Explain the book of Job to me

I think it's possible the book of Job is not expressly about Job himself, the man and his words and actions, so much as all that's going on around Job, which is all that's going on around all of us. Job is a particular character representation for his qualities, but most of the story could be told about anyone, with similar effects and ends.

>There's like 3 or 4 important lessons in that book

Probably more than that actually, seems like I learn something new every time I pick up that entire book in general.

Job is Old Testament, mate. No promise of everlasting life in God's eternal light. Just the majesty of Nature and you a paltry mote of dust.

As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods,
They kill us for their sport.

>he can turn something terrible into a profit cause
God confirmed to be the first capitalist

Does anyone else think the Book of Job reads like a stageplay? It always strikes me as such.

Eh' there's a difference between a gain in finance vs a gain in understanding and strength and general wisdom and contentment.

What's the point of worshipping a god who doesn't even grant afterlife?

God is an asshole

Satan is an asshole

Sabaens are assholes

And most ancient jews were assholes

If evil is due to free will only

Does this mean God used his free will to perform evil? Is God a sinner?

I mean he basically let a mad dog attack someone with the expectation that the victim would adore him regardless to win a bet

Devil thinks Job is only worshipping God because God gave him lots of cool shit.

God lets Devil test that theory by permitting him to fuck Job's life up.

Job's life goes to shit but never starts hating God for it.

Devil gets assblasted.

Job then asks why God allows suffering and God explains that suffering from an individual human scope is not how you should veiw suffering, instead saying you should understand that, because God's Godhood is incomprehensible to to man in its entirety, so too is His scope.

From what limited knowledge I've had on it, the Isrealites' belief was that adherence to God's will and living in his favor meant a positive result in the current life, with no concrete promise or belief in an afterlife. After Jesus and with Christianity, the focus switched to that of good behavior and following God's will equaling eternal happiness and peace in a promised afterlife.

"Those Zoroastrians have some cool ideas, let's steal them!"

>Those Zoroastrians have some cool ideas, let's steal them
>believing this meme

God lifted up protection from evil, God did not perform the evil. God knew Job wasn't going to be a baby in the face of adversity and God knew Job wasn't going to turn to evil himself by way of some tantrum. He knew Job was a stone in that regard.

The whole point was to exalt Job in the over all context though. Job was filled with so much righteous logic, that he paid no mind to the evil aside from the effect it had on him on the surface. He knew he couldn't contend with God's judgement against him, but what Job did not know, was that it wasn't even a judgement against him, Job also didn't know what was taking place from a broader scale. Job didn't know that all of this was for an increase in strength and understanding. God essentially used his enemy to make Job even greater. He turned an evil act, into a righteous gain.

The whole thing is analogous to recycling if you think about it. Not only did evil fail, but the evil ended up just making the righteous even more righteous.

All this was possible because Job wasn't a child or susceptible to throwing a tantrum. Not everyone is that strong though, which is why we now have Christ, the Holy Spirit and mercy and forgiveness in general. God knows how hard it is.

That's one thing I think people will lose their composure about when they discover God. God's not a man, or a king, can't be compared to anything like man. God's mercy and forgiveness is right there, a flood of it. A universe of it.

Imagine being confronted by something so forgiving and loving that it makes you feel stupid for even contending with it.

Many who are save and will be saved, will look back at their past actions and just shake their heads like..."what was I even thinking." God knows you're being lied to, being decieved and urged to think of Him as weak as most men can be, as a unfair tyrant. He already knows this, so the forgiveness and mercy is just waiting there on everyone's door step.

The world's first alimony

Wait, so God protects his favorites from evil and suffering on a whim?

Is that why ISIS exists? If God liked the victims enough he'd keep them from harm

"Job is a devout follower of mine, I enrich him for it and thus I know he won't curse my name."

"Which is exactly why I'll let you fuck him over in the worst way possible and put him through absolute hell to prove my point."

You find the most interesting ways to twist this against them, it's hilarious

I love it how he kills Job's wife and kids and in the end he is like, don't worry we'll get you new ones lmao!

Job was the least sinful man of the land. Satan wanted to test Job if he saw himself as completely without sin. The test consists of a series of adversities of increasing difficulty. Job eventually curses God, says God is not good because he doesn't deserve being treated like that. Job talks with friends and then realizes that God is Good, that he is sinful and through his repentance the curse is lifted.

Tip: Job is my favorite story of the Old testament.

Prophets have been killed, Jesus Himself was killed...all because evil hates it when light shines on it's deeds and is exposed. The man who enjoys evil will become offended and hates to be convicted of wrong doing, so they silence and kill the voice of truth that convicts them. Thats why the prophets were killed and thats why Jesus was killed.

So take Job's story and the over all story and what do you see user?

I only know the Catholic interpretation, but I can help.

Like much of the Old Testament, a part of the Jewish mythic history, consider it a Hebrew epic. Now, the fedora-adorned members of this board will now nod smugly to themselves and say something along the lines of, "Wow, a part of the Bible is fictional, who knew?" However, at least in Catholicism, much of the Old Testament is considered just that: stories that are based on old Hebrew oral tradition.

Now, those gentlemen are eagerly attacking, "But wait, I thought the Bible was the infallible word of God. That can't be right." This is also untrue. The Bible is the work of man inspired by the Holy Spirit. There are many myths in the Old Testament that are in there because they teach an important lesson, or are a metaphor for something correct about God.

The Book of Job is a prime example of this, as is the Story of Adam and Eve. It is at it's heart, a story of how you should not blame God for your own shortcomings, and how suffering on Earth will be rewarded in the afterlife if you manage to keep your faith.

Now, interpret it as a historic document and a work of art. Some of Job's lamentations are actually quite beautiful poetry, and can be critiqued as such, In modern tradition, Job is very important because it is really where the modern idea of Satan first came from. In Catholicism, Lucifer, or Satan or the Devil, is the angel who left God's grace because he refused to serve man. However, and this is no indicator of whether Lucifer is a real entity or not, the origins of man's and more importantly the Hebrews idea of Satan is a more complicated story. He originates in the Pagan gods, that the early Jews believed in, but thought were subservient to Yahweh. Through time though, these other gods simply morphed into lesser beings, still evil. The Book of Job really cements these beliefs into one entity, the Devil, who all the evil in the world, and all the bad luck of life can be attributed to.

Because loss should be permanent?

What makes you think that everything there ever will be in every potential aspect of reality will be equal to whats done on earth?

>Wait, so God protects his favorites from evil and suffering on a whim?
Of course he does. The point of the story is that God (or life) is arbitrary and cruel, and things can go south for seemingly no reason. The meaning got changed over time, especially when it had to be placed into a Christian context, but Job was one of the oldest stories that make up the Bible.

>Because loss should be permanent?
The loss was permanent, unless you consider a wife and children to he anonymous, interchangeable assets.

However unlike in Catholicism, the Satan of Job appears to still more or less be in God's graces. He patrols the earth and reports to God, acting like a prosecutor.

By the new testament, the devil has become God's enemy, though he still serves the roll of testing, departing after his temptations have been rebuffed.

This guy explains it really well.

youtube.com/watch?v=07AWWJiyAU8

>suffering is okay because the universe is really big

desu now I really do believe that most atheists are autistic since they miss the point that badly

>The point of the story is that God (or life) is arbitrary and cruel
No it isn't.
Why don't you actually read it and not just the wikipedia summary?

Nobody's missing the point, they're highlighting all the other points you are trying to ignore.

Sure it is. The moral of the story is that God can decide to do whatever he wants because he is God, and you aren't. The actions are arbitrary and cruel, and reflect the arbitrary and cruel, hostile environment the authors inhabited.

The point
Yeah I get the point. I mean, it's a cool story with a moral lesson, but Aesop's fables are also full of nice stories with moral lessons and yet they don't require me to believe that everything in the story literally happened and that I should worship the Olympian gods or spend the eternity in Hades.

No, they really do miss it.

is answered in the book itself, Satan challenges God that Job only keeps faith in him because he is protected against evil. God, and more importantly Job, proves him wrong.

is the classical problem of evil, on which countless of libraries worth of books have been written

, as I already said, he didn't kill his wife and children, Satan is still the one that did the act. And both his wife and kids were well provided for in the afterlife, free from the wants of the Earth and its troubles

In the broader context of reality and its potential of variables, which is the mystery we all face and the unknowing we all face because the variables could be many, which is another aspect of reality this story puts an emphasis on, that there are things we simply cannot fathom as men, who are you to say that you know it's permanent and that the losses are to be looked upon as meaningless interchangeable objects? That's your personal logic and conclusion at work.

So when a man remarries after loss, in your eyes, he's submitting to the universe, and to the universes proclamation that his loss doesn't matter because they were interchangeable objects...

From that doctrine alone, how would you ever connect to anything and take it seriously? You are putting every property of value into the lost, or you are taking it out completely, when nothing dies with God, which is another point of emphasis on that story. Satan tried to spark regression, but Job was a rock to progression (God) and therefore never lost a thing but gained.

Can you imagine true unconditional love in its very definition? Like put into practice?

I only ask this, because when I talk about reality and it's potential variables, who's to say a higher level of existence does not require a dependence and concept like marriage? Do you know if there was truly a permanent loss? Or loss itself translates to objects being no more than interchangeable objects...like we're just robots waiting for the next slot to be filled. I mean, the whole point of the story is that things take place above our understanding. After all, we wake on earth, we didn't create it. Men have a chance to choose good, we didn't create good. Things are made and we don't even know how or where, yet you want to pretend like you do know...

>to Christians

Fuck off

It isn't.

The point of the story is that while life is uncertain, and endless sorrow might be visited upon you on the morrow, there isn't anything you can really do about it, and that you should still keep faith with God, for he has given you everything up to that point

There's a reason "oh, don't worry, we'll get you a new one" has become a cliched phrase for a parent clumsily consoling a child after the death of a pet the parent didn't personally care about. The book of Job just applies it to people, with "wife and child" being replaceable assets like livestock and not individuals Job would have a personal connection to. Of course, this is to be expected given the culture of the authors, but it is disturbing seeing modern apologetics use it as a justification.

Then there would be no point for God to spend so much time posturing with the whole Leviathan bit and talking about the creation of the universe. "Shut the fuck up, God us God and you are not" seems like a common theme running throughout the old testament, what with the talk about potters and clay in Isaiah and so on.

That is the entire point. God created the universe and saved mankind from Leviathan and Behemoth, and while Job 's friends take it for granted, he doesn't

While creating them in the first place. Again, he gives the whole insecure speech about how amazing he is and how nobody is allowed to question him because of it. The pretty clear intent is to make the reader accept the lot in life they are forced into, regardless of their actual moral doings. It's a moral very suited to living in the cruel and arbitrary world the original audience would have inhabited, despite the later theological apologetics.

>God created the universe and saved mankind from Leviathan and Behemoth
>Saved mankind
>from the monsters he himself created
>they don't exist btw
>Christians believe this

But that's what it is. God demonstrated his ability to visit evil upon mankind, and his refusal to do so.
>inb4 Great Deluge
All of mankind at that time was sinful, yet God still let Noah and his family to live, for his love of mankind.
There's a good reason the book of Job is considered one of the most beautiful books of the bible.
Also
>taking the bible literally

What's disturbing is the value of all or nothing you place on loss. It's this general behavior model why men who catch their wives in bed with other men kill them and themselves. Their loss is too much to handle because of the value they place in such things.

God permitting the death of Job's family, places his family in the very mystery you're using as motivation to dismiss the broader lesson. As if his family absence some how warrants wilful ignorance.

People will suffer losses, but in the shroud of mystery, one could crumble or have faith. There's enough reason and tangible evidence to have faith, only people take it all for granted.

This is correct. To many Jews even in Jesus' era when you die you go to sheol, into the ground. Later, with apocalyptic speakers as Daniel, there became with Judaism a sort of afterlife, and people were split on this in Jesus' day. This is the significance of Jesus saying "born again" to Nicodemus, because the latter did not subscribe to the contention of an afterlife to see God.

Today, people think "born again" is a choice you make on Earth, and I think that's funny. It's properly the afterlife.

I made that sentence with poor grammar, and didn't mean to imply that Daniel was after Jesus, but Daniel was written post-exile, and it contains imagery and concepts not present in Torah or histories.

If I remember correctly, God's speech in the book of Job is the longest in the bible. God's basically trying to say 'you think you have it bad? You're just a speck in the cosmos I created'

or, "If you think you have anything to say about any of this, where were you when I was making the universe" and further "you don't understand, you can't understand".

>for God so loved the world, he killed literally everyone because they mixed their cheese and pork, and will do the same in the end of days but way worse
>but minus a single family, how merciful!

Humanity was a bunch of assholes. This is something talked about a lot in the bible.

Also I'm curious...the sun will one day swallow the earth. Does this imply that the earth is just an interchangeable meaningless object? Are you going to apologize for the nature of reality on this one?

If God can only find one guy in all of humanity worth sparing you gotta wonder if it's a problem with God rather than a problem with the rest of humanity.

Old testament god proves pretty regularly that he's about as jealous and vindictive as a 15 year old girl.

If the sun swallowed the earth and God said "don't worry humanity, I'll make another one, no biggie" then yes that would be an argument against the earth itself being anything special.

>I'll use an old joke to BTFO him
Thank you for proving the autism story

You didn't refute it.

To Christians, God already said He will do that, but it's not for decisions we make. It is a process, many ends to many times. There will be a new heaven and a new earth.

What is there to refute? Should I disprove the homeless man around the corner that I see everyday?

Why is the problem not with God? Why is someone mixing cheese and pork grounds for drowning them? If you take the NT into account, God even admits that the law was ridiculous and nobody could be reasonably expected to keep it, but it is somehow grounds for death followed by eternal torture.

/thread

Man didn't create the earth, or the concepts that are offered for man to adopt. All these things exist outside of us to choose from, and you think God's the problem?

Man can't even sustain a just and fair society. Not to mention the appetites of certain men. The thrill some find from exploiting the weak and poor....and you think God's the problem?

Where do you keep your eyes when you look at the world? In your ass?

Also those "gods" in the old testament promoted everything from child sacrifice to prostitution and a complete degenerate life style. And God has a problem?

Look I love people, the human race, but a lot of us are broken. Evil does a number on the human heart.

Literally nowhere in Genesis is breaking kosher mentioned, that comes later. It's only mention that the entire human race is sinful and god intends to set it to rights. Yet here again we see your arrogance and temerity.

Little man, if God really does exist, do you really think that you can comprehend a 4.5 billion year old entity?

Actually, with the understanding Jesus had, that the entire Temple would be destroyed, no one would possibly be able to fulfill covenant, because one must do all of it and some parts depicted Temple protocol.

One I took away from a recent discussion with a friend: God's Monologue to Job, before the epilogue.

The point is not merely God can do these things because of his power, his power makes any defense offered absurd.

When we make any sort of argument, we make appeals to something fixed and unchanging, above our creation. For example, in making this argument, I'm referencing the text of the book of Job, and the nature of arguments, and the nature of God, all of which I take to beyond my power to control.

If I was to defend my argument via something I do control, such as the content of this post, it would be specious at best.

When Job asks God for a justification, he is asking God to grant him a justification rooted in the nature of reality, and the nature of justice, and discerned through reason. But God creates the world, justice and reason (where did I place the cornerstones of the earth?). He is asking God to judge himself by something beneath him, not in terms of power, but in terms of Ontology. His only truthful answer can be the one he gives in Job: I am God.

Anything else is like a lie you tell a child to get them to stop arguing with you.

How pork is not to be eaten is mentioned, and the commandment about the mother's milk from which the kosher laws were derrived were mentioned. If you'd like, we can instead talk about the twin abominations of shellfish and mixed fibres being grounds for drowning and eternal , but generally people tend to stop responding once those come up.

How fucking retarded is God if of all the people he creates in his own image only ONE doesn't fuck up so royally he needs to wipe them off the face of the earth?

And his family, I guess, though even his family was pretty fucked.

because, I think, people realize you do not realize you're alluding to Leviticus.

Here's the part where God renders judgement on mankind, show me where he does this because they eat pork
biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis 6:11-22&version=KJV
If you're a potter, and someone comes along and smashes all your pots but one, are you to blame for them being smashed?

The part where he says the earth is wicked, combined with the other parts of the bible where God gives his definition of what wickedness is, including eating pork.

Also,
>someone
You broke the pots, and you broke them after yelling at them how they have no right to ask to not be broken, because you're the potter. (Again, see Isaiah)

The translation of the whole flood thing is poor. "Kol erets" is whole land, not whole earth. Otherwise, we have a problem in many places, like when Cain was banished from kol erets, so you're going to tell me he went to live off the planet in outer space.

It's a huge misunderstanding from bad translation and I'm getting really tired of it. The flood was localized.

I've grown out of blaming others for my mistakes user, I've lived like that for a period and it wasn't pleasant.

Creation itself, even on the subatomic level requires things to be in accord, not discord. so I don't see God as the problem. His design is flawless. His commands for man are synonymous with creation on the sub atomic level as well, since man can only progress through living in accord, not discord.

I'm just terrified at how much power and responsibility we were given. The fact we can lose it all so easily, the fact we can be baited to lose it all so easily. All the more reason to remain humble and careful in life.

>The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them
>violence
Not to mention that God gives those commandments in Leviticus, which both chronologically both takes place after Genesis and was written after it.

And you didn't break those pots, your rogue apprentice (or if we're going by biblical canon, a random guy) does it

Why do you think Levitical laws exist before Levites. gooby pws.

The translation you gave mentions the violence and corruption separately, implying they were twin reasons for the destruction. And are you saying God can change his mind about what is and isn't an abomination?

Also, your apprentice is yet another one of your pots, and you created them specifically with the ability and intent to break your other pots, then placed them into a situation where it could actally occur.

Man I'm going to have to re-read this a few times as my eyes are getting kind of baked, always interested in seeing new layers I didn't see prior

>The translation you gave mentions the violence and corruption separately, implying they were twin reasons for the destruction
As said, Levitical laws didn't exist before the levites received them. Not to mention you seem to think that the Old Testament was written in one sitting or something

So you're saying God can change his mind about what is and is not an abomination? Yes or no?

Levites were not antedilluvian. Someone (you?) inferred God brought about wrath for people breaking Levitical laws. That is not possible.

I'm saying that the Old Testament is a collection of allegories, moral lessons and laws written throughout millenias and therefore when Genesis was written the Levitical laws didn't exist

That's nice. Did or did not God change his mind about whether shellfish was an abomination? As it was not an abomination before the law was passed down thus nobody could be punished for eating it, then the law came down and it was a sin?

Regardless of how or what God feels about things, which is beyond us, the point of fact, without the philosophy, is that Levitical law was handed to Moses, and then someone wrote/copied it to be what we have today.

I don't know, man. Maybe God killed a bunch of people because a guy ate a clam. Is that what you want me to say.

I've heard in the original Hebrew it was an acrostic poem, although I cannot remember where I read the claim. Would aanyone be able to verify this?

>Is that what you want me to say.
I want you to answer the question. Either it was always an abomination and one of the reasons God killed everyone in the flood was eating shellfish, or he changed his mind about it down the line and it only became an abomination when the law came down. One or the other.

Yeh, but you have all this convoluted thing going on with clams, cotton/wool fabrics, sins and abominations. There's something you're really not getting. I think maybe you've been adversely affected by people who use the bible against others. Just tell them, hey, that's not what that's for, and walk away.

>Yeh, but you have all this convoluted thing going on with clams, cotton/wool fabrics, sins and abominations.
It is only as convoluted as the bible itself. It's all in there. Maybe it would be better to actually confront it instead of avoiding it when challenged then using it to support agendas in other contexts.

I don't use it to legitimize anything except its own existence and what it meant to Jews under said covenant. Maybe you need to stop swinging at air.

The book of the bible that actually turned me away from my faith in Christianity

If anything it should have turned you towards Christianity

Why's that? The book lets you know that following religion is not about living a better life, it's about submission. Hell, Islam is even named after this concept.