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Interesting to compare with Tobit,
the other biblical theodicy.
Tobit: a comedy of Providence, ending in
marriage (classic comedic ending) and in
restoration.
Theme: "All that rises must converge."
Job: often compared to Greek tragedy. Everything
is restored at the end, but that ending feels
"tacked on." In what sense does the restoration
even matter in the context of what has gone
before?
For if Tobit is a vindication of the traditional
idea of distributive justice, Job is a much more
radical confrontation with the problem of evil
in extremis.
Job--scene
Job as a Samuel Becket character--sitting in the
ashpit (Gahenna), scraping his sores with a
piece of a broken pot--he himself the ultimate
"broken vessel."
Man in Sheol
Clearly broken by God's permission (any doubt of
that blown away by prologue).
Job's wife: "Curse God and die."
Perhaps a literal suggestion.
But also the archetypal expression of the
rejection of the seemingly unjust father; the
temptation to render oneself (like Milton's
Satan) "self-begotten."
If God is not good, why worship him?
As Camus wrote: in the face of the world's
manifest evil there are only two possible
responses: that of faith and that of revolt--two
views a fine line apart, and yet representing a
"great divorce."
Job's comforters start out ok: seven days of
silence (the length of a kind of un-creation).
Job does not curse God, but he curses the
handiwork of God--his own birth and life.
Question: Why are we tempted (3.11 - 12) to turn
our profoundest blessings into curses; our
moments of deepest joy into illusion? Why are we
comforted by songs like "Dust in the Wind" and
books like Ecclesiastes?
Here the Bible comes the closest it ever comes
to Buddhist detachment (3.16 - 19): dukkha calls
for absolute detachment from desire. And the
ultimate desire is the desire for life.
Yet the Hebrew solution is not the Buddhist
solution--quite. Job desires deeply, and it is
his desire (to see God, to meet his redeemer)
that will save and vindicate him. Nothing else.
Job -- the dialogue
1. First set of speeches, chapters 4 - 14
a. Eliphaz (chapter 5): "Misery does not grow
out of the earth" (5.6 - 7): you must have done
something wrong; there has to be a reason this
has happened.
Why do we do this?
Think about the idea that death and life,
wickedness and goodness are all one.
When we're down, it's consoling. What about when
we're up?
b. Job's first reply (chapters 6 - 7).
The concrete misery of hospital food (6.5 - 7).
Concrete plea: "Look at me!" (6.28).
I'm weary and sick; life is but a breath--and
death is forever (7.9 - 10).
"Be not to hard for life is short, and nothing
is given to man."
Ironic quotations of Psalm 144.3 - 4 and Psalm
139.1 - 12 (7.17 - 20).
c. Bildad (chapter 8): "Does God pervert
justice?" (8.3).
"If-then" thinking: If you've sinned,
if you
repent . . .
But notice: Bildad is pitting logic against the
facts of Job's case.
d. Job's second reply (chapters 9 - 11)
God is omnipotent and omniscient (9.1 - 5).
Nonetheless, "I would speak without fear of him,
for I know I am not what I am thought to be."
True no one is wholly blameless, but who can
confess imaginary sins? And who can call
God to
account? (9.19 - 24).
Yet Job will make his case to God (10.1 - 3;
20 - 22).
e. Zophar (chapter 11): "Can you find out the
deep things of God?" (11.7)
Note the irony: Zophar goes on to tell Job what
God is thinking--"God exacts less
of you than your guilt deserves" (11.6); and
what Job should do (11.13 - 15).
f. Job's reply (chapters 12 - 13).
Crux of the "comforters'" problem: they are "the
voice of the people" (12.1)--of standard,
garden-variety, clichéd wisdom (like a Greek
chorus in Euripides or Sophocles).
Pat rationalism and sit-com thinking vs. the
openness to actual, empirical experience
(12.2 - 10).
Job here actually defends God against their
thinking (taking Zophar's first point literally,
as
Zophar himself does not). See 12.13 - 16, 13.20:
"He deprives of speech those who are
trusted,/ and takes away the discernment of the
elders."
Job's business is with God--not with fools.
Wisdom is closer to silence than to speech
(as Job himself will have to learn). See 13.5
and 13.13.
Job lays out the ground rules for his
arraignment of God (13.19 - 24).
g. Job's case against God begins (chapter 14).
1. Humankind's transience (1 - 2).
2. Human limits of perspective (5 - 6).
3. The cycle of nature vs. terminal man (7 - 12).
4. Maladapative (absurd) hope (19 - 20).
5. Our ultimate isolation in death (22) -- the
place where Job now is.
2. Second set of speeches, chapters 15 - 25:
Intensified, wounded piety.
a. Eliphaz 2 (chapter 15): "Should the wise
answer with windy knowledge?" (15.2 - 3).
"The wicked writhe in torment all their days"
(15.20).
Bitter conclusion (aimed right at all of Job's
losses) -- 15.34 - 35.
b. Job's reply (chapters 16 - 17).
"Miserable comforters are you all!" (16.2).
Comforters have become accusers (16.8). (Who is
the great accuser in this story?)
Social effects of misery and misfortune (17.6).
God will be Job's refuge (16.19 - 21).
Notice Job's growth here in confidence in his
own existential experience, as opposed to
conventional religious "truth."
c. Bildad 2 (chapter 18).
A powerful indictment of the wicked and a
powerful picture of the wicked man's fate (18.5,
18.9, 18.13 - 21). Really a picture of the
archetypal Cain.
Only one problem: it doesn't apply to Job!
(How often do we apply platitudes when we cannot
comprehend the concrete situation
before us?)
*d. Job's reply (chapter 19) -- most important
chapter in the dialogue.
1. Granting everything, the silence of God
(19.1 - 10).
2. Job's plight (19.14 - 20) -- and his escape "by
the skin of [his] teeth."
3. His need for compassion (19.21 - 22).
4. His need for vindication (19.23 - 24).
5. His great affirmation (19.25 - 27) -- c.f.
Handel's Messiah.
e. Zophar 2 (chapter 20) -- actual non-sequitur to
Job's speech.
Problem: eagerness to speak ("My thoughts urge
me to answer . . ."), 20.2.
Question: why is Zophar "insulted"?
Rest of the chapter, another indictment of the
wicked.
f. Job's reply (chapters 21 and 24)--two sides
of the coin.
Chapter 21 -- how the selfish flourish (21.7 - 13;
23 - 26).
Chapter 24 -- how the poor are oppressed (24.1 - 12)
and how others get away with their
oppression (24.14 - 15).
Job's challenge: to look at reality (21.1 - 6;
24.25).
3. Third set of speeches, chapters
25 - 31 -- wounded piety becomes actual accusation
of Job.
a. Eliphaz 3 (chapter 22).
Actually charges Job with wickedness (22.6 - 10).
He must find causes for effects. Why?
Job's ideas, like Socrates', are dangerous. Do
you begin to see why Socrates was executed
for
"impiety"?
b. Job's replay (chapter 23.3 - 7) -- trust in the
judge who will acquit him. He, unlike the
wicked,
wants to see God. That alone is the
essence of his righteousness.
c. Bildad 3 and Job (chapters 25 - 27).
Man as a worm. Bildad driven nearly to nihilism.
d. Job's final apologia (chapters 29 - 31).
1. His righteous life (29.1 - 25).
2. His current state (30.1 - 31).
3. His "if-then" challenge to God (31.1 - 40).
God's reply from the Whirlwind, chapters 38 - 41.
1. New ground rules (38.1 - 4; 40.6 - 9)).
2. Account of creation, with set pieces on
Behemoth and Leviathan (40.15 - 24; 41.1 - 34).
Question: what aspects of the creation does
Yahweh stress? How homocentric is this
creation?
Who is it "for"? (Contrast this creation account
to Genesis 1-2.)
Resolution, chapter 42.
Job's repentance, 42.1 - 6.
God's judgment of the "comforters," 42.7 - 9.
Notice what is vindicated: honest inquiry.
Yet both honest inquiry and pious assertion both
ultimately silenced by God.
Epilogue, 42.10 - 17.
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