The Book Of Job Religion Essay

Job is impossible to accurately day of the month. Careful surveies of the Hebrew vocabulary and syntax found in the book have demonstrated that it was probably composed sometime after the 7th century B.C. , though this estimation is unfastened to a instead broad border of mistake. A individual called ‘Job ‘ is mentioned twice in the book of the prophesier Ezekiel, aboard Noah and ‘Danel ‘ ( Eze 14:14, 20 ) . This does non needfully intend that Ezekiel was written after Job, since a fabulous figure named Job-and one named ‘Danel’-were set characters in the literature of several ANE civilizations.[ 1 ]It is interesting to observe that non a individual historical event or mention is mentioned anyplace in Job ; this makes a finding of its day of the month and puting all the more hard. Surely the book of Job is non set in Israel, for it is said that Job lived in ‘the land of Uz ‘ , to the E of Israel ( see Job 1:1-3 ) . ‘Uz ‘ is used as a topographic point name merely one other clip in the bible, in Lam 4:21, where it is connected with Edom. It is possibly best understood as a fictional name for an anon. foreign scene. Beyond this small can be said about Job ‘s day of the month or location, and this is no uncertainty the manner the writer intended his account-it is a narrative of cosmopolitan import, widening across the boundaries of any peculiar state or civilization.[ 2 ]

One Precursors:

One finds in Babylonian literature of the mid-to-late 2nd millenary B.C.E. a singular heroic poem narrating the ruin and revival of a adult male which along wide lines parallels the narrative of Job, and which may hold served as an inspiration for the much later Hebrew heroic poem.[ 3 ]‘The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer ‘ Begins with the writer praising Marduk, one of the main Babylonian Gods, for his wisdom and Providence. The writer rapidly moves into a relation of how he lost all that he had when the Gods abandoned him, and when his fellow Lords plotted against him.

The ‘righteous sick person ‘ falls to such a lowly province that even his former slaves mock him. If this is non plenty, he develops unwellnesss which ravage his organic structure and leave him despondent and paralyzed with confusion: he wonders how the calamity which he was sing could bechance a adult male like himself who so readily worshipped the Gods and offered all of the right forfeits. In the thick of these sentiments the ‘righteous sick person ‘ asks a inquiry which practically every homo being has asked over the millenary: ‘Why has this happened to me? ! ‘ In researching the significance of his quandary the ‘righteous sick person ‘ anticipates the ailment of Job made some thousand old ages subsequently, every bit good as the obfuscation of every individual who has of all time encountered unmerited adversity or test. The response which the book of Job provides, as we will see, goes beyond the bounds of ANE faiths and reveals a God who is transcendent-and who is of all time near to those who suffer.

?©O??‚??O??Y and the Heavenly Court:

Sing ‘satan ‘ as mentioned in Job 1:6-12 ; and 2:1-7, we note that this was originally a common noun, ( ‘the antagonist ‘ , ‘the accuser ‘ ) , bespeaking an office. The Promotore della fede, normally called ‘the Satan ‘s advocator ‘ , dramas such a function in the procedure of the blessedness and canonisation of individuals in the Catholic Church. In ulterior times ‘Satan ‘ came to be understood as a proper name, as it has long been treated in the Christian head ( i.e. , Satan = the Satan ) .[ 4 ]

( Satan in the Heavenly Court – from a late fourteenth century French Bible )

i? Class treatment on theodicy[ 5 ]i?Y

‘God admits [ in Job ] that there is evil and pandemonium in the universe. He does non eliminate it but contains it within certain boundaries, merely as he contained Leviathan and Behemoth, the great aboriginal pandemonium monstersaˆ¦.The existence is a self-contradictory universe where the regular and the unexpected, the good and the bad, the successful and the suffer coexistaˆ¦.Death and life are elaborately united in a rhythm of growing and decay, pleasance and hurting. The guiltless do endure unjustly in a cosmic order where natural Torahs and constructions operate without repeated Godhead break. Those who do good and act righteously are non needfully rewarded in this universe either by direct godly compensation or by the necessary operation of built-in natural lawsaˆ¦.the rule of retaliatory justness is repudiated in three contexts: the message of the prologue, the experience of Job, and the reply of God. ‘[ 6 ]

‘ [ Onlookers to the horrors of history frequently demand “ Where is God! “ ] aˆ¦among those who are immersed in the fearful world [ of horror and enduring ] the consequence is non infrequently merely the antonym: it is exactly so that they discover God. In this universe of agony, worship has continued to lift up from the fiery furnaces of the crematoriums and non from the witnesss of the horror. It is no accident that the people who in their history have been the most condemned to enduring, who did non hold to wait for 1940-1945 to be in “ Auschwitz, ” besides became the people of disclosure, the people that have known God and made him seeable to the universe. And it is no accident that the human being who has been the most stricken and has suffered most-Jesus of Nazareth-was and is revelation itself ‘ J. Ratzinger, Dogma and Preaching ( Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1985 ) , 35-36.

The Narrative:

‘ [ Job ‘s ] married woman said to him, “ Are you still keeping to your artlessness? Curse God and dice. ” But he said to her, “ Are even you traveling to talk as mindless adult females make? We accept good things from God ; and should we non accept evil? ” Through all this, Job said nil sinful ‘ ( Job 2:9-10 ) . Job is stunned by his undeserved agony ; his married woman ‘s rough words forecast the ‘wisdom of the universe ‘ which Job ‘s friends will try to foist on him.

‘Reflect now, what guiltless individual perishes? Since when are the unsloped destroyed? ! ‘ ( Job 4:7 ) . [ images of Miguel Pro / Auschwitz / 9-11 / Famine ]

( Job 5:8-27 ) The simple-minded position of God ( Joel Osteen et Al. ) : this is the frequently popular apprehension of God-aˆ¦gosh damn it! aˆ¦God wagess good people, and punishes bad people! ( for illustrations of this kind of idea from the oral cavities of Job ‘s ‘friends ‘ see Job 15:15-35 ; 18:5-21 ; 20:4-29 ; and 33:1-33-also see Prov 2:20-22 ; 3:33-35 ; 6:12-15 ; and most of chapter 10, among other transitions ) .[ 7 ]When an unexpected calamity work stoppages this mentality comes crashing down, and people lose their religion. Job ne’er adopts this facile point of position. ( See Job 13:3-8, 18-19 and 21:23-34: ‘One dies in his full energy, entirely at easiness and content ; His figure is full and nourished, and his castanetss are rich in marrow. Another dies in resentment of psyche, holding ne’er tasted felicity. Alike they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both. Behold, I know your ideas, and the statements you rehearse against me. For you say, “ Where is the house of the baron, and where the brooding topographic point of the wicked? ” Have you non asked the wayfarers and do you non acknowledge their memorials? Nay, the evil adult male is spared catastrophe when it comes ; and on the twenty-four hours he is carried to the grave. Who will bear down him with his behavior to his face, and for what he has done who will refund him? Sweet to him are the balls of the vale, and over him the funeral hill keeps ticker, while all the line of world follows him, and the countless others who have gone earlier.[ 8 ]How so can you offer me conceited comfort, while in your replies perfidy remains? ‘ ) [ discussionaˆ¦ ]

Job acknowledges his guilt, but he insists that his present catastrophe is non due to his ain wickedness, ( Job 7:20-21 ; 9:21-24 ) , and he seeks to ‘reason ‘ with God: ‘But I would talk with the Almighty ; I wish to ground with God ‘ ( Job 13:3 ) ; ‘If he should kill me, I will wait for him ; I will support my behavior before him. And this shall be my redemption, that no impious adult male can come into his presence ‘ ( Job 13:15-16 ) ;[ 9 ]see besides ( Job 23:1-7 ) .

Job ‘s attitude before God-‘Know so that God has dealt below the belt with me! ‘ ( Job 19:6 ) -astonishes his equals, with their deuteronomistic mentality: ‘This is the part of a wicked adult male, and the heritage appointed him by God ‘ ( Job 20:29 ) .[ 10 ]

His eyes begin to open to the ultimate reply to his predicament: ‘But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that he will at last base Forth upon the dust. From my flesh I shall see God ; my inmost being is consumed with yearning. Whom I myself shall see: my ain eyes, non another ‘s, shall lay eyes on him ‘ ( Job 19:25-27 ) .[ 11 ]See besides Job 28:1-28, where Job relates to his friends that adult male ‘s wisdom is foolishness in God ‘s eyes. See Isaiah 55:8-9.

Job is still befuddled, disputing God to happen mistake with him, but he senses that his ain head can non penetrate the enigma of God ‘s ways: ‘But what is adult male ‘s batch from God above, his heritage from the Almighty on high? Is it non catastrophe for the unrighteous, and suffering for sinners? Does he non see my ways, and figure all my stairss? Let God weigh me in the graduated tables of justness ; therefore will he cognize my artlessness! ‘ ( Job 31:2-6 ) .

After Job ‘s three friends have concluded their addresss, Elihu, ( interlingual rendition: ‘He is my God! ‘ ) , a immature adult male[ 12 ]who had accompanied them, responds in choler to Job. In Elihu ‘s head Job has been highly chesty and is meriting of the penalty which he has received. Exegetes have observed that Elihu ‘s fulmination serves as a kind of toothsome, ‘orthodox ‘ reply to Job ‘s tragic predicament.[ 13 ]In fact God has a surprise in shop for Elihu and his three comrades. For the first clip in the narrative God speaks-thunders-from the celestial spheres, and establishes through a series of powerful images that he and he entirely is the Lord, whose wisdom and justness can non be challenged by anyone ( Job 38:1-40:2 and 40:6-41:26 ) .

In a dramatic intermission between these two Godhead discourses, Job admits to his folly in holding even begun to oppugn God. It is of import to observe that God does non admonish Job for protesting his artlessness, but instead for asseverating that God had been in the incorrect in non delivering him from his problems: ‘Will we have reasoning with the Almighty by the critic? Let him who would rectify God give reply! Then Job answered the LORD and said: Behold, I am of small history ; what can I reply you? I put my manus over my oral cavity.[ 14 ]Though I have spoken one time, I will non make so once more ; though twice, I will make so no more ‘ ( Job 40:2-5 ) .

( ‘Le Silencieux ‘ – Paray-le-Monial )

Job now realizes his mistake-and his limited but legitimate wisdom: ‘I cognize that you can make all things, and that no intent of yours can be hindered. I have dealt with great things that I do non understand ; things excessively fantastic for me, which I can non cognize. I had heard of you by word of oral cavity, but now my oculus has seen you. Therefore I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes. And it came to go through after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “ I am angry with you and with your two friends ; for you have non spoken justly refering me, as has my servant Job ” ‘ ( Job 42:2-7 ) . In a remark which illumines this decision to the narrative of Job, Edward Schillebeeckx wrote: ‘Assuming that “ enigma ” does non intend a impermanent ignorance refering things we can non explicate, but involves acknowledging that the world in which we live is non an innovation of adult male ‘s head and therefore transcends us, it becomes apprehensible that this inability to explicate world indicates its transcendency ‘ .[ 15 ]Puting the ‘mystery ‘ in footings of Godhead love the exegete J. C. McCann observed: ‘By its rejection of the traditional theory of requital, the Book of Job reveals a God whose kernel is love, and therefore a God who suffers with, for, and on history of world and the universe. ‘[ 16 ]

What so to state about enduring? All peoples seek some sort of theodicy-an account for the evident nonsense of human agony and misery-and over the centuries of human history greatly changing responses have been made to this demand.[ 17 ]Read Tobit 2:10-3:6, Ps 73, Isa 53:3-12, and Luke 13:1-5 for some biblical efforts to cover with the inquiry of agony and injustice-and so look to the Gospels for the unequivocal Christian reply: Resurrexit, sicut dixit! aˆ¦ ‘Look at my custodies and my pess! – know that it is I! ‘ See besides the beautiful sentiments of 1 Pet 2:19-25.

But what does Job learn us? He knew from the start that the deuteronomistic morality of his ‘friends ‘ and of Elihu was indefensible. Job hunts for an reply throughout the class of his agony, and despite the extent and continuance of his parturiencies he remains certain that there is an reply. Though he does non happen consolation in the deuteronomistic positions of his former comrades, neither does he reject the religion in the one true God upon which such morality rested. Instead-and this is the Southern Cross of the matter-Job ‘show [ s ] other trusters how theyaˆ¦could rebellion against and doubt some of the deductions and simplistic applications of their spiritual rules and still stay true trusters ‘ .[ 18 ]Job finally avoids hopelessness by admiting his ‘littleness ‘ before the stateliness of God, and he is able to cover with his experiential angst through his new-found apprehension of God and God ‘s ways-this is what several of the wisdom books ( Sirach, Qoheleth, Wisdom ) attempt to make in different ways, each in response to a peculiar crisis of belief or cultural and spiritual context.

A Few Patristic Notes:

The Testament of Job is an apocryphal Judaic work of the inter-testamental period, preserved in Coptic, Greek, and Old Church Slavonic versions.

Job was cited as Bible by Christians already in the first century: 1 Clement makes five mentions to the book. Job was a favourite of St. Jerome, who made an fastidious Latin interlingual rendition of the Hebrew original, of St. John Chrysostom, who cited the book more than 300 times, and of the Benedictine Pope St. Gregory the Great, as seen in his Moralia in Iob.

Some Contemporary Contemplations:

William Blake, Illustrations of the Book of Job ; Kafka and Josef K. in Der Prozess ; G. K. Chesterton, An Introduction to the Book of Job ; Elie Wiesel, The Trial of God ; and Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life: Ecclesiastes-Life as Vanity, Job-Life as Suffering, Song of Songs-Life as Love.

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On Job as a book for contemplation on supplication, choler, and forgiveness, see Job 3, where Job curses his birth-pastoral application for confession. Note analogues with certain transitions of Jeremiah, Lamentations, and the Psalms.[ 19 ]

Compare Job 38-42 with Habakkuk on the inquiry of the agony of the inexperienced person.

Comments on the Book of Job:

Ellen new wave Wolde, Job ‘s God ( London: SCM Press, 2004 ) .

Carol Newsom, The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003 ) . ( Interesting essays on Job as a literary work )

John Hartley, The Book of Job NICOT ( Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995 ) .

John Course, Speech and Response: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Introductions to the Speeches of the Book of Job ( Washington: CBA, 1994 ) .

Leo Perdue and W. Clark Gilpin, The Voice from the Whirlwind: Interpreting the Book of Job ( Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992 ) .

Norman Habel, The Book of Job ( Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985 ) .

Marvin Pope, Job Anchor Bible ( New York: Doubleday, 1965 ) .

S. R. Driver and G. B. Gray, The Book of Job ( New York: Scribner ‘s, 1921 ) . ( Old but good )

The Agony of the Innocent

( Baylee Almon – Oklahoma City – April 19, 1995 )

( Child-Victim of Famine in Sudan )