by VorJack
Back when I was working in a small room with a fundamentalist – something I wrote about way back here – I found myself trying to make conversation about a religion that I hadn’t practiced for years. Fortunately, I had a fair bit of practice from my days in Catholic school and from my personal readings.
At one point during a discussion of the Bible, I mentioned how Job was probably my favorite book. My interpretation of Job comes primarily from what I’ve read from secular scholars and liberal Christians, so it tends to be different from conservative interpretations.
Responding to the Deuteronomist
Pullquote: In Job, God is a powerful and alien force that would rather talk about Its monsterous creations than our human notions of justice and righteousness.
First, Job is literature rather than history. The ancient Jews could write literature just as well as we can, and for many of the same reasons. Second, Job is a direct reply to the Deuteronomists who argued that God always punishes the guilty and rewards the good. Job flips that on its head by magnifying God. In Job, God is a powerful and alien force that would rather talk about Its monsterous creations than our human notions of justice and righteousness.
It’s not exactly a comforting idea, but at the same time it’s also liberating. On one hand, we cannot always expect justice or to be rewarded for our good works. On the other, we can know that the things that go wrong for us are not necessarily God’s judgement upon us. It answers the Problem of Evil by rejecting one of the premises: God is not good, at least in any way that humans can mean the word “good”.
When I tried to explain this to my co-worker, I got a blank look. “The thing I like about Job,” he said, “is that you get to see how God’s court works in the opening.”
If I were God, ignorance like this would be painful.
Giving the Authors Their Due
Pullquote: However I might feel about the author’s beliefs, I feel strongly that we should always keep in view what the author was trying to say – even if we then go on to reinterpret the writings.
The books of Job, Ruth and Jonah are literature that deliberately challenge ideas that appear in other parts of the Bible. Ruth challenges the ethnic purity requirements found in Ezra and Nehemiah by having David be descended from a scandalous Moabite. Jonah is a scathing satire that tweaks the Deuteronomist again. In Jonah, the Assyrians are redeemed, even though they destroyed Northern Israel and scattered the ten lost tribes. A modern equivalent would have to involve a fanatical Christian going to heaven and meeting Osama Bin Laden there.
It’s a testament to the Jewish respect for pluralism that these books made it into the canon to sit beside the books they refute.
But these readings run counter to the usual methods of literalist interpretation. First, it flies in the face of the assertion, per Josh McDowell and others, that the bible is thematically consistent. Obviously, if Job rejects one of the themes of the Deuteronomic histories then this cannot be true. Second, it runs counter to the notion that the Bible requires only surface readings and not interpretation. If biblical authors are working their messages into literary works, then some literary interpretation is necessary.
Finally, I think this kind of thing also challenges the literalist feeling that the Bible is meant for us, today. These works were written by a specific person in a specific time, and they confronting religious issues that were relevant to that time. The authors each have a point of view and they are trying to convince a certain audience. But acknowledging that complicates the idea that the Bible is the directly inspired word of God that is meant to speak to our current age.
By placing the work into this straight-jacket, they essentially force that author out of the picture. However I might feel about the author’s beliefs, I feel strongly that we should always keep in view what the author was trying to say – even if we then go on to reinterpret the writings. Doing otherwise robs the author of their voice and their identity.
So I think it sometimes falls to us – the freethinker, the unbeliever, the liberal Christian – to stand up and speak for the long dead authors whose works are being misused. As much as it may gall out atheist sensibilities, sometimes it is right to defend the Bible.
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36 Comments
How interesting.
I’d noticed this with my favourite book – Ecclesiastes. It always struck me that it contrasted starkly with the previous book, Proverbs, in which the core message was “if you do good things, good things happen to you; if you do bad things, bad things will happen to you.” I hated Proverbs for the same reason I loved Ecclesiastes – the former was filled with artificial assertions about how life was, while completely ignoring that life just doesn’t work out like that. The latter recognised that sometimes the good suffer and wicked prosper. It made me feel – it still does – that the writers of the old testament were willing to look at their faith critically, hold it up to reality and say “does it work? Is it true?” without being compelled to toe the party line.
I think it’s an important analogy in debates with those who believe that where observations about the world and what is described in the bible differ, the observations are always at fault – there are examples enshrined in the bible or people who made observations about the world and questioned whether the dogma measured up.
I too was surprised at the lack of mention of Ecclesiastes, the “most dangerous book in the Bible” (or at least the least orthodox). I have to say, I like Ecclesiastes much more than Job. While Job primarily disgusts me, Ecclesiastes fascinates me. And while Job is framed in a stupid myth about God betting against the Satan, Ecclesiastes is framed as an older man telling about his life to someone younger, perhaps his son.
Besides that, Song of Songs is an obvious mention for an unorthodox book. It’s basically just a collection of erotic poetry.
And of course the Book of Esther is an obvious addition in terms of “disputed books.”
For what it’s worth, the conservative interpretations of Job are not quite as ridiculous as the conservative interpretations of Ecclesiastes. At least Job has some passages that are difficult to interpret, a running dialogue between conflicting views, the presence of an angry god, and a more or less conservative frame story. On the other hand, the entirety of Ecclesiastes is essentially a critique of the rest of the Tanakh–not just Proverbs, but the whole thing, the whole idea of perfect knowledge. It rejects divinely inspired truth, an interfering god, a universally good god, the idea of a universal good, the continued existence of the soul, the importance of absolute obedience, and an absolute meaning to life. The only single exception is the last two verses of the book, which completely contradict the rest of it by saying (and I’m paraphrasing): “HAHAHA, DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS.” To be honest, I’m not convinced that part is authentic.
As much as I’d like to see various books of the bible put into a cannon, I think you mean “canon”.
Hey, great post. I wonder if you could point out some of the best reading you’ve done in this area, as I’ve had a deep interest in these kinds of literary approaches to the Bible since reading Jack Miles’ “God: A Biography” and “Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God”. Tangentially, I wish Miles (or someone else) would write something similar about the Qu’ran… that would be deeply fascinating.
I have always thought of Job as a protest against the Deuteronomic theology, which the priests used to enhance their control. So the impact was not just about a theological argument, but also about the politics of religious control. I wonder about the political aspects of the other protest works you cited, especially in the context of the Hasmoneans turning the religious establishment on its head?
Why waste a good argument over bad fiction?
I’ve always loved Job myself, but mainly because it’s a beautiful demonstration of how unpleasant the biblical God can be.
I’m not even talking about what happens to Job himself, really. Ultimately, despite all his trials, Job gets it all back, and lives to a great age in happiness. No, what I’m talking about are all those poor members of his family and servants – they’re all collateral damage! Splattered under a collapsed roof, as I recall, or kidnapped by bandits. And why?
To get at Job.
All they get is a few lines and quick burial.
This is a great point. I’ve honestly never thought about the book of Job in this way. Your perspective ties in to one of my big peeves with Christians: the whole “God is using this as a lesson for me” thing. Easy example: a plane crashes, killing all but one Christian passenger. The passenger says, “it’s a miracle! God has given me a big wake-up call about my life and His plan for me.”
The idea that humans are as replaceable as things. What loving parent, losing all their children, is going to me made whole by having a bunch more?
To be quite fair, that’s pretty much EXACTLY how people tended to think about children prior to the modern era. Child mortality rates were so high that parents deliberately avoided investing too much emotional weight in any one child, at least until they got to puberty and it looked like they were going to live.
But of course, Job, as I recall, had fully grown children with their own families prior to being squelched…which means he had to go through the process of raising new kids, and don’t forget about his poor wife…
Yeah, she had to take care of that little matter of giving birth to them.
Reminded me of my ex-pastor emphasizing “one wife” blessing of Job’s latter life.
Job’s wife told him to, “Curse god and die,” before leaving him. I don’t feel that bad for her.
Job has long been my favorite book of the bible – except for maybe Genesis (because the stories are so scandalous!) – but Job was my litmus test for preachers back in the olden days when I was a christian. If a minister tried to find a tidy explanation for Job that pointed to a loving concerned god – I knew the minister was an idiot. Job describes the only kind of god that makes any sense at all. A god who is god and who is completely random with cruelty and kindness. A god that makes no sense is the only god that makes any sense.
I love defending the bible against christians.
Begs the question: How much of the rest of the Bible is literature? And the parts that aren’t? What are they?
The latest non-ideological scholarship is trending toward the interpretation that ALL of the Bible is literature, typically of the propaganda kind: Inventing a mythical past in order to solidify control over the political present and future. This is more obvious in the Hebrew Bible, but also occurs in the NT.
I wonder how much of it can actually be considered historical. Probably some of the begats, and the conquests of and by various peoples. The rituals and laws, maybe.
Unless the “begats” were an attempt to claim ancient status for a (largely) fictional set of ancestors. The ancestor lists are contradictory.
Which conquests? Outside the Hebrew Bible, there is zero evidence for the Exodus or Joshua’s invasion of Canaan, not to mention nothing of substance for the period of the Judges. Only the invasions of Assyria and Babylonia and possibly Egypt come to mind.
Yeah.I was thinking mainly of Babylonia and Assyria. No evidence of conquests outside the Bible, eh? Interesting. There would indeed appear little in the Bible that could be considered historical. Then we should perhaps ask what kind of literature we are dealing with here. Folklore maybe.
I believe the writers/compilers/editors used available material, including folklore, myths from the ancient near east, remnants of ancient religious traditions, etc. But they did so in the service of solidifying the control of the Zaddokite priests and later the Hasmonean dynasty that supplanted the Zaddokites. I don’t believe that the economy could support the necessary scribal resources until the late Persian or Hellenistic periods, then the Hasmoneans needed to create a foundation myth that supported their position. This explains why so much of the Hebrew Bible consists of retrojection – dealing with current issues by pushing them back into a mythical past by giving them an historical veneer. This also explains why so many of the details of the “history” are wrong, much having been forgotten by the time the scrolls were written or finalized.
Then there are the wisdom books that don’t deal so much with myth or re-imagined history but with morals and principles of living, etc.
Wisdom traditions are probably the product of scribal schools, incorporating folk wisdom and influenced by Hellenistic sources.
Then there is the apocalyptic literature that laid the foundation for Christianity. Daniel was what we would now call a historical novel. I’m always amused when I hear preachers use it as proof that biblical prophecies come true. Much of what Daniel “predicted” (the course of empires) had already happened by the time of its writing some 300 years after the age in which it is set. And I think many of the preachers who use it this way know this.
Job is also my “favorite” book, because it shows — in ways that no other Bible book can quite match — how truly vile and reprehensible the Abrahamic God is. In it, he sets Job up to suffer enormously, without any justification (because by God’s own admission, Job is saintly) merely to make a point to “the Adversary” or “Satan,” and for no other reason. Then, when Job dares to state how wrong this is, God berates Job for being … well … the mere human being that God made him:
I’m not the only one who’s reached this conclusion … Bart Ehrman did, as well:
Believers have long considered Job to be a theodicy or reconciliation of how evil and suffering can exist if God is beneficent. It is, however, no such thing. In fact, it’s quite the opposite … an assertion that there is no explanation for suffering and, moreover, that human beings are not entitled even to ask for an explanation for suffering. You are supposed to accept that suffering exists, that it is good for you because God can do whatever he wishes to you at any time, and that one may never, ever dare question why.
I’m not quite sure how so many people have for so long managed to arrive at this conclusion, but they have. You will often hear apologists say that Job had been “rewarded” after his sufferings were over, as though that somehow makes what God did to him right. In truth, it does no such thing.
If I steal $100 from you, but later give it back, does that mean I never stole from you? No. What it DOES mean is that I made restitution for my theft. If I steal $100 but later give you $120, does that also mean I never stole from you? No, it means I not only made restitution, I compensated you for your trouble. In neither case have I “undone” the theft itself.
The same thing happened to Job. God arranged for the loss of his health, his property, and his family. That God gave him these things back, later, does not mean that these losses never occurred and does nothing to retroactively eliminate Job’s experience of having suffered.
While other Bible books show how vicious God can be, at least ostensibly he has reasons for having done some of those things. The global Flood, for instance, happened because “humanity was wicked.” OK, so that doesn’t tell us much about it … but it IS at least an attempt to explain God’s action. In the case of Job there is no “explanation,” beyond God’s wish to win a bet with Satan, and for his own entertainment.
As I said, vile and reprehensible behavior on God’s part. No other description applies.
PsiCop – I too was always troubled that somehow the idea that god gave Job a new family made up for the family that he lost. That is so disturbing. Any sane person would mourn the loss of their family forever, the new family would not make that grief disappear. It seems almost absurd that god gave job a new family at all. As if people are so shallow that they won’t even notice what they lost once it is replaced. It would have been a much better story if Job had gotten his former family back. Of course, a bit more difficult to accept, but in the grand scheme of the bible – not really that much of a leap.
What’s really odd about it all is that — as written — Job aligns pretty much with the prevailing and ancient-even-in-ancient-times assumption that humanity was made by the gods to do nothing except labor for the gods and that the gods can do to humanity whatever they wish, and without any backtalk from their creations. However, such a philosophy, now, should seem abhorrent by comparison, since modern religions, especially of the Abrahamic sort, presume a much closer, and even a “loving,” relationship between humanity and God.
Maybe Job had a theological purpose when it was written — as VorJack explains — and perhaps it might even have seemed reassuring, in a way, back then. But today? In our own world? I cannot see how or why any modern occidental reader would find any value in Job, at all. The God it speaks of is NOT a God that is owed even a microsecond’s worship by any rational, ethical being.
As long as xtians are willing to say the buybull is a collection of metaphors to help us live by and that some are not usable or out of date then GREAT do so I have no problem with that. And don’t shovel it down my throat as some “WORD of g0d BS.”
But joe & his technical dream coat was one of my favorite stories and so is Ruth but as you say in the article you have to DIG deep into the story to get it.
JOB also hit my favorite list when I read JOB: A Comedy of Justice by Heinlein.
@ trj: LOL!
@ David: sort of
I’m a scholar currently working on my thesis with the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I also work for the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute, so I’ve had my feet in the scholarly world for several years. FYI I am considered very liberal in my scholarship.
One of the real difficulties with young students, especially those inculcated in an evangelical system, is their inability sometimes to grasp the idea that ancient Judaism did not speak with a uniform voice. Sometimes kings are a good institution; sometimes not. Sometimes the Temple is a good institution (First Isaiah); sometimes not (Jeremiah). Sometimes the priests are a good institution; sometimes not.
Even among the priesthood there are all sorts of controversies and conversations presenting us with a variety of positions. I would even suggest that until you start coming to the realization that the Hebrew literature does not present one position it would be difficult to do any biblical scholarship on a macro-level. Which is why you see so many evangelical scholars doing nice, safe scholarship by counting the number of vav-consecutives in a book.
Any diachronic study of the books of the Hebrew Bible will always lead to differences and developments in the religion of the time; especially, post-exilic (5th cent. BCE and on) developments in interpretation, religious practice, and politics.
“I’m a scholar”
First clue…
Second clue?
WooHoo! I made the “us”! :)
Nice post, vorjack. I had a prof. in seminary who wrote a brilliant commentary on Job and comes to some of the same conclusions that you do. I tried to find it on Amazon but failed… I think you’d actually find it very interesting.
As much as it may gall out atheist sensibilities, sometimes it is right to defend the Bible.
I think it’s always a good idea to argue for good reading habits.
As Sundog pointed out: Job is a good example of Yahwehs cruelty and evil. Yahweh allowed Satan to murder Jobs family and give Job horrible a disease all to test Jobs faith. Its clear that Yahweh doesn’t care about Job or his family at all, the only thing Yahweh cares about is being worshiped. Job is a perfect example of the evils of the Judeo-Christian/Islamic god.
Job was my favorite book of the Bible for a long time. I came across my first “alternative reading” through a study I found online by Robert Sutherland called “Putting God On Trial,” (http://www.bookofjob.org/), where he frames the entire book as Job bringing a lawsuit against God. And I liked that take, because the standard interpretation never fit, especially since God (in the tack-on ending) says Job was right all along.
Then I went to college and took a class on the OT, and what really jumped out in that go-over was the so-called “patience” of Job, which is probably better interpreted “integrity.” The man is under extreme pressure of every kind to admit fault, any fault, to invent faults in order to exonerate God… and he doesn’t do it. It reminded me of those caught by Communist leaders and tortured to produce false confessions. That’s pretty much what’s happening here, and Job makes it. A guy that strong to hold to what he KNOWS in the face of severe psychological pressure to adjust what he knows… that’s amazing. That’s a role model.
The other thing that stood out in the college class was the ambiguous wording of the end. Christians, of course, love to point out that Job repents, but really, he does no such thing. You could just as fairly claim he says at the end, “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you; I reject, I change my mind in dust and ashes.” And at that point, what I heard was: “I had an idea of you: that you were loving, that you were good, that you were just, that you cared about me. And I hoped that you would prove me right in the end. But now I’ve seen your response. So I recant that former idea. I change my mind about you; with sorrow, I reject you.”
I really, really doubt that’s what the author of Job was trying to say – I don’t see it being a reasonable scenario to suppose the author was deconverting from Judaism or even a general theism. But at the time, I was, and Job became my hero.
Thank you for the kind words.
I think your initial reading of Job 42:6 is plausible, though not the one I endorse. Should you wish to pursue that line of thinking, you might profitable benefit from E. Good’s In Turns of Tempest. Good reads Job as repenting of repentance and abandoning God. He reads everything that follows (except God’s endorsement of Job’s speaking rightly) as tongue in cheek.
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