a biblical
	literalist.  But even here things are not as obvious as they
	appear at first glance.  Satan as here depicted is not your
	average sandwich-spread variety of devil, but rather a
	"prosecuting Angel," "in good standing in the Heavenly Council
	(see Zech. 3:1ff.) whose special function is to investigate
	affairs on earth."  And it seems (to me at least) that a God
	who abuses one of his subjects for whatever reason, and then
	makes it all better with temporal/spiritual rewards in the end,
	comes across as pretty arbitrary and childish.  One is very
	tempted to say with Ivan that:
		...I recognize in all humility that I cannot understand
		why the world is arranged as it is.  Men are themselves
		to blame, I suppose... So there is no need to pity them.
		With my earthly, Euclidian understanding, all I know
		is that there is suffering and that there are none 
		guilty; ...I know that, and I can't consent to live by it!
		What comfort is it to me that there are none guilty...
		-- I must have justice, or I will destroy myself.  And 
		not justice in some remote infinite time and space,
		but here on earth. ... Besides, too high a price is
		asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much.
		And so I give back my entrance ticket, and if I am an
		honest man I give it back as soon as possible.
		... Tell me yourself, I challenge you -- answer.  Imagine
		that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the 
		object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace
		and rest at last.  Imagine that you are doing this but
		it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only
		one tiny creature -- that child beating its breast with
		its fist, for instance -- in order to found that edifice
		on its unavenged tears.  Would you consent to be the
		architect on those conditions?  Tell me.  Tell the truth.

>
>   Sigh.

	Yeah.  Sigh.

	On related topics, there are two or three early works that
	are extremely similar to Job, and that the author(s) may
	have been familiar with.  I loaned this book out alas, and don't
	have it in front of me:  _Ancient Near Eastern Texts_, by Pritchard.

	I have heard that Job has been translated by Tolkien;
	can someone substantiate this rumour, and how is it?
	Also, how about suggestions for Special Introduction/Exegetical
	works on Job, and more modern takeoffs on it?  Anderson
	mentions a play by Archibald Macleish, _J.B.: A Play in Verse_,
	which I have not read.


[1]	_Understanding the Old Testament_, Third edition,
	Bernhard W. Anderson, 1975

>
>Richard J. Rauser    "Sonic 2!"

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu