The Book of Job

I’ve been meaning to read the book of Job for quite a long time. I’ve
heard that it was a very good book. It’s supposedly about why bad
things happen to good people. This is what I have always been told that
it’s about. But now that I’ve read it I don’t feel that this is what it
was about at all.

To me the story wasn’t about the man named Job so much as it was about
his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and how they misunderstood both Job
and God. Another very wise man named Elihu was also there during the
whole conversation and he spoke with both Job and his friends trying to
explain to Job’s friend how they were wrong for jumping to conclusions
about both Job and God.

Job starts out life as a very good man who never does anything wrong.
He is very wealthy and has 7 sons and 3 daughter, obviously he must have
a wife too in order to have accomplished this feat. He is a very good
man and honours and respects God. But then God gives Satin permission
to destroy Job’s wealth and kill all of his sons and daughters and even
inflict a terrible disease upon Job that causes Job great pain and sink
lesions.

Job loses faith in God and feels that God is unfair. He never seems to
really become angry with God, nor does he ever really appear to stop
believing in God. It just appears that he loses faith in the idea that
God is fair.

When his friends come to comfort him they inadvertently insult him and
depress him further by suggesting that he must have done wrong things to
deserve God’s wrath. But Job knows this isn’t true. Job never did a
wrong thing in his life and he knew it.

The wise man Elihu then steps in to help. Part of his message is to
Job’s friends telling them that they should not assume that Job has done
bad things. But then even Elihu suggest that Job is doing wrong things
now by no longer having faith in God to be fair.

Well, one thing at this point that I’d like to submit, is that if you go
back and reread the first few chapters you’ll clearly see that God
freely gave Satin the go ahead to basically destroy Job’s life knowing
full well that Job did not deserve this act so the story does seem to
have a logical contradiction sewn right into it.

In any case, God himself finally speaks to Job and explains that Job is
nowhere near as wise as God. Well, obviously that’s going to be the
case. So Job finally understands and begins to believe in the fairness
of God again. Now that Job is once again a believer God helps Job to
regain wealth that is much greater than he even had originally (Job’s
original wealth was already extreme).

To me, this is entirely a moral parable. I don’t believe that there was
ever an actual man named Job who went through this ordeal. I believe
that this entire story was written by a sage to make a point. The
actual author of the story was probably the wise man named Elihu.

The moral of the story from my perspective is many.

First off, don’t blame God for things that go wrong in your life (even
though if you read the early chapters in this book God CLEARLY gave
Satin the green light to destroy Job’s life).

I would never blame God for the bad things that happen in my life
because I don’t believe that God makes them happen. In fact, I don’t
even believe that God would give Satin the go ahead to execute bad
things against me. If bad things happen to me it’s just because that’s
the way the cookie crumpled and not because it is the will of God.

The other moral of the story, for me, had much more to do with Job’s
friends. If you see a friend who is going through a lot of bad times,
never assume that they are responsible for their bad times. That’s a
totally unfair assumption. Bad things DO happen to good people. And it
may be a whole lot of bad things in a row (like what happened to Job).

Finally, the last moral of this story is that if you give up (quit
believing in good things) then nothing good will happen for you. You
MUST keep the faith, you must keep your chin up and believe that good
things can happen in your life (In this story that moral is given by
suggesting that you must believe in the fairness of God), but I don’t
think it’s necessary to believe in a god per say, I think that all
that’s really necessary is that you don’t give up on life. If you give
up on life you quit trying, and if you quit trying then nothing good is
going to come of that.

This is what I got out from the book of Job.

To me, the parable has merit even for an atheist. Forget about the
idea of God basically sending Satin to destroy your life, the idea there
is that anything can go wrong in your life, and the original attitude
that Job had in Chapter 1 is good. Just accept that you came into this
world with nothing and if you lose anything along the way you aren’t any
worse off than you were the day you were born. And this includes the
lose of loved ones or ever your own children. Your very own children
aren’t really yours at all. They belong to “god” or the universe. Not
to you. Your children are not really yours at all. And when they die
they are not being taken from you because they were never yours in the
first place. Job did seem to understand that part of it.

In any case if anyone would like to read the book of Job you can read it
here:

In the King James Version of the Bible (very difficult read)
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=2079883

Or you can read it here:

EasyEnglish Bible (very easy to read)
http://www.easyenglish.info/tee/job-taw.htm

In fact, in the Easy English Bible you can just scroll down and read the
boxes that give a summary of each chapter. In this way you can
basically read the whole story in a few minutes.

You may come away from it with a totally different view. To me the book
didn’t mean much because I never blame God for bad things in the first
place.

But I think the point about not assuming that people who have bad things
happen to them are deserving of them is a very valid point. So don’t
miss the fact that a major part of this story was not actually about Job
himself, but about how his friends didn’t really understand him or even
believe him that he was so innocent.

The other good point, whether you believe in god or even if you’re an
atheist, is that if you give up on believing that life can get better
then it probably won’t. I think that this is probably the single most
important point to be taken from this story. It doesn’t matter whether
you believe in a god or not, what’s really important is that you keep
your dreams alive! Don’t stop believing in life itself!

I'd be interested in hearing other people's take on this story.

Like I say, you can read it in short-order on the EasyBible version if
you just scroll down and read the chapter summaries in the boxes. You
can basically get the bulk of the story just by reading the summaries.

Long post! Its such a good book it talks about a big issue why do bad
things happen to good people. A lot of people ask that.

Michael wrote:
“it talks about a big issue why do bad things happen to good people”

This is what everyone claims that it’s about. For me that wasn’t
really the major point at all. In fact, in the actual story the reason
bad things happened to Job in particular is because God gave Satin the
go ahead to have his way with Job.

So if we take the story literally then the reason that bad things
happened to Job is because God told Satin to have his way with Job.

I think the author of the story really had in mind the idea that we
shouldn’t assume that because bad things happen to people they somehow
deserve them. In other words, I saw the story as being more about Job’s
friends reactions to Job’s situation, than being about Job himself.

I also think that the moral at the end of the story is more about
keeping your chin up and not loosing faith in your dreams. Because once
you give up on life then things aren’t likely to get better.

This is my take on it anyway. I don’t really see where the story
actually addresses the issue of why bad things happen to good people
other than it suggests that God tells Satin to have his way with them.
That’s certainly what happened in this story anyway. It’s very clear
that God told Satin to have his way with Job. So that was why the bad
things happened to Job.

Well not quite that way Job was a loyal to god it was just a big test
for Job. It was a test of faith.

First off abra Job really did lived, secondly it is a book that
explaines about being tested when we pray for something satin knows
about our prayer and will do his best to make sure that we end up losing
faith that it will happen so the prayer does not happen we have to have
persaverance.
keeping focus on the prize ahead of us .
job when he lost everything God knew that job would not give up on him.

Abra:

I think, overall, you made a very correct and insightful description of
the book of Job. There is only one small point that I think you
overlook, and it is perhaps because it does not enter in to your belief
system.

One reason why people consistently say that Job is an example of why and
how bad things happen to good people is because this book attempts to
explain the idea of justice and fairness.

God is justified in whatever action he takes. He does not need to
justify his actions to men. Job is the example. Despite being an
upstanding man who was blameless (it does not say sinless, because no
one is sinless except Christ, according to the Bible), God still chooses
to allow Satan to inflict misery on Job. And in the midst of such
misery, God still expects Job to maintain his trust and faith in the
Lord. This is because God does not owe Job anything and nothing that God
ever does is unfair.

For most people that is a tough pill to swallow, because we
intrinsically believe that if we behave and are good people, we deserve
kindness and help from God. But this is not the case. We do not deserve
anything from him. Whatever he has given, he has given of his own free
will. That is why God's providence for people is referred to as grace,
rather than payment.

If God were to directly inflict me with cancer, for example, I would
have no right to complain. If he were to destroy my entire life, I would
still be forced to love him simply for being who he is. The amazing
thing is that despite my own personally wretched behavior (my behavior
is severely worse that Job's) I do not suffer as Job suffered. And I
don't have to feel guilty about not suffering. I simply have to
understand that God's priorities and sense of justice are not the same
as the commonplace sense found on earth.

So, when people complain here that God's not being fair, their complaint
is both absurd and irrelevant because we cannot attempt to measure God's
fairness by what happens to us. The mere fact that things happen to us
at all is more than we can claim as something we deserve (for we could
not create ourselves).

But, you are VERY correct to point out the faults of Job's 3 friends.
That is one of the main themes of the book: we are all living this life
together, and you should not parade around as if you know the reasons
why God acts. That is a central idea.

I have but one complaint about your personal analysis of the book. You
say that you don't blame God for the way things go in your life because
you believe that it's "just the way the cookie crumbles."

Doesn't this assume that God is not responsible for how the cookie
crumbles? Then he must not be all powerful, for if he were all powerful
and chose not to act to prevent a particular event, then it would be his
fault that they event took place. Now, if you do not believe in a
sufficiently powerful God to manipulate events, that's totally fine. All
I am saying is that the Bible very clearly explains that God can alter
the way things happen, and in Job's case God specifically causes bad
things to happen to Job.

So, the message from the Bible could not possibly say "Don't blame God
since God is not responsible." Rather, it says, "Don't blame God because
he doesn't have to justify his actions in a framework consistent with
human thought."

That's just my take, but in general I think you certainly found the
value of the Book of Job. I would suggest waiting a few months and
re-reading it, especially the passages at the end where God finally
speaks. It's amazing what you discover as you keep reading it.

you know, if you never know a bad time, you will never know a good time
.you know.

Ely,

I understand everything you are saying and how that fits in with your
view of god.

You see, I simply don’t think of god in same way that you do.

To better understand how I experience god see my thread (On the
definition of 'god').

SAhalom.
! Job never lost faith with Yahweh. His friends assumed he had sinned
because of the losses he had. This is very true today when bad things
happen to good people that is when you find out who your real friends
are. 2nd Elihu was a wise man he also trhough words of wisdom twisted
the things job said and tried to get Job to Curse Yahweh. When Job was
going to respond to Elihu Yahweh told Job no. He had, had enough. Game
over. He asked then the wise man. Where does the wind blow? and where
were you when the heavens were created. and so on to show Elihu he was
not so smart and Intelligence comes from knowing right from wrong not
from learning how to get people to say what you want them to say. Alot
of people in our society acts like Elihu. Sycology (sp?) is a tool
people and our govt., police forces and others use to trick people into
what theey want them to say. Like the false confessions we hee about.
Why would anyone ever do that? My question if anyone knows is... Why is
it the police can lie to you all they want and it is legal yet if you
lie to them it is a crime? Double standard? Is this addressed in our
laws of the land anywhere? sorry but i believe that job deeper meaning
has alot to do with these questions. Shalom.. Miles

who is this "Satin" character?

yes, deception is satans character. Miles

who is this "Satin" character?

Sorry about that. My word processor doesn't like the word Satan for
some reason and keeps autocorrecting it to "Satin".

I think I've fixed the autocorrect feature now.

Thank you for pointing that out.

Ely wrote:
“I would suggest waiting a few months and re-reading it, especially the
passages at the end where God finally speaks.”

No amount of time is going to change the story. It is clear in the
first few chapters that God sends Satan to have his way with Job knowing
full well what Satan will do. It is clear that God is directly
responsible for everything that Satan does to Job. You’ve even
suggested yourself that God has done this to test Job’s faith.

You come away with the conclusion that you just don’t question god’s
actions no matter what.

I come away with the conclusion that this story cannot possibly be about
the god I know.

You prefer to put your faith in a book by refusing to question the
authenticity of its stories.

I prefer to put my faith in god, and therefore any storybook becomes
highly questionable.

This is where we differ vastly in our beliefs.

There is no way that I would ever believe that every single story in the
Bible should be taken literally and not questioned. That would be a
step toward having total blind faith in a book. Not a step toward
knowing a real loving god.

But I do understand where you are coming from. You have decided to
believe in a book without question no matter how irrational it might be.

I will never go there. I believe that god is as least as rational and
loving as I am, and if any book suggests otherwise then, from my view,
clearly that book is wrong.

Abracadabra,

I know that your god doesn't judge, command or test the faith of people.
But I also know that your god doesn't see, think, speak or move, because
it is completely in your mind. Idolatry is nothing new and I'm not
moved by your interpretation of scripture.

Thou shalt have no god before me.

Thou shalt not make of thee a graven image.

There is but one god. How is what Abracadabra believes in any why
worshipping an idol.

He beleives in that which is. There is no other.

Should you like I can and will place before your thoughts all the
instances of idolatry within those that are the currently accepted
methods of ritualistly worshipping God. From Abramahm through Zoraster,
Khrishna, Christ and Momhammad they all have some form of idolatry
slipped upon them by those in high places.

AdventureBegins,

Idolatry is worshipping any god before the one true God. So his belief
that "god is all things and animals and people and kittens and junebugs
and carpet and poop and..." is idolatry.

so then you do not believe that god is all things?

Worshipping other gods is to worship one that is false.

Idolatry is the worship of a graven image.

Worshiping a single book and refusing to question it is the purest form
of idolism possible.

AdventureBegins,

Q: "so then you do not believe that god is all things?"

A: No, of course not. God is the creator, not the created.

Q: "Worshipping other gods is to worship one that is false."

A: There is only One God, so yes.

Q: Idolatry is the worship of a graven image

A: He has created a god in his own mind. He doesn't need to create one
with his hands, because he worships the creation and not the creator.

Spider you have obviously not read many of Abra's posts.

Yes God is in all things for to create them he had to endow them from
his spirit. As He did us.

But He did create them therefore he is allso greater then them all.
Greater then us. Greater than all things.

For he encompasses all things. He is beyond the boundries of any box
any of us could place upon him.

Satan will never eat up those that remain on the earth. For God has
promised to seal him away from mankind for a thousand years. I wonder
if that is a thousand years of our time or a thousand years in the time
that is Gods?