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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: The Book of Job and the value of human life
Message-ID: <1553@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Sep-85 22:02:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1553
Posted: Wed Sep 11 22:02:43 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Sep-85 07:02:33 EDT
References: <2225CJC@psuvm>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
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In article <2225CJC@psuvm> CJC@psuvm.BITNET writes:

>>>    Then read the Book of Job and consider the deaths of Job's seven sons
>>>and three daughters and of his very many servants - struck down not for
>>>any fault of their's, but merely for a petty show of power.

>>     You haven't read the book of Job or you would understand the valuable
>>     lesson that Job learned from all of it.

>Is Job's lesson-learning good and sufficient cause for the deaths of so
>many people?  Is this your value of human life, that it doesn't matter
>how many "common people" die, just as long as one of "God's chosen"
>benefits in some fashion?
>    It is possible to read an entire book and then concentrate on one
>part of it; I have done so often, and I have read the Book of Job.
>I don't see that he learned so much: if a "blameless and upright man"
>suffers greatly, losing all that he has, and then endures long tirades
>from his 'friends', then if he calls in desperation on his God, God
>will answer that He has all power and all knowledge and man may not
>question Him. *This* is a "valuable lesson" worth the lives of all of
>his children?

First, in Dan's defense: Job is quite possibly the most difficult book in
the entire Jewish canon.  Ms. Clark's retort doesn't even begin to scratch
the surface of what the book is about; the important question is: why THAT
answer from G-d?  I'd also add that one of points of the book is, after all,
that the morality of God's actions is at some level unquestionable by man.

Be that as it may, this whole discussion (and Dan's rather sanctimonious
answer) comes from taking this passage excessively literally.  If you had
never read Job before, and someone sat down and started reading it to you,
you would guess it to be a fairy tale, especially in light of it's
"once-upon-a-time" style of opening.  The whole point of the story is NOT
some historical witness to G-d, unlike (for instance) the book of Exodus.
The point of Job is to try and explain something of G-d's nature (even if
the explanation is rather unsatisfying).

Charley Wingate