I was always struck by the idea that Job lost his family and later God replaced them and everything was fine again. Obviously the writer has never lost anyone close to him. There's always a hole in your heart.
Not true....there are 40 chapters of pain....the issue is perspective....the finite meets the infinite. This is the perspective most people miss since they cannot comprehend it. Job personally met it.
In ancient times infant mortality was very common. It was not difficult to come up with the idea of having more children to make up for the lost ones. Regardless, it was a very easy way of ending the narrative and not entering into complications.
Spare a thought for Mrs Job. All the pregnancies and natural births. She was bereaved of her children like Job was. When, in the immeasurable grief and desolation she asked why Job didn't curse God to get things over with, she was called a fool. And when Job's fortunes and family were restored she had to go through all the pregnancies and births again. Just because God and Satan had a little wager about a man's loyalty. To me, that is pretty bloody callous...
Jobs wife was one of the people I used to look forward to meeting in Heaven. I’m no longer convinced there is such a place, so I’ll just have to invent our conversation I guess.
@@1bengrubb We usually perceive pregnancy in ancient times through the patriarchal male perspective. I'm sure that, just like today, pregnancy back then occurred in a wide variety of circumstances: in some of them, it would be viewed as a blessing; in others, it would be viewed as very burdensome and unfortunate.
@@1bengrubb Try going through 20 pregnancies as fast as humanly possible and see what a blessing you think it is. I expect some of the children came from concubines or slaves though.
@@lawsonj39 no...family was just more important in that culture than ours. A big family was status---for the woman as well---she viewed the world through the patriarchal male perspective.. Replacement rate was something like 6 kids. A big family was a fortress, an economic engine, source of connections, the commenter is just ignorant of the culture. All through the bible children are a blessing never a burden. Happy is the man his quiver full. The first command "be fruitful and multiply" defines the culture.
I wouldn't go that far, but I do love it. In a world of culture wars, genocides, and ecological destruction, it is such a treasure to find a small space for intelligent discussion between two respectful and empathetic people.
@@tryme3969 I would say there's a good case for thinking that our knowledge that we are mortal (and the subsequent repression of that realisation) is indeed the major driver of our beliefs and perhaps the reason why we developed culture in the first place. In that sense death has shaped all our lives. It's a complicated story though...
JOB is not giving us the full story. He said "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me." What did Job before Satan came? "In the days of my youth, when the SECRET OF GOD was upon my Tabernacle." Job is the oldest book in the Bible, and it's mysteries are very deep. Job 31:35 (31+35=66 book bible) "If my adversary had written a book, I would surely bind it as a crown to me." There is a lot more to say, but people respect a scholar, they don't respect an Esotericist.
Why? Suffering is a part of life, and the book of Job helps teach us that not everything seems just all the time, but we have to trust in the process, and everything does have a purpose.
@@jacksonray3596 if you went through what job went through and you knew the petty reason God killed your entire family, would you still believe in a just God?
@@jacksonray3596 Apart from the story of Job and other killings ordered by God in the old testament, the most difficult part for me to believe in a just God is hell.
I appreciated Bart's honest and accurate show of anger against - and disapproval of - God in his assessment here of the Book of Job. This is one of the first times I have seen Mr. Ehrman come flatly out in a revealed display of anger against God, and this is helpful and emboldening for me to do the same.
Not being a theist that was my attitude to Job. But then I'm thankful to Christianity because at age of 15 I went to a church for the first time and I became an atheist before the end of the service.
There’s a very funny episode in the second season of the wonderful show Good Omens that depicts the Job story, including angels perplexed that Job doesn’t seem too thrilled to hear God will be replacing his dead children with more children as a “reward.”
I just saw that for the first time last night. Funny, witty and intelligent. Then this afternoon I get this video in my You tube feed. Coincidence, or AI algorithm at work? I'm convinced it's the latter.
I really struggle with this book of the bible. Job is destroyed with God's consent...basically in a deal with Satan...and when Job wants to know why, he's treated abysmally. How can you not be absolutely terrified by a God like that? How can a person honestly love a God like that? He terrifies me.
I think it’s important to start with an all loving god created a Very Good creation out of his love and created humans as sharers, helpers, and participaters in this divine creation. God gifts humans with free will. We are immature and fall. As we fall god grants us grace to save us. Suffering from illuminates and intensifies as we fall further from grace to keep us from losing ourselves completely. That’s not to say “kids with illness is to glorify god”. I would say that is a tragic consequence of the fall and we are able to recognize that as awful bc we inherently know they good in which things should be.
@@tookie36 - "The fall"? I'd say that it is Christianity that fell. Even in a legend like this, how can anybody else possibly be culpable for some perceived fault of Adam & Eve? What a terrible religion these tales spawned!
Putting aside the theological implications of God killing Job's choldren and then giving him new ones like it's all good, the sociological inference is really disturbing. There was a time when wives and children were resources.
22:00 Bart "... its really a troubling view of sufferings" aaaaaahhhh now we can feel the leftovers of Bart's personal frustrations, anger, confusion with suffering. Great struggle!
God replacing Jobs wife and children sound harsh (which it is) however, if you see them as possessions, non people, minor slaves, it changes the perspective.
@@anthonycraig274 Except that's not how the Bible treats losing children elsewhere. When Jacob believes Joseph was killed, he grieves bitterly and later on it's said that losing Benjamin would outright kill him. So no, children were not treated like mere possessions. I mean, if they were then God wouldn't even bothered with the whole "sacrifice Isaac" thing.
Job’s original children were *replaced* as if people are fungible. Some people think the author is unusually callous, but it seems that the biblical view, and maybe the most of the culture’s view, of children was like this.
Reminds me of Lincolns second inaugural address where he attempts to find meaning in the Civil War: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
_I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things._ Isaiah 45:7 This thing about the children - I also find it deeply disturbing. Job is an ancient text; could this be before the Israelites thought of God as being able to raise the dead?
totally agree. I don't think job had the concept of life beyond this one....making the death that much more tragic.. once he met the infinite death takes a different perspective
Arguably the Hebrew Bible doesn't include an afterlife, or the idea of resurrection except under very special circumstances. This was a later development and only really one or two of the most recent books (e.g. Daniel) include any reference to these ideas.
30:50 Bart "....god will bring horrible suffering on you in order to see if you remain faithful.." is there worse suffering than the death of your child? Is there a worse god that would give permission for your children to be killed? What if that god told you to kill your only child that you have prayed and waited for? What kind of God is this? Gen 22:2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom you love, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. From this Jesus said Jn8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.... what in the world is god doing to our minds???
Job seems to me to be a reflection of ourselves when it comes to suffering. Was there something i did to cause it? Can i remain a good person in the face of tragedy? We can do all the right things but still be struck down by the randomness of life. If we continue to uphold our principles through hardship, we have the possibility to regain what we've lost as long as we don't lose sight of who we are. People turn to substance abuse, for example, when life beats them down. By doing that, they spiral into a bottomless pit and end up in a hell of their own making. Holding tight to your morality may, at the very least, keep you from making things worse and possibly coming out a better person on the other side. That is my takeaway.
I agree its about handling pain and suffering with an outlook to hope. To be a parable it has to be the most extreme example. I dont think job is happy his kids are dead but there is chance for light on the other side of the tunnel. Kids died all the time back then, it was in humanities interest to mourn but then hope and try again
Without a God, we see things as random- life just happens. This book is literally saying the opposite, that bad things are happening intentionally. Suffering because someone wills it against you is different than a random tragedy striking.
@amyrenee1361 You are right. The intentional suffering we bring upon each other is the most evil of all. People conspire with the dark side of themselves to bring tragedy to others.
Some people don't even notice these materials are not a continuous story. They read like robots, not paying attention. I noticed the book was discontinuous, like a collection of writings on Job, the very first time I read this book as a young adult (I had not read it in my childhood).
25:00 This always made me think that the message is people are replaceable, which I also found disturbing. I grew up hearing this story a lot, and it never made sense to me and always made me uncomfortable.
God brought suffering for a bet, didn't tell Job then has a "Who are you to question me? I will answer none of your questions" Classic gaslighting manipulator. Why couldn't he just say "I was testing you to see your faithfulness" which...he should know...because he's All Knowing... And then his wrath burns against the friends who've been fed the party line and spout it but he's angry bc they said what he says happens after you sin? The book of Job has never made sense to me
Because is hard for us to accept that this is not God but a very evil I would say satanic entity. Not God hence it makes no sense. But it makes sense if job is speaking to the devil.
I don't think it's to be taken so literally. It's about how God/unbound-mind is NOT meta-conscious enough to reflect back to us like that; it does what it does because it is what it is. And that's, ultimately, okay. It leads to great suffering from our dissociated POV, but there is a bigger picture.
The book of Job works fine as a meditation on why good people suffer in a seemingly uncaring world. It works very differently when apologetics start getting tied into it because it paints god as as a sociopath who will kill your family to prove you really love him.
I'm not a bible scholar. I do have a doctorate in clinical psychology, so that's the lens through which I look. After hearing and reading the views of non-apologist bible scholars for the last several years, here is what I personally believe. Given the people who came to power around the time of the bronze age collapse were most probably the most violent of warlords, they were probably akin to what we'd think of today as narcissists and psychopaths. We know sometimes humans were deified in the cultures of that time... and I suspect violent narcissists would have loved being deified. And if, as a lower status person, you had such a powerful warlord on your side, protecting you from other warlords, you probably became enmeshed with your own warlord's views and desires. If you didn't acquiesce to his demands, you'd either face his violent and capricious whims, or possibly lose his protection against other warlords. Over time, I suspect these types of power dynamics just became cultural norms. At some point we could use the modern construct of Stockholm Syndrome as a model for how lower status peoples would interact with their local strongman. To my way of thinking, this bronze age and post bronze age way of life was the context in which we happened to inherit our idea of who God is. So yes, when trying to contemplate why there is suffering in the world, and why we might lose control to outsiders, etc, at that time, they would have to reason based on these cultural memes and dynamics. Why do we suffer? Because we didn't do a good enough job of appeasing capricious warlords/gods. That's why. 🦋🧡🦋
@@jasonnelson316 - definitely, and don't forget drunken stepfather. Who else would create the cosmos and every creature within it but not build a fence around his two favorite trees and then blame the kids?
I suggest reading Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts by James C. Scott. Contrary to the Marxist insistence on "false consciousness", or convenient recapitulation of the life of a people in the culture bound frame of psychoanalysis, the empirical evidence suggests most subalterns are aware of their interests, and are not "gaslighted", "enmeshed" , or "fused" with respect to their self. Job is unlikely to be a moral homily devised by the elite of the time since it deals with an elite man in context. Rather, it deals with reality; unmediated, existential reality 21st century life experiences - to borrow from your argot- only as reaction formation.
It seems like the introduction is chronically overlooked. It starts with Job presuming the guilt of his sons and explicitly without any actual knowledge of it. Eventually, Job is confronted with being inescapably on the receiving end of that thinking, he handles it badly, and eventually claims to know the real whole truth even better than God. So, God slaps him down with how Job has never had all that knowledge he thinks he has and never will. Job repents for his presumptive thinking, confesses that he himself shares the deficiency he accuses of others, and repents. The whole gift of kids as restoration does seem weird to us today, but remembering conversations about family size with my rural ancestors while they still lived convinces me that it was not so strange not so long ago.
If you read any modern commentary on it, or even just read the introduction to it in an academic annotated Bible (say the Oxford Annotated Bible, or the Oxford Jewish Study Bible) it's one of the very first things that it will mention.
The way Job gets new kids to replace the old ones makes me think it's a clue that the writer was not a parent, like maybe he was some kind of celibate priest or similar, because he didn't comprehend how horrifying a compromise that would be in actual reality.
@@7bag7 no what I'm saying is you have to take in so much information to really understand what's going on. Job 29 tells us how much he loved his kids.... And at the very beginning of the book they are adults and he's still watching out for them. Job is exactly the same as we are today and the story is presenting all that....
@@russellmiles2861 no no you have to think beyond this life. Death is not the end of existence and that's what Job learns in his exchange with God. His kids are not dead he'll see them again. Job in his mortality gains the perspective of eternal life. His whole perspective shifts. The pain of his loss is still there but now he knows it's temporary
I would never believe as someone who doesn’t believe in god, the stories of the bible, etc would be listening to this. However, seeing it as classical literature, it changes everything. I may even consider buying Bart’s book about memory.
I remember reading this Bible book and thinking that Satan actually won the bet. Job ultimately lost hope and basically accused God of wrongdoing and upheld his own innocence. Maybe that's not exactly "cursing God to his face" but it's pretty close. And then God's only response is a tirade about how powerful he is and how that makes Job automatically wrong, which is the behavior of a child or narcissist who is losing an argument. I don't believe the writer ever stated that God won the bet. I don't know that God is necessarily even supposed to be the good guy in this book, given that it has almost nothing to do with the rest of the OT or the Hebrew religion anything is possible.
Thank you for the podcast and for these important insights. That said 😂 36:43 this was a fascinating section that really reminded me that our human mind is made up of different neural networks (or “thought patterns”) and each of them kind of have their own different feel to them and a different logic on what is important at that time and why etc. There are a lot of therapy systems that use this “parts work” perspective to make sense of your internal impulses and drives, both the positive ones and the ones that start out good but may eventually get in our way. When you think about it we just seem to fluidly switch from one part of our psyche driving the bus to the other. We just may call them our moods, our family or work selves, our inner critics, our inner children (that sometimes naturally bring to our mind contradictory ideas and emotions within our self) but in the end it just seems to be the natural way our physical “though machine” operates. It really is pretty interesting
So we have more faith in God than he has in us. And instead of giving us reasons for testing us, it's just a bunch of hot air and bullshit and threats. Pretty weak stuff, God
Got to hear a really interesting talk from Dr. Richard Middleton, from Northeastern Seminary, about Job, during my undergraduate. It's nice to get another scholar's perspective. One of his essential claims was that the speech from the Whirlwind is critically misunderstood as a fierce backlashing reprimand when it should instead be understood as an uplifting invitation from God encouraging a bit of talking back. I may be misremembering though, it was nearly a decade ago.
Maybe Job should be understood as a thought experiment exploring the nature of free will as it relates to faith. Then it all culminates by juxtaposing a temporal perspective with an eternal one, giving a final evaluation of the merits of faith vs nihilism.
we had a whole class on this in my uni. it was called "suffering and the plague" lol and the academic advisors always had a chuckle at that one. also read a lot of camus
The lesson I learned from Bart ehrman and other theologians is never ask ANY question if you want to to keep your faith. Don't ask how bible came about, don't ask history of christianity, don't ask origin of trinity etc. You'll do pretty well.
I could not wait for this discussion. I feel that Job is the most profound book in the old testament. When I was a freshman in college, my humanities prof said that Job was a contest between god and satin. I was appalled. After listening to Bart's analysis, I have a better understanding of this book after 50 years. The one thing that keeps coming to mind is whether the Jews of Europe fell back on this book during their persecution under the Nazis. I somehow wish that this was brought into Bart's discussion and analysis of Job.
~19 minutes - The conversation about God testing Job, and Jews and Christians as an answer to suffering. If God is all-knowing, why would he need to test anyone? He already knows the outcome. If he knows the outcome, and inflicts suffering on someone he knows will be faithful anyway, isn't that cruelty?
Hell, it does not stop there: The New Testament has another sociopath torturing and murdering his begotten son to expel the sins of man. HOW BLOODY CRUEL and EVIL the father is. Even Abraham did not kill his son. The NT is based on a blood lust that has poisoned mankind for 2000 years.
at 32'53".....we see something extremely rare: Bart's true feelings of exasperation at religious dogma; he's the consummate professional and balanced academic 99% of the time but I LOVED it when he asked rhetorically (of the person who lives blissfully without ever questioning the proposition that suffering is the will of G@d and that we shouldn't engage our faculties on the matter) "how human are you?" This was a brilliant episode that really got to the heart of the matter!
The four noble truths provide a solution to the problem of suffering. The reason why we suffer is because the universe is constantly changing, and our attachment to things can not keep up. There are things we can do as humans to lessen suffering, and this is to live compassionately towards self and others. To live compassionately we must cultivate our mind by overcoming harmful thoughts, habits, and behaviors. This should be the point of all religions.
Thanks & as a Christian who's studied & learned much from Buddhism, the 2 systems have much in common & can complement each other IMHO. For more, see Sermon on the Mount & Thich Nhat Hanh's book, Living Buddha, Living Christ
Indeed, this is the point of the Book of Job. At the start, Job has no compassion. He admitted that he only did good in order to maximize his riches and reputation. He mocked people behind their backs and covered it up when people called him out so that no one would believe the accusers. He put homeless employees out on the street because he thought they were too dirty. He emotionally abused his children, and did not respect his daughters on the same level as his sons. At the end of the book, he gives his daughters an inheritance on the same level as his sons, even though he is not duty-bound to. He does it out of love.
The story of Job's is often criticized because it ignores his emotional attachment to his children, as though they were objects (like a tent) that could be replaced. There is another theological side of the Job story that I have never seen discussed. Job is a worthy human being in God & Satan's sight but his children are disposable objects. Are his children not also God's creations who deserve to have a relationship with God as much as Job?
From an "analytic idealist" point-of-view, I'd argue that the Book of Job is showing us how unbound mind (God, in religious symbolism) is not a meta-conscious agent but rather an instinctual one, behaving how it does because it is what it is. That makes it unique in major religious canon, as far as I'm aware. Great stuff as always, thank you Bart and Megan!
JOB is not giving us the full story. He said "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me." What did Job before Satan came? "In the days of my youth, when the SECRET OF GOD was upon my Tabernacle." Job is the oldest book in the Bible, and it's mysteries are very deep. Job 31:35 (31+35=66 book bible) "If my adversary had written a book, I would surely bind it as a crown to me." There is a lot more to say, but people respect a scholar, they don't respect an Esotericist.
Bro what does any of that Yap even mean 😂😂 tf is a meta conscious agent?? What is an instinctual one??? And what is an unbound mind?? There’s nothing instinctual about God ( your unbound mind) making a decision to fuck with Job. When anything acts instinctually there is no conscious decision been made. Instinct isn’t a thought. It’s an action. God was either testing job or punishing job so how is that an instinctual conscious mind? Please help me understand stand
@@Malik-lf6zj - God keeps saying how incomprehensible he is to a human mind like that of Job, how much beyond understanding and definitely not to be controlled or held accountable in any way. Lukas reflects that in common modern idiom, nonsensical as it may seem. But who are we to say what makes sense to a creature such as God?
Always wondered if Job hadn't originally ended at 42:11, right before he got everything back like it never happend. It feels very tacked-on, like someone hated that it didn't have a happy ending, and didn't care that adding one kinda defeated the point of the story.
The book of Job seems similar to the movie 'Trading Places' where the the rich brothers bet a dollar on how one guy will respond to sudden adversity and another to sudden fortune.
I always took the message to essentially be that "stuff" happens. Same with the saying about the rain falling on the just and unjust alike. Admittedly, I only ever knew the basic story.
Job's wife is the book's most intriguing character in my opinion. She had to be affected as well, especially losing all of their children, but she basically leaves it to Job and his friends to hash out why all this is happening. "Curse God and die" she says before leaving the scene. She seems alienated from Job's God; she's not involved in the cycle of debates, she doesn't even seem interested in the subject. Is it because she knows she has no place in all this because she is a woman? It's all God and Job and I suspect it always has been even before these events. So, denied the ability to participate, she goes about her own way. While Job and his friends are sitting and arguing on the ash heap, there is work to be done. The damaged house needs repair, the crops need replanting, animals need to be replaced, food has to be cooked, clothes need washing and mending, and the men certainly aren't doing any of this. I can see her heading for the storm cellar when the Tornado God shows up; she knows that it is a waste of time to argue with it because all it does is go round and round and destroy things. She is a lot like Benjamin the Donkey in Animal Farm: life goes on, regardless--badly. I think it is interesting that the Lord "gives" Job ten more children to replace the ones he lost--children do not just pop out of nowhere, so where did they come from? Was she a willing participant in the process of creating new children or was this just one more thing she had to put up with? Or did Job start over with a new wife (or wives) as well? I also think it is interesting that Christian apologists who defend how Job's friends responded to him completely miss the verse where the Tornado God tells them, "I am very angry with you because you have not spoken the truth about me the way my servant Job has." So he is agreeing with Job that he is everything that Job has said about him. The authors of the Book of Job knew exactly what they were doing when they made God appear as a tornado; it's not a random choice. Quite frankly, I am surprised that the book made it into the canon of either the Jewish or Christian Bibles; it's a really subversive text that does not portray God in a flattering light. I once challenged a Christian friend to show me where in the Book of Job it says that God loves him. Oh, but God does, he loves everyone, she said. Then show me where it says that. Show me where the word love appears. I'll get back with you, she said. I'm still waiting.
She really doesn’t appear in the book at all. I mean you can say you as a feminist find the lack of her presence to be a very interesting topic, but she is not the most interesting character, she can’t be when she’s barely alluded to
@@HkFinn83 First of all, you are making the assumption that I am a feminist. You don't know that. You are basing this assumption on my being a woman and sympathizing with this character. Secondly, why shouldn't her absence from the story be significant? Sometimes it is what is not there that may be the most important detail--I believe there is a famous Sherlock Holmes story that is built around this concept.
I played one of the counselors in a production of "J.B." by Archibald MacLeish. The play doesn't (as I remember it) do anything to resolve the troubling aspects of the book. I'm afraid I missed a few that you described here in my re-readings of the book itself. What a cluster! Yes, a very disturbing set of ideas. But what awful friends the "counselors" were...
Question: what happens when one adds an eternal perspective to the authors? The apocalyptic perspective may not have developed for a few centuries more after this was written, yet the poetry contains one of the clearest references to resurrection in the Bible. And the imputation of righteousness to his children from Job's faith exercised through sacrifices, although that is neither endorsed nor criticized, what is that? From a perspective that is not solely temporal, if Job expected to see his children after he was resurrected, wouldn't it be a blessing that he was granted more? In effect, his children were doubled in eternity, just as his cattle were doubled on earth -- a point that appears to be deliberate by the "miscount" of blessings.
I wonder if the writers/compiler of Job weren't trying to refute the theory of karma or fate or something like that which may have existed contemporaneously
Job and Ecclesiastes are the two books of the Bible that come the closest to "telling it like it is." That's the reason you'll rarely hear priests and pastors and rabbis quoting scripture from them.
One of the reasons among many that I'm an atheist, and if there is a god, it's a cruel being, and i want nothing to do with it. Like he knows Job did absolutely nothing wrong. And then comes down on him for questioning his actions of cruelty. It's literally a story of an all powerful being gaslighting someone. Just to prove a point.
But if there is an All powerful cruel God. What does you not wanting anything to do with it even mean? If that being really is cruel it can force you to be with it for a literal eternity and not wanting to do anything with it means absolutely nothing in every sense of the word
@@Malik-lf6zj I totally agree with this sentiment, you would worship it out of pure self interest. I do think the Bible and the Quran depict this deity as evil, but if an evil deity is our god, then it would be in our best interest to worship it. Clearly the injunctions in both mandate believers to commit evil deeds by any normative definition. The atheist is not someone who says I do not want to worship evil, the atheist is one who says that natural error and contradictions within both the Bible and Quran clearly demonstrate that those who wrote these texts were neither omnipotent nor omniscient and therefore cannot be inspired or dictated by a deity with these qualities. The god of the Bible and the god of the Quran cannot exist.
@@1bengrubb well yes. you keep inserting "infinite" into your arguments but you don't seem to realize that this is also negates all of your arguments. if your God is infinite than it's no issue for him to "stop everything to respond to job". if your God is infinite then he already knows the outcome of this petty, disgusting game he's playing. it's a faulty argument.
Job knows the truth, that he has not sinned, that he is devoted to God, and is not deserving of his mistreatment, and God says, who are you to say that? So, man cannot know truth?
I think Job is the greatest book in the Bible. I understood it to say that we can never understand God or do anything to affect him so why try? Who or what God is or isn't, wants or doesn't want, isn't our business or concern; just be the best you, stick to your ideals. That was my takeaway as a teen and I still like it. Especially useful with pesky born-again types.
Isn't the point of Job that no matter what reasoning you might come up with at the end of the day might makes right and their god is the mightiest therefore is the most righteous? He can be bet with the adversary, he can just decide to test you, he might be bored, or maybe you did something wrong. Doesn't matter.
Is this the same God that's omniscient? And the devil knows that he cannot lie. So they don't have to perform the experiment. God can just tell him-- No actually if we did that he wouldn't curse me so we're done. Oh by the way, I think things are going to be getting a bit warmer for you this Fall. Job is the oldest book in the Bible. It sounds like this is back when El was still just one of the Elohim and not yet quite so all pervasive. Honestly, I think the Elohim were never the same after they replaced God with that headbanger Al-Baqarah. And the solo stuff he did afterwards always just rubbed me the wrong way.
Yeah, even when I was in highschool and going to Sunday school, I had problems with the idea that Job's children were replaced as if that was no big deal.
From the age of 12 to 18 I was a member of Job's Daughteers, the teen girls organization of the Masons. Every initiation we told the story of Job. I see now it was just the narrative and none of the poetry. I can still recite parts of it by memory., and I'm 73.
Anyone who has lost a child knows that having another child does not ease the pain of loss. This book of Job conveys a cruel god who uses horrific pain to prove a point.
no....god personally appears to job to ease the pain of his loss....this is an incredible story of god meeting a man in his pain....you have to dig a little deeper than just the words---there is sooo much going on here
@@1bengrubb But God caused jobs pain and suffering by making a wager with his own special enforcer. Almost like an abusive spouse. I love you so much I have to hurt you to help you be strong. God is the ultimate gaslighter. I’m sure the authors of job did not intend for the reader to get caught up in the duplicity and seeming sadism of god in the narrative, it was a different time but for this reader it stands out quite clearly.
I think there is also a societal intent in the Job narrative. It's saying, in effect, that if someone is down on their luck or inflicted by a disease, they aren't necessarily on God's bad side, or guilty of some sin. Only God knows. It is a sin however to think that you know that someone else has sinned in the eyes of the God just because of someone's personal circumstances. So, in the day to day workings of a society you're allowed to think kindly and support those who are in pain or in need. Their suffering doesn't mean they are cursed by God, by default. It might simply be a test (or even a whim) of the deity. However, if you judge them harshly that can raise the ire of the deity. So don't do that.
Does the Book of Job say that God is omnipotent or does it merely say that he is extremely powerful? Not having actually read it, a fortiori memorized it, I can’t say, but I’d wager it does not call him omnipotent-if only because omnipotence is an abstract, philosophical idea, and the story is concrete and particular.
He "use" a world wind because it is not a real story. Is just a literate piece to convey certain ideas of God, suffering and so forth. Job did not exist either. Is a character in a drama. Just it. Is amazing how several critiques speaks as the story was true... Is a piece of writing that try to convey certain ideas (god or bad)
Way back in University, I wrote an enormous work I titled, Bargaining with the Devil: A Game Theoretic Analysis. One of the chapters was on the Book of Job. From memory (this was 40 years ago) the conclusion was that given the strategies and outcomes (in matrix form) God would continue testing Job until God runs out of ways of testing Job. My conclusion was that Job finally begins questioning God’s action when the only thing left to take from him is his Wife. Who, up until then, had been left conspicuously untouched.
Spare a thought for Mrs Job. All the pregnancies and natural births. She was bereaved of her children like Job was. When, in the immeasurable grief and desolation she asked why Job didn't curse God to get things over with, she was called a fool. And when Job's fortunes and family were restored she had to go through all the pregnancies and births again. Just because God and Satan had a little wager about a man's loyalty. To me, that is pretty bloody callous...
@@johandelen1838 Good thing it’s only a story. The interesting question is why would such a story be created? What is it about the circumstances in which the author(s) are living that such a story is designed to address?
@@kencusick6311 I agree with you, it is a story, in my mind it is a parable. It is a story meant to convey a truth or to give information. Judging by the end of the story , God knew from the beginning that Job wasn't as perfect as he could be and allowed a situation to develop to expose some flaw in Job that wasn't obvious to anyone but God and maybe also Elihu. It is evident that Job comes to a self awareness at the end, that the whole episode was designed to elicit. It appears to me that Job had some error in his thinking that God was correcting. It seems to me that God knew Job meant well even if he didn't fully understand God. It seems to me that God was using Satan, who was also misreading Job, to create a situation to get Job's attention to increase and improve Job's self awareness, which seems to have been that Job didn't actually know as much as he thought he did, that he, Job, didn't actually have the full picture, quite. I think the comforting thing about the story is that we relax and trust God to do his good work in us, and bring us to where he wants us, our own failings not withstanding Him.
I was thinking about this story recently. The story of Job seems to me to be a Jewish take on what the Greeks do with bad things happening to well off people. Usually the gods get jealous or ruin that person because they desire them. In Job it seems that a prosecutorial being does that job and god welcomes it in weirdly boastful attitude.
Nothing in the book of Job indicates that it's by or about an Israelite (or Judahite). It's almost certainly a story picked up (with minimal editing and adaptation) from Mesopotamian or Persian sources during the Babylonian exile. THAT's why it seems so out of place in the Tanakh...
It's funny, I was 7, at religion school, and asked the exact same question to my cathecist about Job's children, as if the deaths of the original set was even meaningful. :D My cathecist didn't know how to answer, by the way.
You are looking at the story of Job from a modern perspective. Back when the story of Job came into being, at least 50% of babies died within their first year. What effect did losing half of your children have on people? And was this part of the reason for Job? It could be part of the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of his son, Isaac.
You are looking at it from a modern assumption. How do you know what they felt back then? Isn't every individual within a time period different? Can't we all just agree that what was done to Job was wrong?
@@amyrenee1361 The question is, why was the Book of Job written, and where was it written? Up to 80% of the Old Testament was written down during and immediately after the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century. What effect did this have on how Job was written? Was Job written as a way to tell the Israelites not to lose faith after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC, and their years in exile?
With all due respect to Dr. Ehrman who's fogotten more theology & early church history than I know, the views he expressed about the Book of Job's ending lacking a unified theme & message is not predominant in mainstream schlarship. Please review the commentary & notes in recent Oxford Annotated Bible.
@@1bengrubb Thanks & again with all due respect to Dr. Ehrman who sometimes reminds me of a reformed alcoholic in his skepticism aimed primarily at Scriptural literalists; something like a former drinker who wants nothing do with alcohol. IMHO there's another path between the skeptics & literalists where we can treat the NT as having some historical value even if not a historical document. Dr. Michael Bird I think does a good job with that & was recognized by Dr. Ehrman as "learned" even if the 2 disagreed.
It’s an odd God that’s portrayed in Job. He’s not an attractive character at all, he’s neither reasonable, nor kind nor even good in any way that we would think of nowadays.
To me, the authors forgot god was supposed to be all knowing so for god to wager with Satan on whether job would stay faithful comes off as cruel and sadistic. The question of suffering that this narrative is supposed to answer ends up being an indictment against god. All nonsense anyway.
The Book of Job , and the God therein , are both abominations, imho. As is just about everything in the Old Testament…..btw, Bart’s book “God’s Problem” is so great….all about suffering and how it’s not possible to understand why there’s so much of it on this planet…cannot be reconciled with Christianity or the Jewish God of the Old Testament.
why I love Neil Gaiman's version in Good Omens season 2... oh, yeah... these are totally NEW children. They're not the original children, those are gone for sure!
I always enjoy your videos. However, this one on Job does not sit comfortably with me. There are subtle nuances in the Book of Job that you do not take into account. After the dialogue between Job and his friends, God blames the friends for not speaking right of God as Job did. God did not dismiss Job's position entirely. In the great poem of God's speech, the principle of causality is undermined - making room for mystery and paradox. In logic and traditional theology, the principle of causality and its theological equivalent retribution are seen as the foundation of 'meaning'. Here and in the book of Ecclesiastes this view is challenged. However, the world is not surrendered to total chaos. The central motives in God's speech are procreation and nourishment, indicating that God is trustworthy although He is not predictable.
Sometimes the point of a story is what is not said, or what is not asked. Job demands evidence of his sins/wrong doings from God, which is the same as demanding evidence of God's existence. God confronts and speaks to Job after this inquiry. God is displeased, but that is irrelevant to Job, Job still got what he desired from his original demand, which is proof of God's existence. The point of the story of Job is not given directly in Job, the point comes down to one's own inner view. The point of Job is to consider: If everything was taken away from Job and Job demanded evidence of his sins from God, but God did not respond to Job. Ask yourself: What would Job have done then? Would he remain pious and praise God? Would he stop believing in God? Would he curse God? Would he believe in God but think God is faulty or not completely righteous? Would he do as his three friends suggested and strive to find sins in his own behaviour, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant? Whatever ones' view of how Job would behave through God ignoring Job's demand is the point of the story of Job.
I mean what you're saying isn't accurate at all. Job does not ruminate on his doubts of the existence of god. He is ruminating on his doubts on the morality of god's seeming judgement of him. Job rightfully has to assume god is judging him for something and job wants to have counsel with him to plead his case that he doesn't deserve this. So what does god do? God shows up and basically shows what a monster he is and how little he cares for job or anybody else beyond what job or anybody else can do for him in worshipping him and praising him. God then rewards job for his utter submission in the face of his horrible cruelty. It's an awful story.
@@nunyabusiness9056 I never said Job runinates on his doubts of the existence of God. BECAUSE as you said, God shows up. You missed the point entirely. The question is: What would Job have done if God hadn't showed up?
It's all rhetorical...none of the events happened in real life, it's a manufactured story... Job had to repent because it was necessary for the plot of the story...
@@DarwinsStepChildren I didn't miss anything haha. Demanding evidence of ones sins isn't demanding evidence of the existence of god. You're just flat out making garbage up lol. If i get interrogated by the police and they suggest i did something wrong, i might ask them for evidence i did some wrong doing. I"m not doubting the existence of god. You're twisting yourself in knots here to be an apologist for this story lol.
@@nunyabusiness9056 You still haven't answered the question: What would Job have done if God hadn't shown up? If you wish to say mentioning the police and stating someone is twisting themselves in knots answers this question, then you didn't miss anything.
Either God was right and Job did NOTHING wrong, meaning that his true reward for obedience should have been being left alone OR Satan was correct, making God imperfect. Satan WAS right to the extent that God felt the need to reprimand Job towards the end of the book. EDIT: It's all ridiculous from the start anyway. A bet to see what will happen? God is...GOD. He ALREADY KNOWS what will happen.
JOB is not giving us the full story. He said "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me." What did Job before Satan came? "In the days of my youth, when the SECRET OF GOD was upon my Tabernacle." Job is the oldest book in the Bible, and it's mysteries are very deep. Job 31:35 (31+35=66 book bible) "If my adversary had written a book, I would surely bind it as a crown to me." There is a lot more to say, but people respect a scholar, they don't respect an Esotericist.
JOB is not giving us the full story. He said "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me." What did Job before Satan came? "In the days of my youth, when the SECRET OF GOD was upon my Tabernacle." Job 31:35 (31+35=66 book bible) "If my adversary had written a book, I would surely bind it as a crown to me."
That's somewhat misleading. It IS in all likelihood a very old story - almost certainly from ancient Mesopotamian sources (though almost certainly not as old as, say, the flood narrative adapted from Mesopotamian sources and imported into Genesis at around the same time). But it's a very late addition to the writings section of the Tanakh. Its inclusion dates back to - at the earliest - the Babylonian exile, if not the Achaemenid Persian period.
Bart's claim that the Book of Job was written in the 5th or 6th century B.C. is highly suspect, and your presentation that Job is the OLDEST book in the Bible, written even before Moses' Pentateuch, is quite likely correct.
To say that God tested Job would imply that 1) God can't see inside someone's mind and 2) God can't see the future.
Great question! OBVIOUSLY god is after something else! oh the depths of the infinite
its' also curious that Satan does not know this about humans at this point..
I was a JW and we were taught that there were things god prevented himself from knowing
@@cygnustsp but the only reason to do any test is to see what happens.
@@hamobu right, so god decided not to read Job's heart or see the future, he left everything up to Job and Satan.
I was always struck by the idea that Job lost his family and later God replaced them and everything was fine again. Obviously the writer has never lost anyone close to him. There's always a hole in your heart.
My thoughts exactly.
Not true....there are 40 chapters of pain....the issue is perspective....the finite meets the infinite. This is the perspective most people miss since they cannot comprehend it. Job personally met it.
@@1bengrubb senseless suffering to make a point. This is Hellenistic thinking. This will always be an issue with thinking people.
If humans can't comprehend then why this stupid test@@1bengrubb
In ancient times infant mortality was very common. It was not difficult to come up with the idea of having more children to make up for the lost ones. Regardless, it was a very easy way of ending the narrative and not entering into complications.
Spare a thought for Mrs Job. All the pregnancies and natural births. She was bereaved of her children like Job was. When, in the immeasurable grief and desolation she asked why Job didn't curse God to get things over with, she was called a fool.
And when Job's fortunes and family were restored she had to go through all the pregnancies and births again.
Just because God and Satan had a little wager about a man's loyalty.
To me, that is pretty bloody callous...
What do you mean"Go through the births again"?.... Being pregnant was a blessing back then..... Perhaps not today
Jobs wife was one of the people I used to look forward to meeting in Heaven. I’m no longer convinced there is such a place, so I’ll just have to invent our conversation I guess.
@@1bengrubb We usually perceive pregnancy in ancient times through the patriarchal male perspective. I'm sure that, just like today, pregnancy back then occurred in a wide variety of circumstances: in some of them, it would be viewed as a blessing; in others, it would be viewed as very burdensome and unfortunate.
@@1bengrubb Try going through 20 pregnancies as fast as humanly possible and see what a blessing you think it is. I expect some of the children came from concubines or slaves though.
@@lawsonj39 no...family was just more important in that culture than ours. A big family was status---for the woman as well---she viewed the world through the patriarchal male perspective.. Replacement rate was something like 6 kids. A big family was a fortress, an economic engine, source of connections, the commenter is just ignorant of the culture. All through the bible children are a blessing never a burden. Happy is the man his quiver full. The first command "be fruitful and multiply" defines the culture.
This podcast has changed my life
Mine too. For the better !
I wouldn't go that far, but I do love it. In a world of culture wars, genocides, and ecological destruction, it is such a treasure to find a small space for intelligent discussion between two respectful and empathetic people.
Will your death change your life?
@@tryme3969 I would say there's a good case for thinking that our knowledge that we are mortal (and the subsequent repression of that realisation) is indeed the major driver of our beliefs and perhaps the reason why we developed culture in the first place. In that sense death has shaped all our lives. It's a complicated story though...
JOB is not giving us the full story. He said "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me." What did Job before Satan came? "In the days of my youth, when the SECRET OF GOD was upon my Tabernacle." Job is the oldest book in the Bible, and it's mysteries are very deep. Job 31:35 (31+35=66 book bible) "If my adversary had written a book, I would surely bind it as a crown to me." There is a lot more to say, but people respect a scholar, they don't respect an Esotericist.
Reading Job as a young Christian opened up so many questions. Looking into Job helped close the door on Christianity for me.
Good for you. It's nicer out here in reality, isn't it?🙂
Why? Suffering is a part of life, and the book of Job helps teach us that not everything seems just all the time, but we have to trust in the process, and everything does have a purpose.
@@jacksonray3596 if you went through what job went through and you knew the petty reason God killed your entire family, would you still believe in a just God?
@@alvinyong9370 I’m not going to pretend like I understand everything. There is so much we can’t comprehend. Yes, I would still believe in a just God.
@@jacksonray3596 Apart from the story of Job and other killings ordered by God in the old testament, the most difficult part for me to believe in a just God is hell.
I appreciated Bart's honest and accurate show of anger against - and disapproval of - God in his assessment here of the Book of Job. This is one of the first times I have seen Mr. Ehrman come flatly out in a revealed display of anger against God, and this is helpful and emboldening for me to do the same.
Job: what have I done to be punished?
YHVH: Fuck you, that’s what.
😂😂😂😂😂
Is god Donald Trump? His party has only one platform: F_ck you!
😂
Very good question....job violated the first commandment
Not being a theist that was my attitude to Job. But then I'm thankful to Christianity because at age of 15 I went to a church for the first time and I became an atheist before the end of the service.
There’s a very funny episode in the second season of the wonderful show Good Omens that depicts the Job story, including angels perplexed that Job doesn’t seem too thrilled to hear God will be replacing his dead children with more children as a “reward.”
Best episode of season 2 by far.
"Apparently I need to create a whale"
I was just coming here to recommend that. Love that series
I just saw that for the first time last night.
Funny, witty and intelligent.
Then this afternoon I get this video in my You tube feed.
Coincidence, or AI algorithm at work?
I'm convinced it's the latter.
Sounds like an interesting show. I'll have to watch that when my wife is away. I think she'd have a stroke watching it.
I wish the whole series was actually just those Bible snippets! Id love to watch just that and the running commentary.
I really struggle with this book of the bible. Job is destroyed with God's consent...basically in a deal with Satan...and when Job wants to know why, he's treated abysmally. How can you not be absolutely terrified by a God like that? How can a person honestly love a God like that? He terrifies me.
I totally agree!
I think it’s important to start with an all loving god created a Very Good creation out of his love and created humans as sharers, helpers, and participaters in this divine creation. God gifts humans with free will. We are immature and fall. As we fall god grants us grace to save us. Suffering from illuminates and intensifies as we fall further from grace to keep us from losing ourselves completely. That’s not to say “kids with illness is to glorify god”. I would say that is a tragic consequence of the fall and we are able to recognize that as awful bc we inherently know they good in which things should be.
And an Omniscience God doesn't know what is going to happen ... can't really loose the bet. Gotta feel story for Satan
@@tookie36 - "The fall"? I'd say that it is Christianity that fell. Even in a legend like this, how can anybody else possibly be culpable for some perceived fault of Adam & Eve? What a terrible religion these tales spawned!
@@MossyMozart Christianity def fell. Everyone wants to use God for their own glory. The irony would be funny if it was so tragic.
What a fantastic video! Bart and Megan are both outstanding scholars and great presenters.
I know this is not the focus but MEGAN!! Your glasses are AMAZING
Putting aside the theological implications of God killing Job's choldren and then giving him new ones like it's all good, the sociological inference is really disturbing. There was a time when wives and children were resources.
These discussions are invaluable for informing the masses
22:00 Bart "... its really a troubling view of sufferings" aaaaaahhhh now we can feel the leftovers of Bart's personal frustrations, anger, confusion with suffering. Great struggle!
My favorite theological podcast - Bart is fantastic!
Glad you're here! - Social Media Team
God basically used the Bill Cosby explanation. "I brought into this world, I'll take you out!"
And, just like Bill Cosby, the biblical god has been presented and believed to be a wonderful deity, but turned it to be quite horrible.
Too soon.
God replacing Jobs wife and children sound harsh (which it is) however, if you see them as possessions, non people, minor slaves, it changes the perspective.
Certainly not for the better
@@markc5015 very true. I am basing this off ancient Near East culture on how they viewed women and children.
Or if you assume they view women and children as we do today ( read job 29). Then you have more of a struggle here
@@anthonycraig274 Except that's not how the Bible treats losing children elsewhere. When Jacob believes Joseph was killed, he grieves bitterly and later on it's said that losing Benjamin would outright kill him. So no, children were not treated like mere possessions. I mean, if they were then God wouldn't even bothered with the whole "sacrifice Isaac" thing.
Job’s original children were *replaced* as if people are fungible.
Some people think the author is unusually callous, but it seems that the biblical view, and maybe the most of the culture’s view, of children was like this.
Reminds me of Lincolns second inaugural address where he attempts to find meaning in the Civil War: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
_I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things._ Isaiah 45:7
This thing about the children - I also find it deeply disturbing. Job is an ancient text; could this be before the Israelites thought of God as being able to raise the dead?
The quote from Isaiah sounds exactly like something Satan would say. Interesting.
totally agree. I don't think job had the concept of life beyond this one....making the death that much more tragic.. once he met the infinite death takes a different perspective
Arguably the Hebrew Bible doesn't include an afterlife, or the idea of resurrection except under very special circumstances. This was a later development and only really one or two of the most recent books (e.g. Daniel) include any reference to these ideas.
30:50 Bart "....god will bring horrible suffering on you in order to see if you remain faithful.." is there worse suffering than the death of your child? Is there a worse god that would give permission for your children to be killed? What if that god told you to kill your only child that you have prayed and waited for? What kind of God is this?
Gen 22:2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom you love, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
From this Jesus said Jn8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.... what in the world is god doing to our minds???
Job seems to me to be a reflection of ourselves when it comes to suffering. Was there something i did to cause it? Can i remain a good person in the face of tragedy? We can do all the right things but still be struck down by the randomness of life. If we continue to uphold our principles through hardship, we have the possibility to regain what we've lost as long as we don't lose sight of who we are. People turn to substance abuse, for example, when life beats them down. By doing that, they spiral into a bottomless pit and end up in a hell of their own making. Holding tight to your morality may, at the very least, keep you from making things worse and possibly coming out a better person on the other side. That is my takeaway.
I agree its about handling pain and suffering with an outlook to hope. To be a parable it has to be the most extreme example. I dont think job is happy his kids are dead but there is chance for light on the other side of the tunnel. Kids died all the time back then, it was in humanities interest to mourn but then hope and try again
Without a God, we see things as random- life just happens. This book is literally saying the opposite, that bad things are happening intentionally. Suffering because someone wills it against you is different than a random tragedy striking.
@@justinbaker2883 a child dying is different than a child being murdered.
@amyrenee1361 You are right. The intentional suffering we bring upon each other is the most evil of all. People conspire with the dark side of themselves to bring tragedy to others.
Some people don't even notice these materials are not a continuous story. They read like robots, not paying attention. I noticed the book was discontinuous, like a collection of writings on Job, the very first time I read this book as a young adult (I had not read it in my childhood).
👏🙂
Great podcast episode
25:00 This always made me think that the message is people are replaceable, which I also found disturbing.
I grew up hearing this story a lot, and it never made sense to me and always made me uncomfortable.
14:48 So you're saying most people don't have the patience to read Job
God brought suffering for a bet, didn't tell Job then has a "Who are you to question me? I will answer none of your questions"
Classic gaslighting manipulator. Why couldn't he just say "I was testing you to see your faithfulness" which...he should know...because he's All Knowing...
And then his wrath burns against the friends who've been fed the party line and spout it but he's angry bc they said what he says happens after you sin?
The book of Job has never made sense to me
Because is hard for us to accept that this is not God but a very evil I would say satanic entity. Not God hence it makes no sense. But it makes sense if job is speaking to the devil.
I don't think it's to be taken so literally. It's about how God/unbound-mind is NOT meta-conscious enough to reflect back to us like that; it does what it does because it is what it is. And that's, ultimately, okay. It leads to great suffering from our dissociated POV, but there is a bigger picture.
@LukasOfTheLight so in other words he's not all powerful ?🤔
The book of Job works fine as a meditation on why good people suffer in a seemingly uncaring world.
It works very differently when apologetics start getting tied into it because it paints god as as a sociopath who will kill your family to prove you really love him.
@@MrDalisclock It seems the Fundamentalists tap into the second part. 😮
I'm not a bible scholar. I do have a doctorate in clinical psychology, so that's the lens through which I look. After hearing and reading the views of non-apologist bible scholars for the last several years, here is what I personally believe. Given the people who came to power around the time of the bronze age collapse were most probably the most violent of warlords, they were probably akin to what we'd think of today as narcissists and psychopaths. We know sometimes humans were deified in the cultures of that time... and I suspect violent narcissists would have loved being deified. And if, as a lower status person, you had such a powerful warlord on your side, protecting you from other warlords, you probably became enmeshed with your own warlord's views and desires. If you didn't acquiesce to his demands, you'd either face his violent and capricious whims, or possibly lose his protection against other warlords. Over time, I suspect these types of power dynamics just became cultural norms. At some point we could use the modern construct of Stockholm Syndrome as a model for how lower status peoples would interact with their local strongman. To my way of thinking, this bronze age and post bronze age way of life was the context in which we happened to inherit our idea of who God is. So yes, when trying to contemplate why there is suffering in the world, and why we might lose control to outsiders, etc, at that time, they would have to reason based on these cultural memes and dynamics. Why do we suffer? Because we didn't do a good enough job of appeasing capricious warlords/gods. That's why. 🦋🧡🦋
Basically, Bible god is bipolar, a narcissist, etc.
@@jasonnelson316 - definitely, and don't forget drunken stepfather. Who else would create the cosmos and every creature within it but not build a fence around his two favorite trees and then blame the kids?
I suggest reading Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts by James C. Scott. Contrary to the Marxist insistence on "false consciousness", or convenient recapitulation of the life of a people in the culture bound frame of psychoanalysis, the empirical evidence suggests most subalterns are aware of their interests, and are not "gaslighted", "enmeshed" , or "fused" with respect to their self. Job is unlikely to be a moral homily devised by the elite of the time since it deals with an elite man in context. Rather, it deals with reality; unmediated, existential reality 21st century life experiences - to borrow from your argot- only as reaction formation.
❤
Read job 29 then tell me about warlords....
The book totally disregards the fate of the children, and so do all religious apologists. I find that terribly immoral
Love the subject and I love your pink hair! 😊
It seems like the introduction is chronically overlooked. It starts with Job presuming the guilt of his sons and explicitly without any actual knowledge of it. Eventually, Job is confronted with being inescapably on the receiving end of that thinking, he handles it badly, and eventually claims to know the real whole truth even better than God. So, God slaps him down with how Job has never had all that knowledge he thinks he has and never will. Job repents for his presumptive thinking, confesses that he himself shares the deficiency he accuses of others, and repents. The whole gift of kids as restoration does seem weird to us today, but remembering conversations about family size with my rural ancestors while they still lived convinces me that it was not so strange not so long ago.
This story brought me through some very difficult times… and, yes, I’m receiving everything back, in many forms 🥰🙏🏻
eres ateo?
This is the first time I've heard that the book of Job was actually two sources mashed together.
If you read any modern commentary on it, or even just read the introduction to it in an academic annotated Bible (say the Oxford Annotated Bible, or the Oxford Jewish Study Bible) it's one of the very first things that it will mention.
The way Job gets new kids to replace the old ones makes me think it's a clue that the writer was not a parent, like maybe he was some kind of celibate priest or similar, because he didn't comprehend how horrifying a compromise that would be in actual reality.
no....the creator of the universe has personally explained to job his kids are not dead. --you just had to be there
@@1bengrubbYou were there!!??
@@7bag7 no what I'm saying is you have to take in so much information to really understand what's going on. Job 29 tells us how much he loved his kids.... And at the very beginning of the book they are adults and he's still watching out for them. Job is exactly the same as we are today and the story is presenting all that....
@@1bengrubb how so? ... I thought a roof fell on them.
@@russellmiles2861 no no you have to think beyond this life. Death is not the end of existence and that's what Job learns in his exchange with God. His kids are not dead he'll see them again. Job in his mortality gains the perspective of eternal life. His whole perspective shifts. The pain of his loss is still there but now he knows it's temporary
I would never believe as someone who doesn’t believe in god, the stories of the bible, etc would be listening to this. However, seeing it as classical literature, it changes everything. I may even consider buying Bart’s book about memory.
I remember reading this Bible book and thinking that Satan actually won the bet. Job ultimately lost hope and basically accused God of wrongdoing and upheld his own innocence. Maybe that's not exactly "cursing God to his face" but it's pretty close. And then God's only response is a tirade about how powerful he is and how that makes Job automatically wrong, which is the behavior of a child or narcissist who is losing an argument. I don't believe the writer ever stated that God won the bet. I don't know that God is necessarily even supposed to be the good guy in this book, given that it has almost nothing to do with the rest of the OT or the Hebrew religion anything is possible.
And here I always thought this book was about writing a CV and how to ace your interview >.>
Thank you for the podcast and for these important insights. That said 😂 36:43 this was a fascinating section that really reminded me that our human mind is made up of different neural networks (or “thought patterns”) and each of them kind of have their own different feel to them and a different logic on what is important at that time and why etc. There are a lot of therapy systems that use this “parts work” perspective to make sense of your internal impulses and drives, both the positive ones and the ones that start out good but may eventually get in our way. When you think about it we just seem to fluidly switch from one part of our psyche driving the bus to the other. We just may call them our moods, our family or work selves, our inner critics, our inner children (that sometimes naturally bring to our mind contradictory ideas and emotions within our self) but in the end it just seems to be the natural way our physical “though machine” operates. It really is pretty interesting
So we have more faith in God than he has in us. And instead of giving us reasons for testing us, it's just a bunch of hot air and bullshit and threats. Pretty weak stuff, God
Got to hear a really interesting talk from Dr. Richard Middleton, from Northeastern Seminary, about Job, during my undergraduate. It's nice to get another scholar's perspective. One of his essential claims was that the speech from the Whirlwind is critically misunderstood as a fierce backlashing reprimand when it should instead be understood as an uplifting invitation from God encouraging a bit of talking back. I may be misremembering though, it was nearly a decade ago.
Maybe Job should be understood as a thought experiment exploring the nature of free will as it relates to faith. Then it all culminates by juxtaposing a temporal perspective with an eternal one, giving a final evaluation of the merits of faith vs nihilism.
I don't understand what juxtaposting a culminate temporal spective is but I think i agree with what you said sortof.
we had a whole class on this in my uni. it was called "suffering and the plague" lol and the academic advisors always had a chuckle at that one. also read a lot of camus
The lesson of the Book of Job is in how it teaches us to deal with the Problem of Evil. The takeaway is "Never ask that question." Problem solved!
This question is so important it’s one of the pillars of billions of peoples faith 😂 I think I interpreted Job differently than you
The lesson I learned from Bart ehrman and other theologians is never ask ANY question if you want to to keep your faith. Don't ask how bible came about, don't ask history of christianity, don't ask origin of trinity etc. You'll do pretty well.
I assume you are being sarcastic, since that does not solve anything.
I could not wait for this discussion. I feel that Job is the most profound book in the old testament. When I was a freshman in college, my humanities prof said that Job was a contest between god and satin. I was appalled. After listening to Bart's analysis, I have a better understanding of this book after 50 years. The one thing that keeps coming to mind is whether the Jews of Europe fell back on this book during their persecution under the Nazis. I somehow wish that this was brought into Bart's discussion and analysis of Job.
~19 minutes - The conversation about God testing Job, and Jews and Christians as an answer to suffering.
If God is all-knowing, why would he need to test anyone? He already knows the outcome. If he knows the outcome, and inflicts suffering on someone he knows will be faithful anyway, isn't that cruelty?
This are the obvious objections so it’s probably easy to assume there is a deeper meaning to be understood
It is, and the message of the Book of Job is "and what are you going to do about it?"
OMG, Megan, the hair and the glasses! ❤❤❤
The God portrayed in certain parts of the Hebrew Bible is clearly a sociopath. If I were still a Christian, I would have to adopt the view of Marcion.
Any similarities to Q in Star Trek TNG?
Bible is ill-devised literature.
_" If I were still a Christian, I would have to adopt the view of Marcion."_
Have you created another god/religion for yourself or of yourself?
Hell, it does not stop there: The New Testament has another sociopath torturing and murdering his begotten son to expel the sins of man. HOW BLOODY CRUEL and EVIL the father is. Even Abraham did not kill his son. The NT is based on a blood lust that has poisoned mankind for 2000 years.
@@John.Flower.ProductionsYou realize there are different views and interpretations right?? Your view isn’t the only one.
at 32'53".....we see something extremely rare: Bart's true feelings of exasperation at religious dogma; he's the consummate professional and balanced academic 99% of the time but I LOVED it when he asked rhetorically (of the person who lives blissfully without ever questioning the proposition that suffering is the will of G@d and that we shouldn't engage our faculties on the matter) "how human are you?" This was a brilliant episode that really got to the heart of the matter!
The four noble truths provide a solution to the problem of suffering. The reason why we suffer is because the universe is constantly changing, and our attachment to things can not keep up.
There are things we can do as humans to lessen suffering, and this is to live compassionately towards self and others. To live compassionately we must cultivate our mind by overcoming harmful thoughts, habits, and behaviors. This should be the point of all religions.
Thanks & as a Christian who's studied & learned much from Buddhism, the 2 systems have much in common & can complement each other IMHO. For more, see Sermon on the Mount & Thich Nhat Hanh's book, Living Buddha, Living Christ
Indeed, this is the point of the Book of Job. At the start, Job has no compassion. He admitted that he only did good in order to maximize his riches and reputation. He mocked people behind their backs and covered it up when people called him out so that no one would believe the accusers. He put homeless employees out on the street because he thought they were too dirty. He emotionally abused his children, and did not respect his daughters on the same level as his sons.
At the end of the book, he gives his daughters an inheritance on the same level as his sons, even though he is not duty-bound to. He does it out of love.
The story of Job's is often criticized because it ignores his emotional attachment to his children, as though they were objects (like a tent) that could be replaced.
There is another theological side of the Job story that I have never seen discussed. Job is a worthy human being in God & Satan's sight but his children are disposable objects. Are his children not also God's creations who deserve to have a relationship with God as much as Job?
From an "analytic idealist" point-of-view, I'd argue that the Book of Job is showing us how unbound mind (God, in religious symbolism) is not a meta-conscious agent but rather an instinctual one, behaving how it does because it is what it is. That makes it unique in major religious canon, as far as I'm aware.
Great stuff as always, thank you Bart and Megan!
JOB is not giving us the full story. He said "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me." What did Job before Satan came? "In the days of my youth, when the SECRET OF GOD was upon my Tabernacle." Job is the oldest book in the Bible, and it's mysteries are very deep. Job 31:35 (31+35=66 book bible) "If my adversary had written a book, I would surely bind it as a crown to me." There is a lot more to say, but people respect a scholar, they don't respect an Esotericist.
Bro what does any of that Yap even mean 😂😂 tf is a meta conscious agent?? What is an instinctual one??? And what is an unbound mind?? There’s nothing instinctual about God ( your unbound mind) making a decision to fuck with Job. When anything acts instinctually there is no conscious decision been made. Instinct isn’t a thought. It’s an action. God was either testing job or punishing job so how is that an instinctual conscious mind? Please help me understand stand
@@Malik-lf6zj - God keeps saying how incomprehensible he is to a human mind like that of Job, how much beyond understanding and definitely not to be controlled or held accountable in any way. Lukas reflects that in common modern idiom, nonsensical as it may seem. But who are we to say what makes sense to a creature such as God?
Folx in the comments aren't happy, Lukas. It's a third view that isn't Creationist or Orthodox Atheist. You HAVE to be one of those two camps, ok?
@@realbrickwalls no he doesn’t. I just wanted to know what he was saying with those words that probably mean nothing
Always wondered if Job hadn't originally ended at 42:11, right before he got everything back like it never happend. It feels very tacked-on, like someone hated that it didn't have a happy ending, and didn't care that adding one kinda defeated the point of the story.
The book of Job seems similar to the movie 'Trading Places' where the the rich brothers bet a dollar on how one guy will respond to sudden adversity and another to sudden fortune.
Yes, indeed.
I always took the message to essentially be that "stuff" happens. Same with the saying about the rain falling on the just and unjust alike. Admittedly, I only ever knew the basic story.
That sounds about right. Clearly all the background God/Satan nonsense is just an ancient fantasy that tries to explain the inexplicable.
The Book of Job is indeed a revealing look at Bronze Age ideas of morality. It's about power, not grace or fairness.
Exactly!
I would love to hear a discussion with Bart and Joel Baden on this topic. Two of my favorite scholars on the different areas of the bible.
Job's wife is the book's most intriguing character in my opinion. She had to be affected as well, especially losing all of their children, but she basically leaves it to Job and his friends to hash out why all this is happening. "Curse God and die" she says before leaving the scene. She seems alienated from Job's God; she's not involved in the cycle of debates, she doesn't even seem interested in the subject. Is it because she knows she has no place in all this because she is a woman? It's all God and Job and I suspect it always has been even before these events. So, denied the ability to participate, she goes about her own way. While Job and his friends are sitting and arguing on the ash heap, there is work to be done. The damaged house needs repair, the crops need replanting, animals need to be replaced, food has to be cooked, clothes need washing and mending, and the men certainly aren't doing any of this. I can see her heading for the storm cellar when the Tornado God shows up; she knows that it is a waste of time to argue with it because all it does is go round and round and destroy things. She is a lot like Benjamin the Donkey in Animal Farm: life goes on, regardless--badly. I think it is interesting that the Lord "gives" Job ten more children to replace the ones he lost--children do not just pop out of nowhere, so where did they come from? Was she a willing participant in the process of creating new children or was this just one more thing she had to put up with? Or did Job start over with a new wife (or wives) as well?
I also think it is interesting that Christian apologists who defend how Job's friends responded to him completely miss the verse where the Tornado God tells them, "I am very angry with you because you have not spoken the truth about me the way my servant Job has." So he is agreeing with Job that he is everything that Job has said about him. The authors of the Book of Job knew exactly what they were doing when they made God appear as a tornado; it's not a random choice. Quite frankly, I am surprised that the book made it into the canon of either the Jewish or Christian Bibles; it's a really subversive text that does not portray God in a flattering light. I once challenged a Christian friend to show me where in the Book of Job it says that God loves him. Oh, but God does, he loves everyone, she said. Then show me where it says that. Show me where the word love appears. I'll get back with you, she said. I'm still waiting.
Very good commentary.❤
Enjoyed reading it 👍
Great comment!! I totally agree!!
I thought Job's first wife got dizzed ... you saying she went on a holiday, hung out with in-laws or some such?
She really doesn’t appear in the book at all. I mean you can say you as a feminist find the lack of her presence to be a very interesting topic, but she is not the most interesting character, she can’t be when she’s barely alluded to
@@HkFinn83 First of all, you are making the assumption that I am a feminist. You don't know that. You are basing this assumption on my being a woman and sympathizing with this character. Secondly, why shouldn't her absence from the story be significant? Sometimes it is what is not there that may be the most important detail--I believe there is a famous Sherlock Holmes story that is built around this concept.
Job was not rewarded in the end, it was added later. People who suffer don’t always get things back even if they are saintly
I played one of the counselors in a production of "J.B." by Archibald MacLeish. The play doesn't (as I remember it) do anything to resolve the troubling aspects of the book. I'm afraid I missed a few that you described here in my re-readings of the book itself. What a cluster! Yes, a very disturbing set of ideas. But what awful friends the "counselors" were...
Read gods very first quesiton to job as an answer......probe that for a bit
Question: what happens when one adds an eternal perspective to the authors? The apocalyptic perspective may not have developed for a few centuries more after this was written, yet the poetry contains one of the clearest references to resurrection in the Bible. And the imputation of righteousness to his children from Job's faith exercised through sacrifices, although that is neither endorsed nor criticized, what is that?
From a perspective that is not solely temporal, if Job expected to see his children after he was resurrected, wouldn't it be a blessing that he was granted more? In effect, his children were doubled in eternity, just as his cattle were doubled on earth -- a point that appears to be deliberate by the "miscount" of blessings.
I wonder if the writers/compiler of Job weren't trying to refute the theory of karma or fate or something like that which may have existed contemporaneously
I’m guiding my friend through the Bible and she’s currently on Job, it’s my absolute favorite book, “Isn’t man’s life but a drudgery?”
Job and Ecclesiastes might be the most existentialist books the Bible.
Book of Revelations to you; ‘fine, I am a children’s book’
@@potiphajerenyenje6870It's Revelation
Job and Ecclesiastes are the two books of the Bible that come the closest to "telling it like it is." That's the reason you'll rarely hear priests and pastors and rabbis quoting scripture from them.
Glasses game on point as always!
One of the reasons among many that I'm an atheist, and if there is a god, it's a cruel being, and i want nothing to do with it. Like he knows Job did absolutely nothing wrong. And then comes down on him for questioning his actions of cruelty.
It's literally a story of an all powerful being gaslighting someone. Just to prove a point.
well... no....we have an all powerful being that stops everything to respond to job.... what level does that put job on?
But if there is an All powerful cruel God. What does you not wanting anything to do with it even mean? If that being really is cruel it can force you to be with it for a literal eternity and not wanting to do anything with it means absolutely nothing in every sense of the word
@@Malik-lf6zj- WTF? God either does not exist or he is an asshole, pure and simple. Just ask the 100 million people who died in WWII.
@@Malik-lf6zj I totally agree with this sentiment, you would worship it out of pure self interest. I do think the Bible and the Quran depict this deity as evil, but if an evil deity is our god, then it would be in our best interest to worship it. Clearly the injunctions in both mandate believers to commit evil deeds by any normative definition. The atheist is not someone who says I do not want to worship evil, the atheist is one who says that natural error and contradictions within both the Bible and Quran clearly demonstrate that those who wrote these texts were neither omnipotent nor omniscient and therefore cannot be inspired or dictated by a deity with these qualities. The god of the Bible and the god of the Quran cannot exist.
@@1bengrubb well yes. you keep inserting "infinite" into your arguments but you don't seem to realize that this is also negates all of your arguments. if your God is infinite than it's no issue for him to "stop everything to respond to job". if your God is infinite then he already knows the outcome of this petty, disgusting game he's playing. it's a faulty argument.
Job knows the truth, that he has not sinned, that he is devoted to God, and is not deserving of his mistreatment, and God says, who are you to say that? So, man cannot know truth?
I think Job is the greatest book in the Bible. I understood it to say that we can never understand God or do anything to affect him so why try? Who or what God is or isn't, wants or doesn't want, isn't our business or concern; just be the best you, stick to your ideals. That was my takeaway as a teen and I still like it. Especially useful with pesky born-again types.
This woman's glasses are beyond epicness
One of the most important books of the Bible.
but soooo clouded and obscure and difficult to get the meanning..
Isn't the point of Job that no matter what reasoning you might come up with at the end of the day might makes right and their god is the mightiest therefore is the most righteous? He can be bet with the adversary, he can just decide to test you, he might be bored, or maybe you did something wrong. Doesn't matter.
And I can still oppose him with all I have and _still have a clear conscience_
Is this the same God that's omniscient? And the devil knows that he cannot lie. So they don't have to perform the experiment. God can just tell him-- No actually if we did that he wouldn't curse me so we're done. Oh by the way, I think things are going to be getting a bit warmer for you this Fall.
Job is the oldest book in the Bible. It sounds like this is back when El was still just one of the Elohim and not yet quite so all pervasive.
Honestly, I think the Elohim were never the same after they replaced God with that headbanger Al-Baqarah. And the solo stuff he did afterwards always just rubbed me the wrong way.
Yeah, even when I was in highschool and going to Sunday school, I had problems with the idea that Job's children were replaced as if that was no big deal.
Why does God need a Starship?
My favorite movie line of all time.
Even Thanos needed a starship
From the age of 12 to 18 I was a member of Job's Daughteers, the teen girls organization of the Masons. Every initiation we told the story of Job. I see now it was just the narrative and none of the poetry. I can still recite parts of it by memory., and I'm 73.
Anyone who has lost a child knows that having another child does not ease the pain of loss. This book of Job conveys a cruel god who uses horrific pain to prove a point.
no....god personally appears to job to ease the pain of his loss....this is an incredible story of god meeting a man in his pain....you have to dig a little deeper than just the words---there is sooo much going on here
@@1bengrubb
But God caused jobs pain and suffering by making a wager with his own special enforcer. Almost like an abusive spouse. I love you so much I have to hurt you to help you be strong. God is the ultimate gaslighter. I’m sure the authors of job did not intend for the reader to get caught up in the duplicity and seeming sadism of god in the narrative, it was a different time but for this reader it stands out quite clearly.
I think there is also a societal intent in the Job narrative. It's saying, in effect, that if someone is down on their luck or inflicted by a disease, they aren't necessarily on God's bad side, or guilty of some sin. Only God knows. It is a sin however to think that you know that someone else has sinned in the eyes of the God just because of someone's personal circumstances.
So, in the day to day workings of a society you're allowed to think kindly and support those who are in pain or in need. Their suffering doesn't mean they are cursed by God, by default. It might simply be a test (or even a whim) of the deity. However, if you judge them harshly that can raise the ire of the deity. So don't do that.
Why does god need a world wind? Why can’t he just restore what took away. God sounds an abusive spouse. And he likes to gamble.
And He's very vain!
Does the Book of Job say that God is omnipotent or does it merely say that he is extremely powerful? Not having actually read it, a fortiori memorized it, I can’t say, but I’d wager it does not call him omnipotent-if only because omnipotence is an abstract, philosophical idea, and the story is concrete and particular.
He "use" a world wind because it is not a real story. Is just a literate piece to convey certain ideas of God, suffering and so forth. Job did not exist either. Is a character in a drama. Just it. Is amazing how several critiques speaks as the story was true... Is a piece of writing that try to convey certain ideas (god or bad)
Way back in University, I wrote an enormous work I titled, Bargaining with the Devil: A Game Theoretic Analysis. One of the chapters was on the Book of Job. From memory (this was 40 years ago) the conclusion was that given the strategies and outcomes (in matrix form) God would continue testing Job until God runs out of ways of testing Job. My conclusion was that Job finally begins questioning God’s action when the only thing left to take from him is his Wife. Who, up until then, had been left conspicuously untouched.
Spare a thought for Mrs Job. All the pregnancies and natural births. She was bereaved of her children like Job was. When, in the immeasurable grief and desolation she asked why Job didn't curse God to get things over with, she was called a fool.
And when Job's fortunes and family were restored she had to go through all the pregnancies and births again.
Just because God and Satan had a little wager about a man's loyalty.
To me, that is pretty bloody callous...
@@johandelen1838 Good thing it’s only a story. The interesting question is why would such a story be created? What is it about the circumstances in which the author(s) are living that such a story is designed to address?
@@kencusick6311 I agree with you, it is a story, in my mind it is a parable. It is a story meant to convey a truth or to give information.
Judging by the end of the story , God knew from the beginning that Job wasn't as perfect as he could be and allowed a situation to develop to expose some flaw in Job that wasn't obvious to anyone but God and maybe also Elihu. It is evident that Job comes to a self awareness at the end, that the whole episode was designed to elicit. It appears to me that Job had some error in his thinking that God was correcting. It seems to me that God knew Job meant well even if he didn't fully understand God. It seems to me that God was using Satan, who was also misreading Job, to create a situation to get Job's attention to increase and improve Job's self awareness, which seems to have been that Job didn't actually know as much as he thought he did, that he, Job, didn't actually have the full picture, quite.
I think the comforting thing about the story is that we relax and trust God to do his good work in us, and bring us to where he wants us, our own failings not withstanding Him.
I was thinking about this story recently. The story of Job seems to me to be a Jewish take on what the Greeks do with bad things happening to well off people. Usually the gods get jealous or ruin that person because they desire them. In Job it seems that a prosecutorial being does that job and god welcomes it in weirdly boastful attitude.
Almost the entirety of Job is as from being Jewish as anything in The Bible.
❤Bart so much for his knowledge 👍🏿
Nothing in the book of Job indicates that it's by or about an Israelite (or Judahite). It's almost certainly a story picked up (with minimal editing and adaptation) from Mesopotamian or Persian sources during the Babylonian exile. THAT's why it seems so out of place in the Tanakh...
It's funny, I was 7, at religion school, and asked the exact same question to my cathecist about Job's children, as if the deaths of the original set was even meaningful. :D My cathecist didn't know how to answer, by the way.
You are looking at the story of Job from a modern perspective. Back when the story of Job came into being, at least 50% of babies died within their first year. What effect did losing half of your children have on people? And was this part of the reason for Job? It could be part of the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of his son, Isaac.
You are looking at it from a modern assumption. How do you know what they felt back then? Isn't every individual within a time period different? Can't we all just agree that what was done to Job was wrong?
@@amyrenee1361 The question is, why was the Book of Job written, and where was it written? Up to 80% of the Old Testament was written down during and immediately after the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century. What effect did this have on how Job was written? Was Job written as a way to tell the Israelites not to lose faith after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC, and their years in exile?
This book de-converted me.
You let a book take your faith away from you?
@@tryme3969 do you believe that aesop witnessed a race between a tortoise and a hare?
If a finite mind meets the infinite how does that change the reading?? Hint God's very first question is actually the answer.
@@mister_kanielathe characterization of God is the issue not if you believe the event
@@mister_kaniela Are you trying to make a point or just being silly?
With all due respect to Dr. Ehrman who's fogotten more theology & early church history than I know, the views he expressed about the Book of Job's ending lacking a unified theme & message is not predominant in mainstream schlarship. Please review the commentary & notes in recent Oxford Annotated Bible.
I guess the only "mainstream scholarship" he mentioned was the agreement on 2 editors.
@@1bengrubb Thanks & again with all due respect to Dr. Ehrman who sometimes reminds me of a reformed alcoholic in his skepticism aimed primarily at Scriptural literalists; something like a former drinker who wants nothing do with alcohol. IMHO there's another path between the skeptics & literalists where we can treat the NT as having some historical value even if not a historical document. Dr. Michael Bird I think does a good job with that & was recognized by Dr. Ehrman as "learned" even if the 2 disagreed.
It’s an odd God that’s portrayed in Job. He’s not an attractive character at all, he’s neither reasonable, nor kind nor even good in any way that we would think of nowadays.
but what if this event is the first discovery of life after death?
To me, the authors forgot god was supposed to be all knowing so for god to wager with Satan on whether job would stay faithful comes off as cruel and sadistic. The question of suffering that this narrative is supposed to answer ends up being an indictment against god.
All nonsense anyway.
There are a few places in the bible where the god character wasn't all knowing. It's been several years since I've read it though.
Jesus said unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no part in me.... The god here is no different
@@ginafrancis4950 if this God is all knowing and Satan is not then there is some other un mentioned objective.
Excellent.
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Isn't Job a pre Hebrew story/text?
Ah yes. This book, oh man. This work is so much. Its incredible
The Book of Job , and the God therein , are both abominations, imho. As is just about everything in the Old Testament…..btw, Bart’s book “God’s Problem” is so great….all about suffering and how it’s not possible to understand why there’s so much of it on this planet…cannot be reconciled with Christianity or the Jewish God of the Old Testament.
why I love Neil Gaiman's version in Good Omens season 2... oh, yeah... these are totally NEW children. They're not the original children, those are gone for sure!
I always enjoy your videos. However, this one on Job does not sit comfortably with me. There are subtle nuances in the Book of Job that you do not take into account. After the dialogue between Job and his friends, God blames the friends for not speaking right of God as Job did. God did not dismiss Job's position entirely. In the great poem of God's speech, the principle of causality is undermined - making room for mystery and paradox. In logic and traditional theology, the principle of causality and its theological equivalent retribution are seen as the foundation of 'meaning'. Here and in the book of Ecclesiastes this view is challenged. However, the world is not surrendered to total chaos. The central motives in God's speech are procreation and nourishment, indicating that God is trustworthy although He is not predictable.
Sometimes the point of a story is what is not said, or what is not asked. Job demands evidence of his sins/wrong doings from God, which is the same as demanding evidence of God's existence. God confronts and speaks to Job after this inquiry. God is displeased, but that is irrelevant to Job, Job still got what he desired from his original demand, which is proof of God's existence. The point of the story of Job is not given directly in Job, the point comes down to one's own inner view. The point of Job is to consider: If everything was taken away from Job and Job demanded evidence of his sins from God, but God did not respond to Job. Ask yourself: What would Job have done then? Would he remain pious and praise God? Would he stop believing in God? Would he curse God? Would he believe in God but think God is faulty or not completely righteous? Would he do as his three friends suggested and strive to find sins in his own behaviour, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant? Whatever ones' view of how Job would behave through God ignoring Job's demand is the point of the story of Job.
I mean what you're saying isn't accurate at all. Job does not ruminate on his doubts of the existence of god. He is ruminating on his doubts on the morality of god's seeming judgement of him. Job rightfully has to assume god is judging him for something and job wants to have counsel with him to plead his case that he doesn't deserve this.
So what does god do? God shows up and basically shows what a monster he is and how little he cares for job or anybody else beyond what job or anybody else can do for him in worshipping him and praising him. God then rewards job for his utter submission in the face of his horrible cruelty. It's an awful story.
@@nunyabusiness9056 I never said Job runinates on his doubts of the existence of God. BECAUSE as you said, God shows up. You missed the point entirely. The question is: What would Job have done if God hadn't showed up?
It's all rhetorical...none of the events happened in real life, it's a manufactured story... Job had to repent because it was necessary for the plot of the story...
@@DarwinsStepChildren I didn't miss anything haha. Demanding evidence of ones sins isn't demanding evidence of the existence of god. You're just flat out making garbage up lol.
If i get interrogated by the police and they suggest i did something wrong, i might ask them for evidence i did some wrong doing. I"m not doubting the existence of god.
You're twisting yourself in knots here to be an apologist for this story lol.
@@nunyabusiness9056 You still haven't answered the question: What would Job have done if God hadn't shown up? If you wish to say mentioning the police and stating someone is twisting themselves in knots answers this question, then you didn't miss anything.
Either God was right and Job did NOTHING wrong, meaning that his true reward for obedience should have been being left alone OR Satan was correct, making God imperfect. Satan WAS right to the extent that God felt the need to reprimand Job towards the end of the book.
EDIT: It's all ridiculous from the start anyway. A bet to see what will happen? God is...GOD. He ALREADY KNOWS what will happen.
If god already knows like you say-----then something else is afoot....what if the real story is not written but implied
Or this is not about Gods character but suffering and what the author thinks about it, and how to bare it.
I find great joy in reading Job every night. God is doing a great job
you seem to have many different pairs of glasses
I just listened to John Hamer lecture on this I think both agree on the main points.
So good.
JOB is not giving us the full story. He said "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me." What did Job before Satan came? "In the days of my youth, when the SECRET OF GOD was upon my Tabernacle." Job is the oldest book in the Bible, and it's mysteries are very deep. Job 31:35 (31+35=66 book bible) "If my adversary had written a book, I would surely bind it as a crown to me." There is a lot more to say, but people respect a scholar, they don't respect an Esotericist.
isnt' it interesting that Satan says Job has a TON of protection and Job says he had a TON of fear?? quiz question...what was his fear?
Fun fact: Job is the oldest book of the bible, and shows a very different view of God.
what is the view that is different?
JOB is not giving us the full story. He said "The thing which I greatly feared has come upon me." What did Job before Satan came? "In the days of my youth, when the SECRET OF GOD was upon my Tabernacle." Job 31:35 (31+35=66 book bible) "If my adversary had written a book, I would surely bind it as a crown to me."
That's somewhat misleading. It IS in all likelihood a very old story - almost certainly from ancient Mesopotamian sources (though almost certainly not as old as, say, the flood narrative adapted from Mesopotamian sources and imported into Genesis at around the same time).
But it's a very late addition to the writings section of the Tanakh. Its inclusion dates back to - at the earliest - the Babylonian exile, if not the Achaemenid Persian period.
Bart's claim that the Book of Job was written in the 5th or 6th century B.C. is highly suspect, and your presentation that Job is the OLDEST book in the Bible, written even before Moses' Pentateuch, is quite likely correct.