Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site topaz.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!topaz!hedrick From: hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Job Message-ID: <437@topaz.ARPA> Date: Wed, 30-Jan-85 00:40:25 EST Article-I.D.: topaz.437 Posted: Wed Jan 30 00:40:25 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 2-Feb-85 13:09:50 EST References: <5758@rochester.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 42 > A friend and I are currently reading through the Bible, and we started > with the book of Job. There are several passages that I am having > trouble with, and the overall message seems a bit puzzling. You really ask simple questions, don't you? Explain all of Job in a net news message, already. I suggest that you find a local University library and browse through some commentaries. If you want something very brief, take a look at the Oxford Annotated Bible. Briefly, much of Job is an attack on people who give "easy" answers to difficult religious questions. The major question is Job is the Problem of Evil (Why does God allow evil and suffering in the world, if he is so good and loving?), so the easy answers dealt with are mostly related to that question. The most common one is that if you are suffering you must have committed some sin, i.e. that suffering is a punishment for Sin. Job is also written in opposition to people who are sure that they know God's inmost thoughts, as several of his "friends" seem to think they do. I confess that I am not sure quite how to characterize the "answer" that Job is finally given. One thing is clear: It seems that God prefers someone who honestly grapples with him than someone who gives glib defenses. But the rest is not so obvious. It also seems likely that the author of Job did not believe that the "answer" to the problem of Evil was a purely intellectual one. God did not come down and give a philosophical answer. Rather, he confronted Job "man to man". One possible interpretation of this is that the only real answer to the question is to come to know God well enough that we trust him. Christian commentators tend to say something like "well, we know this isn't a completely satisfactory answer, but it is the best they could do before they knew Christ". I think that is a cop-out. Although Christians do have some new perspectives on the issue, it isn't as if a great solution suddenly becomes obvious once you become a Christian. If you are interested in the issue itself, one of the best discussions for the layman is C.S. Lewis' book (hmmm... the title escapes me: something fairly obvious with pain or suffering in the title). However this book includes some of the justifications that Job's friends used... By the way, one apparent problem with Job is probably not serious. Some people wonder how God could play games with Satan with men's lives at stake. Sounds like a bad science fiction. Unless you are a fundamentalist, you should probably think of the first and last sections of the book as a folk tale that was floating around at the time, and the majority of the book as sort of a meditation that was sparked by that story.