{"id":38,"date":"2018-01-10T09:52:46","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T14:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/?post_type=chapter&p=38"},"modified":"2018-01-10T09:52:46","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T14:52:46","slug":"chapter-8-the-land-of-uz","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/chapter\/chapter-8-the-land-of-uz\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter 8: The Land of UZ","rendered":"Chapter 8: The Land of UZ"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We find many literary genres in the biblical texts: legend, poem, letters,\u00a0legal documents, short story, song, prayer - but nowhere do we find real\u00a0philosophical argument. The texts with the most philosophical themes are the\u00a0so-called Wisdom Literature texts that include Job and Ecclesiastes. A\u00a0number of presuppositions, beliefs, claims and judgments rest just below the\u00a0surface of the stories however, and these are never explicitly stated but are\u00a0assumed as common ground. Through the stories we see a structure of implicit\u00a0claims about the world and our experience of it: Yahweh exists; birth and\u00a0death are a part of a mysterious external plan; time and chance exist but\u00a0appear to be subject to Yahweh's control; life's meaning comes from outside,\u00a0from an external source or authority; human fulfillment comes from being a\u00a0part of a collective of people who comply with the commands of a supreme\u00a0suzerain, who, in return for fealty promises land and protection. The single\u00a0theme that ties together all of the Old Testament stories is the theme of the\u00a0covenant between Yahweh and his chosen people. Once we see this theme as\u00a0the focal point of the stories we can begin to see order and meaning to the\u00a0structural sprawl. The Mount Sinai experience is the dramatic climax to the\u00a0covenant announcements in Genesis. At that moment in the story the\u00a0external force announces and records the suzerainty treaty, an act that\u00a0constitutes the people of Israel. The Ten Commandments become the first\u00a0constitution. \"Have no other gods before me and I, the god who took you out\u00a0of slavery in Egypt, promise you land and life.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nYahweh's promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is fulfilled through the\u00a0prophet-mediator, Moses, in the desert after the daring escape from Egypt.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n`How do you know that Yahweh appeared to Moses?' `Because it says\u00a0so in Exodus. `How do you know that Yahweh spoke to the patriarchs?'\u00a0`Because it says so in Genesis.' Saying so does not necessarily make it so,\u00a0unless of course one has already accepted that the stories are true because they\u00a0were \"written\" by an infallible being. `How do you know that God exists?'\u00a0`Because the Bible tells me so,' is an exchange that is fatally flawed in its logic.\u00a0As we have seen, the writers of the stories in the Bible are not arguing a\u00a0position, but are proclaiming the truth of their narrative, claiming it has a\u00a0special place in the area of human knowledge, a place that secures it from\u00a0attack from skeptics and those who claim a different revealed truth. But\u00a0how can one believe without evidence? How can one exercise a rational\u00a0approach to all other areas of knowledge and then suddenly throw reason\u00a0away in the arena of religion? Easily, it seems. By requiring less of religious\u00a0claims than we do of any other knowledge claims we are able to insulate our\u00a0deeply felt beliefs from any rational analysis - some people really want these\u00a0claims to be true and then confuse the passion of the belief with the truth value\u00a0of the claim. But, passionately believing that you have turned off the coffee\u00a0pot before you left for work is not a sufficient condition for it being turned off,\u00a0no more than a passionate belief that you have won the big lottery is either\u00a0necessary or sufficient for your having done so.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nContemporary philosophical discussions of truth insist that truth is a\u00a0property of statements. We say, for example, that the statement: `It is raining'\u00a0is true just when it is raining. That is, a sentence is true when the statement\u00a0made by the sentence corresponds to a state of affairs in the non-linguistic\u00a0world. `I have a headache' is true if and only if I do in fact have a headache. If I\u00a0utter the sentence but do not have a headache then the statement expressed\u00a0by the sentence is false. There are of course other possibilities based upon the\u00a0usage of the sentence. I could have an arrangement with you that the sentence\u00a0`I have a headache' will be used by us to mean something else, say, a code for a\u00a0message like `the enemy has landed on our shores.' Or, the sentence could be a\u00a0line in a play, uttered by an actor in a particular scene. In that kind of example\u00a0we do not talk about the sentence being true or false. In general in literary\u00a0texts we suspend these epistemic concerns as soon as we hear or read a signal\u00a0like `once upon a time', or `long time ago', or `in the beginning' which indicate\u00a0we are in a fictional world where truth value functions in a quite different way\u00a0than in much of everyday discourse. Literature provides us with possible\u00a0worlds to reflect upon and to respond to, gives us a point of view to consider,\u00a0and breathes \"life\" into characters just as surely as the creator-god of Genesis\u00a0does.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBiblical writers are best read as poets not as philosophers. And as poets\u00a0they do not have this correspondence theory of truth in mind. Those who claim\u00a0that the Bible is \"True\", if by that claim they mean that every statement in the\u00a0Bible is literally true, fail to respond to the fictional signals provided by the\u00a0writers. What are these signals? More than just the introductory mode\u00a0indicators are at work in these texts; for example, the narrator(s) often steps\u00a0out of the story to say something directly to the audience: \"There came a\u00a0famine in the land - not the earlier famine in Abraham's time\u00a0- and Isaac went to Abimelech the Philistine king at Gerar.\" (Gen. 26.1); \"He\u00a0named that place Beth-El, but the earlier name of the city was\u00a0Luz.\" (Gen. 28.19); \"(An omer is one tenth of an ephah.)\"\u00a0(Exodus 16.36); \"In days gone by in Israel, when a man\u00a0wished to consult God, he would say, `Let us go to the\u00a0seer.' For what is nowadays called a prophet used to be\u00a0called a seer.\" (1 Sam. 9.9) Breaking the frame in this way shows us\u00a0the frame, and from time to time we are reminded of the fact that we are\u00a0reading a story, reminded of intention and voice and other literary\u00a0components at work in the narrative.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe stories in the Bible assume a certain official line and present the\u00a0character of God through actions, images, and dramatic situations. From the\u00a0beginning of story telling we have been seeking a way of expressing the\u00a0inexpressible, of linguistically presenting the extra-linguistic. How do you talk\u00a0about God? Through the Word. The New Testament belief in \"the Word\" or\u00a0\"Logos which becomes flesh\" comes directly from the Greek notion of Logos\u00a0and provides the basic concept in terms of which the doctrine of the\u00a0Incarnation was to be understood. The concept of Logos came directly from\u00a0the Stoics, for whom it originally meant an immanent World Soul. It was later\u00a0fused with the Platonic idea of nous and so was conceived as acting in\u00a0accordance with archetypal patterns. The basic problem was: how is it possible\u00a0to have knowledge of a strictly transcendent being. A suggested solution came\u00a0in terms of an intermediary, in this case logos, which was posited to solve the\u00a0question of knowledge. Throughout the early Christian centuries what we find\u00a0is not philosophy of religion but theological writings employing various\u00a0philosophical concepts. Revealing the character and plan of God to limited\u00a0and finite human beings is a difficult problem solved by establishing a canon\u00a0based on an authority of the highest order. Hence, for a very long time it was\u00a0believed that Moses was the author of the first five books. Books like\u00a0Ecclesiastes and The Song of Songs were included in the canon on\u00a0the authority of Solomon. No serious biblical scholar any longer believes that Moses and Solomon wrote these books.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nPhilo, the gifted Jewish philosopher of the first century, was largely\u00a0responsible for the idea of logos or \"the Word\" entering into Christian thought.\u00a0Many theologians, then as now, resented the intrusion of philosophy into the\u00a0domain of faith (the most outstanding was Tertullian who said, \"I believe\u00a0because it is absurd.\") Early Christianity also flirted with mysticism, which was\u00a0another Greek contribution. The so-called Neoplatonists reverted to a\u00a0profound sense of the Oneness or Unity of Universe in a way, which put\u00a0particulars and plurality in jeopardy, as they had been to some extent in the\u00a0philosophy of Plato. In order to account for particulars the difficult notion of\u00a0emanation was developed. God is the ultimate unity and He\/She transcends\u00a0all forms of thought, but finite beings exist as a falling away from the original\u00a0perfection.[1]<\/a> The problem here is that it is very hard to make sense of the\u00a0notion of emanation without calling in question the all-embracing nature of the\u00a0one ultimate reality. The insistence on the latter did influence mystic thought\u00a0and the influence produces Oriental mysticism with its attempt to draw away\u00a0altogether from our present existence, with its limitations and evil, and to pass\u00a0beyond into a union with the ineffable Being. One way of turning the ineffable\u00a0into the \"effable\" is through story.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIn strong contrast to the Eastern belief that evil is illusory and\u00a0particulars are mere shadows stands the Hebrew-Christian doctrine of\u00a0creation. The Old Testament, as we have seen, is full of stories that express\u00a0the elusive and transcendent nature of their god. The Hebrews believed that a\u00a0true discernment of God's transcendence required the recognition of our own\u00a0distinctness as beings independent of God. This in turn sharpened the\u00a0question of how such limited and finite beings could in anyway come to know\u00a0God. The Hebrew answer was in terms of God's disclosure of Himself in\u00a0history and experience, and this was deepened and extended in specifically\u00a0Christian claims about the works and words of the man-god, Jesus Christ.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOne of the central problems within the Judeo-Christian theological\u00a0story centers on epistemology: how can we finite and limited creatures have knowledge of this infinite and all-powerful transcendent being? The question is\u00a0not merely philosophical or to be dismissed as an academic puzzle. The search\u00a0for authority is a real human search and includes passion and desire, fear and\u00a0need. When we humans seek the divine we are looking for an experience not\u00a0an argument. And yet it is our experience that makes the search so difficult.\u00a0How do we - how can we - understand a god-sponsored world in which little\u00a0children suffer and die? Evil may be a worm in man's heart but it also eats\u00a0away at comfortable belief. Evil has always been a problem for theologians\u00a0because its existence brings into doubt either the nature of God or the\u00a0existence of God. Bluntly put, the problem is: If God is all-powerful,\u00a0all knowing, and all good, then why does evil exist in the world? If God cannot\u00a0eliminate evil then God is not all-powerful. If God can but does not then God\u00a0is not all-good.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOne answer is to claim that evil is appearance only and not reality, but\u00a0this hardly matches up with our experience. Another is to posit a dualism of\u00a0good and evil locked in perpetual battle and equally matched in power. But\u00a0this makes god a half-owner of the universe with limited powers. Some argue\u00a0that evil is the responsibility and result of human free will - that because we are\u00a0free to choose, and we are limited in knowledge, we sometimes choose wrong.\u00a0Others, of course, argue that there is no god, and that cause and effect are all\u00a0we need to explain natural catastrophes and human actions. The biblical\u00a0stories that treat these questions are in the collection called Wisdom\u00a0Literature. Can we know the nature of Yahweh? How would an existing divine\u00a0force reveal itself? The continuing popularity of the book of Job shows that\u00a0these problems are important. Job questions God's nature, his connection to\u00a0morality and justice, and the relationship between the creator and his creation.\u00a0A reading of the book of Job shows the way the Hebrew writers presented\u00a0these philosophical problems in literary form. It will also suggest answers to\u00a0the fundamental epistemological and moral questions. The Book of Job also\u00a0serves as a transition between the Old and New Testaments. Many Christian\u00a0writers have seen in Job the foreshadowing of Christ, and have argued that the\u00a0answer to Job's questions is to be found in the man-god, Jesus.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTo begin let us look briefly at a paper by Paul Weiss.[2]<\/a> In this paper\u00a0Weiss distinguishes ten different kinds of evil: sin, bad intention, wickedness,\u00a0guilt, vice, physical suffering, psychological suffering, natural evil, and\u00a0metaphysical evil. The first two are most characteristically human for they are\u00a0privately inflicted. The ten are defined as follows:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n1. Sin - he sins who is disloyal to a primary value accepted on faith.\r\n\r\nBlasphemy is one form of sin and treason another. He sins who\r\n\r\ndenies his people just as surely as does he who violates the fiats of\r\n\r\nhis\/her god. Job shows us that it is not necessary that a man sin. Job\r\n\r\nis righteous. Job is not a sinner. Since he suffers, suffering and the\r\n\r\nmultiple evils of the world ought not to be attributed to man's\r\n\r\nfailure to avoid sin.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n2. \u00a0 Bad intent - ethical evil, like setting oneself to break an ethical\r\n\r\ncommand. Like sin this is privately achieved. It is concerned with\r\n\r\nthe good as open to reason. The man of bad intent fails internally\r\n\r\nto live up to what reason commands. (Steals, kills , lies). Evil\r\n\r\nintent and suffering do not necessarily go together.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n3. Wickedness - the evil of carrying out evil intentions. Job is right\r\n\r\nin insisting that he was not wicked. He who is wicked does not\r\n\r\nnecessarily incur the wrath of God. Nor does he necessarily suffer.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n4. Guilt - We ought to love, help, cherish everyone, but since we are\r\n\r\nfinite and have finite interest, funds and energy we can not. Each\r\n\r\nthus fails to fulfill an obligation to realize the good completely. We\r\n\r\nare hence necessarily guilty. We fail to do all that ought to be done.\r\n\r\nEliphaz charges Job with the neglect of hosts of the needy, but we\r\n\r\nare all guilty in that respect.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n5. Vice - The habit of doing what injures others; vice is produced by\r\n\r\nmen and not by God, and need not entail suffering.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n6. Social.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n7. Physical.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n8. Psychological.\r\n\r\nJob suffers in all (6,7,8) these ways: torn in his body, by his mind,\r\n\r\nand from his fellows, Job has no rest.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n9. Natural evil - an evil embodied in the wild, destructive forces of\r\n\r\nnature, as manifest in earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, etc.\r\n\r\nThese do not arise because there is something bad in man\/woman.\r\n\r\nTo suppose that nature is geared to the goodness and badness of\r\n\r\nmen and women is to suppose either a mysterious harmony\r\n\r\nbetween ethics and physics, or that spirits really move mountains.\r\n\r\nGod is responsible for \"natural evil\" says the Book of Job.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n10. Metaphysical evil - As Weiss puts it: \"What could not be\r\n\r\navoided by the things in any universe whatsoever is the tenth kind\r\n\r\nof evil, metaphysical evil, the evil of being one among many, of\r\n\r\npossessing only a fragment of reality, of lacking the reality and thus\r\n\r\nthe power and good possessed by all the others. Any universe\r\n\r\nwhatsoever, created or uncreated, is one in which each part is less\r\n\r\nthan perfect precisely because it is other than the rest, and is\r\n\r\ndeprived therefore of the reality the rest contain.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nConsider this list as a map for reading Job. But notice also that it is not\u00a0an objective map. It too contains a certain story about ethics; and is not\u00a0completely clear and separate from its official line. `Sin' is a religious not a\u00a0moral term. It is a sin to wear a head covering in some contexts, a sin not to\u00a0wear a head covering in other contexts. To be disloyal may be a moral failing,\u00a0but surely it depends upon what one is disloyal to. Disloyalty to an authority\u00a0urging immoral acts is certainly not a moral failing. You have to make a moral\u00a0judgment about which god is worthy of respect and worship. `Bad intent' and\u00a0`wickedness' are moral terms and it is just here that Job is innocent - he has\u00a0neither bad intent nor wickedness - the story makes that clear. `Guilt' may be a\u00a0moral term; that is, one may feel guilty if one has done something wrong, but\u00a0to feel guilt in a general sense is a pathological, not a logical phenomenon.\u00a0\"But you should not feel guilt for that\" is a perfectly reasonable and healthy cor-\u00a0rective to the guilt ridden innocent. Weiss's fourth category seems to include\u00a0the notion that ought implies can - one can not be held morally responsible for\u00a0things beyond one's control. `Metaphysical guilt' as described by Weiss is hard\u00a0to understand. What sense does it make to hold a person responsible for not\u00a0being all of reality?[3]<\/a> Can one rationally blame one's dog for not being a camel?\u00a0A human being? This concept would have evil built into the very fabric of the\u00a0universe, a notion as puzzling as its counterpart of having good built into the\u00a0fabric of the universe. Religious doctrine may assert such a position, but it is\u00a0not clear precisely what would count as evidence for such a position. As Job\u00a0discovers in the story, good and evil are the province of men and women, and\u00a0have nothing to do with God. The universe is not good or evil - it is. For Weiss\u00a0Job is guilty because he is a man and all men are guilty. But the Book of Job\u00a0tells us that Job is innocent, and yet he suffers. What does this story tell us\u00a0about the nature of the god it depicts as a major character?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNotice first that it is a piece of literature, a story of a particular kind. It\u00a0is a play. It has a framing device. It has long boring speeches and little action.\u00a0It is repetitive. The key images have to do with knowledge, wisdom and under-\u00a0standing. These are to be gained in a court room setting with God as judge and\u00a0accuser, Job as wrongly accused defendant who aches for his day in court to\u00a0prove his innocence. Job is a radical protestor, struggling against a system that\u00a0strikes him as unfair and unjust. He is not patient, and he is not Jewish, though\u00a0many think of him as the paradigm of Jewish patience. The existence of God is\u00a0assumed; it is his nature that is in question. Suffering does not imply\u00a0wrongdoing; the bad do sometimes prosper. There is no necessary connection\u00a0between morality and the size of one's portfolio. The Book of Job is like some\u00a0massive chunk of marble that has within it a beautiful sculpture that has not\u00a0yet been completed: rich, extensive, suggestive, but incomplete. It has been\u00a0praised as a great work:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNot only its value as a work of art, displayed by the power of its\r\n\r\nlanguage, by the depth of its feeling, by the grandeur of its\r\n\r\nstructure, but also the subject with which it deals, the daring titanic\r\n\r\nstruggle with the immemorial, yet ever new, questioning of man-\r\n\r\nkind concerning the meaning of suffering, places this composition\r\n\r\nas regards its general significance beside Dante's Divina\r\n\r\nCommedia and Goethe's Faust.[4]<\/a>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe book consists of two distinct parts. The bulk of the work, and by far\u00a0the more important, is the long poetic section which is framed by the brief\u00a0prose narrative which relates the legend of the righteous man's travails,\u00a0beginning in heavenly council, and the happy ending when the suffering man\u00a0has everything restored to better than ever status. Biblical scholars[5]<\/a> tell us that\u00a0the framing device, written in an archaic style, bears all of the marks of an\u00a0ancient and popular folk tale, while the dramatic interchange in poetic form is\u00a0from a much later, probably post-exilic time. In any case, it is easy to see the\u00a0difference between the two, even in translation, for the simplicity of the frame\u00a0is even more obvious when set off against the complex and philosophical\u00a0poetic debate between Job and his \"comforters\". An editor has molded the two\u00a0parts together to form one literary whole, and as readers we must judge how\u00a0successful the whole has been completed and how the two parts function to-\u00a0gether.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLook at the frame: we are told immediately that Job is \"a man of\u00a0blameless and upright life\" who fears God and has his face set against\u00a0wrongdoing. He is given as perhaps a bit too much of a good man; that is, he\u00a0seems to approach the good life like an accountant, offering sacrifices for\u00a0possible wrongs on the part of his children because he thinks \"that they might\u00a0somehow have sinned against God.\" William Blake in his illustrated edition of\u00a0Job has the family at the beginning of the story reading the book to be sure\u00a0that they are following all of the commands of God, but appearing to have a\u00a0fairly bleak and stiff time of it. The musical instruments are not being used,\u00a0there is no joy in this family life before the experience of the whirlwind.\u00a0Blake's story is visually projected, and he gives us three characters: God, Satan,\u00a0and Job, \u00a0 all of whom look alike. In Blake's vision God and Satan are forces in\u00a0us, psychological parts of us. Suddenly in the prologue we hear of the members\u00a0of the court of heaven who gather in the presence of the Lord, and this sudden\u00a0shift from earth to heaven is presented with no transition and with no hesi-\u00a0tation. In this heavenly court Satan challenges God to a contest to test Job.\u00a0God will allow Satan to torment Job in order to see if he is steadfast. Satan\u00a0takes his task seriously and destroys Job's flocks, his servants, and his children.\u00a0Job's children are killed by a whirlwind sweeping across the desert, which\u00a0knocks their house down and crushes them. We will see a whirlwind again\u00a0before this tale is over. \"Throughout all this Job did not sin; he did not charge\u00a0God with unreason.\" Satan tries further tortures, with God's approval, and\u00a0attacks Job's body and mind. His three friends arrive and \"for seven days and\u00a0seven nights they sat beside him on the ground, and none of them said a word\u00a0to him.\" So far a cracking good fairy tale: powerful forces are at work above\u00a0who will interfere with events in the human world either to pass the time or to\u00a0test a man to see what kind of torture he can take before breaking. These are\u00a0the forces of some child-like, cruel and sadistic place, imaged in monsters and\u00a0presented as powerful but without moral sense. A god who will break his own\u00a0commandments against killing is not worthy of worship. What do we learn\u00a0from the frame outside the frame? After seven days of silence Job breaks\u00a0silence and curses the day of his birth, for \"there is no peace of mind nor quiet\u00a0for me; I chafe in torment and have no rest.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nJob at this point seems to believe that there is a correlation between\u00a0being good and being rewarded with the goods of the world. Follow the rules,\u00a0be careful, take a few extra steps of precaution by sacrificing even if you do not\u00a0need to and all will be well. His attitude seems to be one of an overly strict,\u00a0rule-bound worrier, completely uptight about righteousness but forgetting\u00a0about the joy of life itself. Yes, Job is righteous, and no, he has not sinned\u00a0against the laws in the book of righteousness, but he has forgotten to enjoy life\u00a0in all its bountiful glory. He is not really straight with life. He snaps at his wife,\u00a0worries about his children's obedience to the book of rules.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIt is one of the ironies of literature that the phrase \"patience of Job\" is\u00a0now part of our linguistic heritage. Job is, in fact, not at all patient, but wants\u00a0his problem dealt with now, right now - wants to face God and argue his case,\u00a0not sit patiently awaiting resolution. This rebellious demand for a chance to\u00a0plead his case can be seen in the \u00a0 complex of images that revolve around the\u00a0key motifs of justice, balance, and scales of justice. Until he is able to do so the\u00a0world and everything in it is flat and without taste. Notice the images in the\u00a0following passages from the King James translation:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nBut Job answered and said,\r\n\r\n2. Oh that my grief were throughly\r\n\r\nweighed, and my calamity laid in the balance\r\n\r\ntogether!\r\n\r\n3. For now it would be heavier than the sand of\r\n\r\nthe sea: therefore my words are swallowed up.\r\n\r\n4. For the arrows of the Almighty are within\r\n\r\nme, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit:\r\n\r\nthe terrors of God do set themselves in array\r\n\r\nagainst me.\r\n\r\n5. Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass?\r\n\r\nor loweth the ox over his fodder?\r\n\r\n6. Can that which is unsavoury be eaten with-\r\n\r\nout salt? or is there any taste in the white of\r\n\r\nan egg? (Job 6.2-6)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nEven though Job is filled with grief and racked with pain he continues\u00a0to cry out for justice. His is a just cause and he wants to be heard in the court\u00a0of the Almighty, where he believes Justice resides.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n11. Therefore I will not refrain my mouth;I\r\n\r\nwill speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will\r\n\r\ncomplain in the bitterness of my soul. (7.11)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath\r\n\r\nheard and understood it.\r\n\r\n2. What ye know, the same do I know also: I\r\n\r\nam not inferior to you.\r\n\r\n3. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I\r\n\r\ndesire to reason with God.\r\n\r\n4. But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physi-\r\n\r\ncians of no value. (13.1-4)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nJob is not a coward; he faces his torment with a desperate strength fed\u00a0with moral outrage. One can almost see his inner conflict at work in the play;\u00a0the drama in this work is indeed in the mind of the protaganist.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n15. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him:\r\n\r\nbut I will maintain mine own ways before him.\r\n\r\n16. He also shall be my salvation: for an hypo-\r\n\r\ncrite shall not come before him.\r\n\r\n17. Hear diligently my speech, and my declara-\r\n\r\ntion with your ears.\r\n\r\n18. Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I\r\n\r\nknow that I shall be justified. (13.15-18)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAwash in tears, afraid of the threat of death, but constant in his\u00a0assertion of innocence, Job cries out to earth and to heaven to allow him his\u00a0day in court.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n16. My face is foul with weeping, and on my\r\n\r\neyelids is the shadow of death;\r\n\r\n17. Not for any injustice in mine hands: also\r\n\r\nmy prayer is pure.\r\n\r\n18. O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let\r\n\r\nmy cry have no place.\r\n\r\n19. Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven,\r\n\r\nand my record is on high.\r\n\r\n20. My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth\r\n\r\nout tears unto God.\r\n\r\n21. O that one might plead for a man with God,\r\n\r\nas a man pleadeth for his neighbour! (16.16-21)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLack of understanding, of comprehension, is the real cause of Job's\u00a0torment - he wants desperately to know what is going on in his presumed\u00a0moral universe. Where is the moral centre of the universe to be found? How is\u00a0it that the innocent suffer?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThen Job answered and said,\r\n\r\n2. Even to day is my complaint bitter: my\r\n\r\nstroke is heavier than my groaning.\r\n\r\n3. Oh that I knew where I might find him! that\r\n\r\nI might come even to his seat!\r\n\r\n4. I would order my cause before him, and fill\r\n\r\nmy mouth with arguments.\r\n\r\n5. I would know the words which he would\r\n\r\nanswer me, and understand what he would say\r\n\r\nunto me. (23.1-5)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n6. Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God\r\n\r\nmay know mine integrity. (31.6)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWe cannot miss this recurring imagery pattern, and it supports the idea\u00a0that Job feels he is a righteous sufferer who wants justice, who wants to argue\u00a0his case before he who is (apparently) judging him. He continues to believe\u00a0that there must be a moral connection between behaviour and benefits. Thus,\u00a0his cry to be heard, to present his argument: if God is the final arbiter and is\u00a0reasonable and comes to know the facts then he can not possibly continue to\u00a0torment Job. In his balance ledger understanding, good should bring good and\u00a0bad should bring bad. I can hear my German Lutheran step-father every time I\u00a0read Job. I hear him crying out to his Lutheran God from the wheat fields in\u00a0Colorado after a hail storm had just wiped out the entire crop: \"Why are you\u00a0punishing me? What have I done wrong? Why not the Renzelmens across the\u00a0road? Why me?\" There was, of course, never an answer. Otto, like Job,\u00a0demanded to know the relationship between suffering and action, between\u00a0deed and resulting reward or punishment. Job's friends, like my Lutheran\u00a0pastor on those childhood Sundays, offer him old arguments about how there\u00a0must be a correspondence between the way we live and the rewards we get.\u00a0They offer the old notion of rewards for the good and suffering for the bad.\u00a0See a man's condition and you can read off his spiritual status. But Job (and\u00a0Otto) knew he was not guilty and feels outraged to be a citizen in a system of\u00a0justice that seems to have gone crazy. We know what Job does not: that God\u00a0has agreed to let the devil use Job in a test of loyalty. This ironic situation\u00a0reveals a God who seems not interested in justice in particular or in morality in\u00a0general. In the prologue God\/Satan flagrantly violates at least three of the\u00a0commandments he gave out on Mount Sinai.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd what do we discover when God, as the voice out of the whirlwind,\u00a0speaks to Job in the dramatic conclusion of the \"justice-scales\" theme? Job,\u00a0who has suffered in mind and in body, who has lost his children, his flocks, his\u00a0health, has cried out to be heard by his tormentor. And when the answer\u00a0comes what does God have to say about the nature of justice? What does he\u00a0offer in explanation of the relationship between crime and punishment? What\u00a0insights does God offer about the nature of good and evil? What does God say\u00a0to Job about the reasons for his suffering? Absolutely nothing. Job, who\u00a0wanted to reason with God, who wanted to argue his case in court, who wanted\u00a0to understand the relationship between acts and rewards, has no chance for ar-\u00a0gument. Expecting a wise judge to debate his case with, he gets a God of\u00a0power, sheer power. All of the long speeches of Job and his friends in which\u00a0arguments were presented and analyzed, in which causes and effects are\u00a0posited, are set against the voice from the whirlwind. And this voice does not\u00a0present argument, does not offer explanation, provides no thesis on cause and\u00a0effect; no, this voice does not speak as a rational first cause, but instead says:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThen the Lord answered Job out of the\r\n\r\nwhirlwind, and said,\r\n\r\n2. Who is this that darkeneth counsel by\r\n\r\nwords without knowledge?\r\n\r\n3. Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will\r\n\r\ndemand of thee, and answer thou me.\r\n\r\n4. Where wast thou when I laid the founda-\r\n\r\ntion of the earth? declare, if thou hast under-\r\n\r\nstanding.\r\n\r\n5. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if\r\n\r\nthou knowest? or who hath stretched the line\r\n\r\nupon it?\r\n\r\n(38.1-5)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe voice out of the whirlwind releases a whirlwind of rhetoric, a series\u00a0of creation images of sheer brutal power, but has absolutely nothing to say\u00a0about the situation that Job is in. What we have waited for throughout the\u00a0play finally comes and it is totally unexpected. The human questions about\u00a0morality and suffering, about justice and fairness, are not resolved, are not\u00a0even directly addressed. What answer does the story provide? What of all\u00a0these questions of the human spirit? A transcendent God is not concerned\u00a0with justice - justice is a human concept and is to be worked out by humans in\u00a0this world and in this life. This powerful urge, creative and destructive, is life\u00a0itself, confusing, inexplicable, powerful, unknowable in detail, and not captured\u00a0in words, but only imaged in whirlwind. The images in the voice out of the\u00a0whirlwind's speech at the conclusion of the play resonate off the opening\u00a0speech in Part I where Job says in the third chapter of the King James transla-\u00a0tion:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAfter this opened Job his mouth, and cursed\r\n\r\nhis day.\r\n\r\n2. And Job spake, and said,\r\n\r\n3. Let the day perish wherein I was born, and\r\n\r\nthe night in which it was said, There is a man\r\n\r\nchild conceived.\r\n\r\n4. Let that day be darkness; let not God regard\r\n\r\nit from above, neither let the light shine upon it.\r\n\r\n5. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain\r\n\r\nit; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of\r\n\r\nthe day terrify it.\r\n\r\n6. As for that night, let darkness seize upon it;\r\n\r\nlet it not be joined unto the days of the year, let\r\n\r\nit not come into the number of the months. (3.1-6)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThis lament, filled with images of darkness and death, is not so much\u00a0suicidal as it is a cry for non-being. Job wants to blot out of history the night he\u00a0was conceived and the day he was born. There is excess here - much like the\u00a0excess piety hinted at in the prologue. To speak of changing history to blot out\u00a0the day of one's birth is still to insist upon one's importance in the scheme of\u00a0things. `I must have been important; just look at all of the worldly goods that I\u00a0had before my fall.' These are not the lines of a patient, long suffering man.\u00a0Try reading them aloud with patience and quiet resolve. Notice the form of\u00a0those poetic lines. They echo the opening passages of Genesis, the creation\u00a0story: \"Let there be light...\" and \"Let there be...\" - a refrain for the creation of\u00a0everything in that story. Job uses a similar imperative in his opening speech,\u00a0but his statement is negative, black and destructive. The whirlwind will later\u00a0refer to the creation also, and put Job in his place as a finite limited being\u00a0because he was not present at the beginning. From the light of the creation\u00a0story \u00a0 to the darkness of Job's spiritual condition is the distance from rational\u00a0creativity to irrational destruction. Job's only sin is that before the whirlwind he\u00a0believes that the universe is rational and moral, attributes which he believes its\u00a0first cause shares. The Book of Job shows us \u00a0 a deep truth: mortals are cut off\u00a0from any god-authority as the foundation for moral life. Justice, as King Lear\u00a0also must discover, is not in the heavens but in men and women. And this les-\u00a0son comes as part of a lesson in interpretation. Trying to read the world as a\u00a0one-dimensional playground where the good boys and girls are rewarded with\u00a0slices of cake and the bad boys and girls are punished is not a legitimate\u00a0reading. Certainly Job learns something in the course of the play, and that\u00a0lesson is about the nature of morality - morality is not founded upon God. This\u00a0new knowledge \u00a0 is imaged in the motifs of \"knowledge\" - \"wisdom\" - \"teaching\"\u00a0presented in a series of images which cluster around those words: \"tell the\u00a0creatures that crawl to teach you\", \"to give you instruction\", \"there is wisdom\",\u00a0and \"long life brings understanding\", \"uncovers mysteries\" and so forth. But as\u00a0far as the key experience of the play - the voice from the whirlwind - none of\u00a0these cliches bears any fruit (to use another cliche). Job's lesson comes in the\u00a0form of a tempest, a powerful image of the irrational forces that the writer sees\u00a0at work in life. You cannot make sense out of life any more than you can make\u00a0cents out of life. \"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without\u00a0knowledge?\" questions the voice. And the answer to the question is Eliphaz,\u00a0Bildad, and Zophar, for in the epilogue God says to Eliphaz, \"My wrath is\u00a0kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for you have not spoken of\u00a0me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe Lord admits here that Job has been right, but right about what?\u00a0His \"comforters\" are given a light punishment for saying that which is not right,\u00a0but what were they wrong about? Clearly, on one level, Job is right because he\u00a0did not follow his wife's advice and \"renounce God and die'. He continued to\u00a0have faith beyond all reason, continued to believe in a just universe based upon\u00a0some rational principles of fair play. His friends claim to know these principles,\u00a0and in that must lie their sin. Time after time they tell Job that the righteous\u00a0never suffer, only the evil suffer, and that therefore since he is suffering he\u00a0must be evil, and that to stop the suffering he must correct his ways.[6]<\/a> Job can\u00a0not and will not accept this simple-minded \"stimulus-response\" theory of\u00a0justice because he has seen too often that, in fact, innocents suffer and the\u00a0corrupt prosper. He wants to know why the innocent suffer, but he does not\u00a0claim to have the answer. He wants to plead his case in front of God in order\u00a0to gain that knowledge and to understand how it is that God has arranged the\u00a0moral world. As we have seen Job is to be disappointed for he never gets to\u00a0have the kind of discussion that he hopes will untangle forever the problems of\u00a0moral philosophy. Instead when God finally does appear to him as a voice out\u00a0of the whirlwind[7]<\/a> Job learns of God's power but not of justice as fairness or as\u00a0the relationship between punishment and crime. Job is rewarded, finally, for\u00a0his blind loyalty and for having faith beyond reason - and the point is: that is\u00a0exactly what the official line of the book of Job proclaims, blind faith is re-\u00a0warded by revelation. Eliphaz errs by claiming to understand the ways of God,\u00a0as if mere and puny humans could possibly understand the mysteries of this\u00a0creator god. Dogmatic explanation is punished; skepticism is rewarded. One\u00a0can not read the condition of man in the outward manifestations of wealth and\u00a0property. What does this experience mean? How can I read it? The meaning is\u00a0in the revelation of the master story teller.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nRead the clever little masque called \"A Masque of Reason\" by Robert\u00a0Frost[8]<\/a> for an interesting take on the story of the relationship between Job and\u00a0God, and \"Mrs. Job\". For a more serious modern rendition read the play JB by\u00a0Archibald McLeish. Artists throughout the world and at various times have\u00a0found the Book of Job a rich source of inspiration with its deep and problem-\u00a0atic questions and its powerful figures of God, Satan and their plaything Job,\u00a0or everyman. It is hard not to respond to the searing passages in the play, for\u00a0the human conditon is oten found to be just like it is portrayed here: irrational,\u00a0unjust, and lying above or beyond the reach of the human mind.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWhy do the innocent suffer? Why do time and chance function as they\u00a0do? Why me? Where is order? Who is running this show anyway? Why does\u00a0evil exist? Where has the promised innocence of the garden of Eden gone?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWe can not fault the Hebrew writer for not being able to sort out the\u00a0problems of evil in the world. Several centuries later we are still discussing\u00a0these same problems. As philosophers and theologians have known for thou-\u00a0sands of years, it is extremely difficult to explain the existence of evil in a world\u00a0created by a God who is both infinitely good and infinitely powerful. Various\u00a0attempts have been made: evil has been traced to the fall of Adam, or God\u00a0permits unmerited suffering as a means of purifying the soul for eternal life.\u00a0Some have tried to relieve God of the apparent responsibility for evil by sup-\u00a0posing he is finite in knowledge or power or both. The god as revealed in the\u00a0Book of Job simply asserts all of these propositions as being true together:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n1. I am.\r\n\r\n2. Suffering is.\r\n\r\n3. So what.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nA god who reveals himself in time is a part of many of the stories of the\u00a0Old Testament. In the beginning we learn of him through his revelation to the\u00a0patriarchs and to Moses. There is no way to tell when and if he will reveal\u00a0himself to any particular character, for his ways are mysterious and the signs\u00a0he provides are ambiguous. What is his intent? What does it all mean? \u00a0 These\u00a0questions are asked of all texts; it is no different here. For the Christian the\u00a0answer to Job comes in the story of the man-god Jesus, another comes from\u00a0Koheleth, in the book called Ecclesiastes.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTHE WAYS OF GOD ARE INSCRUTABLE\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIn the Hebrew Bible Ecclesiastes stands alone in theology and in style.\u00a0It probably never would have been included in the canon except that it was\u00a0believed to have been written by King Solomon, and that authority was\u00a0sufficient to assure it a place in the collection of \"revealed\" books. It is the most\u00a0footnoted of books in the collection. On occasions the \"footnotes\" have\u00a0become a part of the text as the redactor added a line here and there to try to\u00a0force the story into the official line. For example, as the headnote to the book\u00a0in the New English Bible puts it: \"Glosses which relieve the gloom (and,\u00a0indeed, the impiety) of the book seem to have been added in later times....\" It\u00a0has often been read as a gloomy and impious book because it departs from the\u00a0official line in such a basic way. Right after the Speaker says \"I saw under the\u00a0sun that, where justice ought to be, there was wickedness, and where\u00a0righteousness ought to be, there was wickedness,\" a gloss (at 3.17) is added\u00a0which states that God's purpose is to test men \"to see what they truly are.\" Or\u00a0again at 7.18 after the Speaker suggests a balanced approach as the best\u00a0psychology to pursue (\"Do not be over-righteous and do not be over-wise\") the\u00a0\"Explainer\" adds, \"for a man who fears God will succeed both ways.\" And at\u00a08.12-13, after the Speaker has stated that wickedness is not punished, and\u00a0goodness not rewarded the Explainer adds, \"A sinner may do wrong and live to\u00a0an old age, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God...\" and the\u00a0\"yet I know\" rings false in the overall story of skepticism that it presented in the\u00a0text. The dramatic question in both Job and Ecclesiastes arises precisely\u00a0because the human characters do not and cannot know what, if any, plan\u00a0surrounds and defines their lives. In the Speaker's response to this question we\u00a0see it makes no difference whether there is a plan or not; it is not knowable in\u00a0any case. \"True, the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nOnce in an evening class I had the students listen to a recording of\u00a0Ecclesiastes as read by Jame Mason and asked them to jot down responses as\u00a0they were listening.. I too kept notes of what came into my mind while listening\u00a0to the Mason interpretation of the text. My \"reader's response\" notes follow:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe opening passage with its circular images of cyclical activity\r\n\r\nwithout purpose: eyes not satisfied with seeing, appetite not filled,\r\n\r\nrivers that flow to the sea but the sea is never filled - all accurately\r\n\r\ndescribe a mental state of despair and weariness.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nObviously the speaker is a middle aged man who has attempted to\r\n\r\nlive his life with some ideas and beliefs that have proved to be false.\r\n\r\nThe path he has followed has been a long one with many attempts\r\n\r\nto make life meaningful by aiming at particular external goals. He\r\n\r\nhas tried wisdom, madness, folly, pleasure, great works, money,\r\n\r\nsex, mirth, and found them all to be empty, because always was the\r\n\r\nreality of his own mortality.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe text is like a huge symphony with separate and identifiable\r\n\r\nmovements. It opens with an emptiness of spirit that is palpable to\r\n\r\nthe \u00a0 senses, but then it starts to move to a different level of ac-\r\n\r\nceptance and resignation and finally to an amazing finale of\r\n\r\noptimism, acceptance and joy. (Herb is asleep now; his head\r\n\r\nleaning further and further toward Cathy. He may be faking it just\r\n\r\nto lay his sleeping head on her shoulder. He wakes and looks at\r\n\r\nme, ah, did the instructor see me sleeping? Emptiness, all is\r\n\r\nemptiness.) Is it boring? Well, yes I suppose the beginning parts\r\n\r\nare boring to a twenty year old who still believes he is immortal.\r\n\r\n(How many people will drop off to sleep? The room is hot, the\r\n\r\nreading accurate but monotonous - oh, how right Mason is to read\r\n\r\nit just that way - David's book falls off his lap as he too drops off.\r\n\r\nWhat difference does it make? \"One event happeneth to all.\" No\r\n\r\none will remember or care tomorrow what happened today.)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe poem which The Byrds stole to make \"Turn, turn, turn\" is the\r\n\r\nfirst move towards life and acceptance. There is a time for every-\r\n\r\nthing has a comforting sound to it. There is a time to sleep and a\r\n\r\ntime to study. I think again of the large number of literary texts that\r\n\r\nare rooted in Ecclesiastes: The Sun Also Rises, King\r\n\r\nLear, Waiting for Godot (\"two are better than one\"- see\r\n\r\nBeckett's clowns acting out that cosmic connection that holds\r\n\r\npeople together; we need someone to help us up when we fall\r\n\r\ndown. \"He couldn't remember where his home is. But he wanted to\r\n\r\ngo there anyway.\") \"So I hated life.\" Why? Because it didn't yield to\r\n\r\nmy hopes and plans; it went on not paying attention to me, not\r\n\r\ncaring about me. What is missing? Why this despair and hatred of\r\n\r\nlife? An entire inventory of goals is given and none have produced\r\n\r\nthe feeling of life, of value. Are there more goals that haven't been\r\n\r\nconsidered? Will it become clearer when I am older? Will Herb\r\n\r\nwake up? What is missing? Why is everything stale and flat?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nAnd finally - and finally an answer:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"The light of day is sweet, and pleasant to the eye is the sight of the\r\n\r\nsun; if a man lives for many years, he should rejoice in all of them.\"\r\n\r\n(11.7)\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nEveryone should write her own response to this book. Read it; listen to\u00a0it; write about it. It suggests to me these themes: Get rid of goals and life\u00a0begins to flow, have goals and you get tied up in knots. This does not mean\u00a0that you should not save for a rainy day. These are life-goals that the Speaker\u00a0talks about. If you set out to find wisdom, labor, pleasure as ends in them-\u00a0selves, and expect these ends to deliver results as an investment might, then you\u00a0are doomed to emptiness, for happiness is always a by-product of doing\u00a0something and not a thing to be sought out like a coin lost on the floor. Life,\u00a0says the Speaker, is an attitude not a program, a scene and not a plot. With\u00a0divine justice in human affairs an illusion, and truth unattainable, the Speaker\u00a0is left with little upon which to build. All that is certain for man\\woman is that\u00a0there is a desire for happiness. Thus, the basic theme of the book is an\u00a0insistence upon the enjoyment of life, of all the things in this world since it is\u00a0the only world we can know. \u00a0 Live capriciously, do not calculate like Job did;\u00a0joy is our categorical imperative and we must taste of life's joys without\u00a0self-deception. The Speaker reminds us that the realities of life do not\u00a0correspond to the yearnings of the heart. Often our deepest desires are\u00a0thwarted by the hard facts of experience, and our timeless yearnings are\u00a0frustrated by our time-restricted days.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe Speaker answers Job. The Speaker says: \"Do not be over-righteous and do not be over-wise. And above all do not try to be God.\"\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n
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\r\n\r\n[1]<\/a> John Milton\u2019s Paradise Lost<\/em> has this notion embedded in th efall of Satan from grace. Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy<\/em> is the literary high point of mystical Christianity.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[2]<\/a> Paul Weiss, \u201cGod, Job, and Evil,\u201d Commentary, <\/em>Volume VI, (1948).\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[3]<\/a> This understanding of metaphysical evil and its logical problems comes from Dale Beyerstein.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[4]<\/a> Arthur Weiser, The Old Testament: Its Formation and Development<\/em>, D. M. Bartn, tr. New York: Association Press, 1961, page 288.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[5]<\/a> See, for example, James King West, Introduction to the Old Testament,<\/em> pages 391ff, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1971.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[6]<\/a> Often one runs into this argument:\r\n\r\n1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If we are evil then we will suffer.\r\n\r\n2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We are suffering.\r\n\r\n3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Therefore we are evil.\r\n\r\nBut this is not a valid argument. It would make the following parallel argument valid, which it clearly is not:\r\n\r\n4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If I am Superman then I am a man.\r\n\r\n5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am a man.\r\n\r\n6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Therefore I am Superman.\r\n\r\nThe fallacy here is called \u201caffirming the consequent.\u201d\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[7]<\/a> Consider the image of the whirlwind: a whirlwind is capricious, powerful, inarticulate, a natural force.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[8]<\/a> The poem can be found in The Poetry of Robert Frost, op.cit., <\/em>page 484, 485.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"
\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We find many literary genres in the biblical texts: legend, poem, letters,\u00a0legal documents, short story, song, prayer – but nowhere do we find real\u00a0philosophical argument. The texts with the most philosophical themes are the\u00a0so-called Wisdom Literature texts that include Job and Ecclesiastes. A\u00a0number of presuppositions, beliefs, claims and judgments rest just below the\u00a0surface of the stories however, and these are never explicitly stated but are\u00a0assumed as common ground. Through the stories we see a structure of implicit\u00a0claims about the world and our experience of it: Yahweh exists; birth and\u00a0death are a part of a mysterious external plan; time and chance exist but\u00a0appear to be subject to Yahweh’s control; life’s meaning comes from outside,\u00a0from an external source or authority; human fulfillment comes from being a\u00a0part of a collective of people who comply with the commands of a supreme\u00a0suzerain, who, in return for fealty promises land and protection. The single\u00a0theme that ties together all of the Old Testament stories is the theme of the\u00a0covenant between Yahweh and his chosen people. Once we see this theme as\u00a0the focal point of the stories we can begin to see order and meaning to the\u00a0structural sprawl. The Mount Sinai experience is the dramatic climax to the\u00a0covenant announcements in Genesis. At that moment in the story the\u00a0external force announces and records the suzerainty treaty, an act that\u00a0constitutes the people of Israel. The Ten Commandments become the first\u00a0constitution. “Have no other gods before me and I, the god who took you out\u00a0of slavery in Egypt, promise you land and life.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yahweh’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is fulfilled through the\u00a0prophet-mediator, Moses, in the desert after the daring escape from Egypt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

`How do you know that Yahweh appeared to Moses?’ `Because it says\u00a0so in Exodus. `How do you know that Yahweh spoke to the patriarchs?’\u00a0`Because it says so in Genesis.’ Saying so does not necessarily make it so,\u00a0unless of course one has already accepted that the stories are true because they\u00a0were “written” by an infallible being. `How do you know that God exists?’\u00a0`Because the Bible tells me so,’ is an exchange that is fatally flawed in its logic.\u00a0As we have seen, the writers of the stories in the Bible are not arguing a\u00a0position, but are proclaiming the truth of their narrative, claiming it has a\u00a0special place in the area of human knowledge, a place that secures it from\u00a0attack from skeptics and those who claim a different revealed truth. But\u00a0how can one believe without evidence? How can one exercise a rational\u00a0approach to all other areas of knowledge and then suddenly throw reason\u00a0away in the arena of religion? Easily, it seems. By requiring less of religious\u00a0claims than we do of any other knowledge claims we are able to insulate our\u00a0deeply felt beliefs from any rational analysis – some people really want these\u00a0claims to be true and then confuse the passion of the belief with the truth value\u00a0of the claim. But, passionately believing that you have turned off the coffee\u00a0pot before you left for work is not a sufficient condition for it being turned off,\u00a0no more than a passionate belief that you have won the big lottery is either\u00a0necessary or sufficient for your having done so.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contemporary philosophical discussions of truth insist that truth is a\u00a0property of statements. We say, for example, that the statement: `It is raining’\u00a0is true just when it is raining. That is, a sentence is true when the statement\u00a0made by the sentence corresponds to a state of affairs in the non-linguistic\u00a0world. `I have a headache’ is true if and only if I do in fact have a headache. If I\u00a0utter the sentence but do not have a headache then the statement expressed\u00a0by the sentence is false. There are of course other possibilities based upon the\u00a0usage of the sentence. I could have an arrangement with you that the sentence\u00a0`I have a headache’ will be used by us to mean something else, say, a code for a\u00a0message like `the enemy has landed on our shores.’ Or, the sentence could be a\u00a0line in a play, uttered by an actor in a particular scene. In that kind of example\u00a0we do not talk about the sentence being true or false. In general in literary\u00a0texts we suspend these epistemic concerns as soon as we hear or read a signal\u00a0like `once upon a time’, or `long time ago’, or `in the beginning’ which indicate\u00a0we are in a fictional world where truth value functions in a quite different way\u00a0than in much of everyday discourse. Literature provides us with possible\u00a0worlds to reflect upon and to respond to, gives us a point of view to consider,\u00a0and breathes “life” into characters just as surely as the creator-god of Genesis\u00a0does.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Biblical writers are best read as poets not as philosophers. And as poets\u00a0they do not have this correspondence theory of truth in mind. Those who claim\u00a0that the Bible is “True”, if by that claim they mean that every statement in the\u00a0Bible is literally true, fail to respond to the fictional signals provided by the\u00a0writers. What are these signals? More than just the introductory mode\u00a0indicators are at work in these texts; for example, the narrator(s) often steps\u00a0out of the story to say something directly to the audience: “There came a\u00a0famine in the land – not the earlier famine in Abraham’s time\u00a0– and Isaac went to Abimelech the Philistine king at Gerar.” (Gen. 26.1); “He\u00a0named that place Beth-El, but the earlier name of the city was\u00a0Luz.” (Gen. 28.19); “(An omer is one tenth of an ephah.)”\u00a0(Exodus 16.36); “In days gone by in Israel, when a man\u00a0wished to consult God, he would say, `Let us go to the\u00a0seer.’ For what is nowadays called a prophet used to be\u00a0called a seer.” (1 Sam. 9.9) Breaking the frame in this way shows us\u00a0the frame, and from time to time we are reminded of the fact that we are\u00a0reading a story, reminded of intention and voice and other literary\u00a0components at work in the narrative.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The stories in the Bible assume a certain official line and present the\u00a0character of God through actions, images, and dramatic situations. From the\u00a0beginning of story telling we have been seeking a way of expressing the\u00a0inexpressible, of linguistically presenting the extra-linguistic. How do you talk\u00a0about God? Through the Word. The New Testament belief in “the Word” or\u00a0“Logos which becomes flesh” comes directly from the Greek notion of Logos\u00a0and provides the basic concept in terms of which the doctrine of the\u00a0Incarnation was to be understood. The concept of Logos came directly from\u00a0the Stoics, for whom it originally meant an immanent World Soul. It was later\u00a0fused with the Platonic idea of nous and so was conceived as acting in\u00a0accordance with archetypal patterns. The basic problem was: how is it possible\u00a0to have knowledge of a strictly transcendent being. A suggested solution came\u00a0in terms of an intermediary, in this case logos, which was posited to solve the\u00a0question of knowledge. Throughout the early Christian centuries what we find\u00a0is not philosophy of religion but theological writings employing various\u00a0philosophical concepts. Revealing the character and plan of God to limited\u00a0and finite human beings is a difficult problem solved by establishing a canon\u00a0based on an authority of the highest order. Hence, for a very long time it was\u00a0believed that Moses was the author of the first five books. Books like\u00a0Ecclesiastes and The Song of Songs were included in the canon on\u00a0the authority of Solomon. No serious biblical scholar any longer believes that Moses and Solomon wrote these books.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Philo, the gifted Jewish philosopher of the first century, was largely\u00a0responsible for the idea of logos or “the Word” entering into Christian thought.\u00a0Many theologians, then as now, resented the intrusion of philosophy into the\u00a0domain of faith (the most outstanding was Tertullian who said, “I believe\u00a0because it is absurd.”) Early Christianity also flirted with mysticism, which was\u00a0another Greek contribution. The so-called Neoplatonists reverted to a\u00a0profound sense of the Oneness or Unity of Universe in a way, which put\u00a0particulars and plurality in jeopardy, as they had been to some extent in the\u00a0philosophy of Plato. In order to account for particulars the difficult notion of\u00a0emanation was developed. God is the ultimate unity and He\/She transcends\u00a0all forms of thought, but finite beings exist as a falling away from the original\u00a0perfection.[1]<\/a> The problem here is that it is very hard to make sense of the\u00a0notion of emanation without calling in question the all-embracing nature of the\u00a0one ultimate reality. The insistence on the latter did influence mystic thought\u00a0and the influence produces Oriental mysticism with its attempt to draw away\u00a0altogether from our present existence, with its limitations and evil, and to pass\u00a0beyond into a union with the ineffable Being. One way of turning the ineffable\u00a0into the “effable” is through story.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In strong contrast to the Eastern belief that evil is illusory and\u00a0particulars are mere shadows stands the Hebrew-Christian doctrine of\u00a0creation. The Old Testament, as we have seen, is full of stories that express\u00a0the elusive and transcendent nature of their god. The Hebrews believed that a\u00a0true discernment of God’s transcendence required the recognition of our own\u00a0distinctness as beings independent of God. This in turn sharpened the\u00a0question of how such limited and finite beings could in anyway come to know\u00a0God. The Hebrew answer was in terms of God’s disclosure of Himself in\u00a0history and experience, and this was deepened and extended in specifically\u00a0Christian claims about the works and words of the man-god, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One of the central problems within the Judeo-Christian theological\u00a0story centers on epistemology: how can we finite and limited creatures have knowledge of this infinite and all-powerful transcendent being? The question is\u00a0not merely philosophical or to be dismissed as an academic puzzle. The search\u00a0for authority is a real human search and includes passion and desire, fear and\u00a0need. When we humans seek the divine we are looking for an experience not\u00a0an argument. And yet it is our experience that makes the search so difficult.\u00a0How do we – how can we – understand a god-sponsored world in which little\u00a0children suffer and die? Evil may be a worm in man’s heart but it also eats\u00a0away at comfortable belief. Evil has always been a problem for theologians\u00a0because its existence brings into doubt either the nature of God or the\u00a0existence of God. Bluntly put, the problem is: If God is all-powerful,\u00a0all knowing, and all good, then why does evil exist in the world? If God cannot\u00a0eliminate evil then God is not all-powerful. If God can but does not then God\u00a0is not all-good.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One answer is to claim that evil is appearance only and not reality, but\u00a0this hardly matches up with our experience. Another is to posit a dualism of\u00a0good and evil locked in perpetual battle and equally matched in power. But\u00a0this makes god a half-owner of the universe with limited powers. Some argue\u00a0that evil is the responsibility and result of human free will – that because we are\u00a0free to choose, and we are limited in knowledge, we sometimes choose wrong.\u00a0Others, of course, argue that there is no god, and that cause and effect are all\u00a0we need to explain natural catastrophes and human actions. The biblical\u00a0stories that treat these questions are in the collection called Wisdom\u00a0Literature. Can we know the nature of Yahweh? How would an existing divine\u00a0force reveal itself? The continuing popularity of the book of Job shows that\u00a0these problems are important. Job questions God’s nature, his connection to\u00a0morality and justice, and the relationship between the creator and his creation.\u00a0A reading of the book of Job shows the way the Hebrew writers presented\u00a0these philosophical problems in literary form. It will also suggest answers to\u00a0the fundamental epistemological and moral questions. The Book of Job also\u00a0serves as a transition between the Old and New Testaments. Many Christian\u00a0writers have seen in Job the foreshadowing of Christ, and have argued that the\u00a0answer to Job’s questions is to be found in the man-god, Jesus.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To begin let us look briefly at a paper by Paul Weiss.[2]<\/a> In this paper\u00a0Weiss distinguishes ten different kinds of evil: sin, bad intention, wickedness,\u00a0guilt, vice, physical suffering, psychological suffering, natural evil, and\u00a0metaphysical evil. The first two are most characteristically human for they are\u00a0privately inflicted. The ten are defined as follows:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. Sin – he sins who is disloyal to a primary value accepted on faith.<\/p>\n

Blasphemy is one form of sin and treason another. He sins who<\/p>\n

denies his people just as surely as does he who violates the fiats of<\/p>\n

his\/her god. Job shows us that it is not necessary that a man sin. Job<\/p>\n

is righteous. Job is not a sinner. Since he suffers, suffering and the<\/p>\n

multiple evils of the world ought not to be attributed to man’s<\/p>\n

failure to avoid sin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2. \u00a0 Bad intent – ethical evil, like setting oneself to break an ethical<\/p>\n

command. Like sin this is privately achieved. It is concerned with<\/p>\n

the good as open to reason. The man of bad intent fails internally<\/p>\n

to live up to what reason commands. (Steals, kills , lies). Evil<\/p>\n

intent and suffering do not necessarily go together.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3. Wickedness – the evil of carrying out evil intentions. Job is right<\/p>\n

in insisting that he was not wicked. He who is wicked does not<\/p>\n

necessarily incur the wrath of God. Nor does he necessarily suffer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4. Guilt – We ought to love, help, cherish everyone, but since we are<\/p>\n

finite and have finite interest, funds and energy we can not. Each<\/p>\n

thus fails to fulfill an obligation to realize the good completely. We<\/p>\n

are hence necessarily guilty. We fail to do all that ought to be done.<\/p>\n

Eliphaz charges Job with the neglect of hosts of the needy, but we<\/p>\n

are all guilty in that respect.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5. Vice – The habit of doing what injures others; vice is produced by<\/p>\n

men and not by God, and need not entail suffering.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

6. Social.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

7. Physical.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

8. Psychological.<\/p>\n

Job suffers in all (6,7,8) these ways: torn in his body, by his mind,<\/p>\n

and from his fellows, Job has no rest.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

9. Natural evil – an evil embodied in the wild, destructive forces of<\/p>\n

nature, as manifest in earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, etc.<\/p>\n

These do not arise because there is something bad in man\/woman.<\/p>\n

To suppose that nature is geared to the goodness and badness of<\/p>\n

men and women is to suppose either a mysterious harmony<\/p>\n

between ethics and physics, or that spirits really move mountains.<\/p>\n

God is responsible for “natural evil” says the Book of Job.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

10. Metaphysical evil – As Weiss puts it: “What could not be<\/p>\n

avoided by the things in any universe whatsoever is the tenth kind<\/p>\n

of evil, metaphysical evil, the evil of being one among many, of<\/p>\n

possessing only a fragment of reality, of lacking the reality and thus<\/p>\n

the power and good possessed by all the others. Any universe<\/p>\n

whatsoever, created or uncreated, is one in which each part is less<\/p>\n

than perfect precisely because it is other than the rest, and is<\/p>\n

deprived therefore of the reality the rest contain.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Consider this list as a map for reading Job. But notice also that it is not\u00a0an objective map. It too contains a certain story about ethics; and is not\u00a0completely clear and separate from its official line. `Sin’ is a religious not a\u00a0moral term. It is a sin to wear a head covering in some contexts, a sin not to\u00a0wear a head covering in other contexts. To be disloyal may be a moral failing,\u00a0but surely it depends upon what one is disloyal to. Disloyalty to an authority\u00a0urging immoral acts is certainly not a moral failing. You have to make a moral\u00a0judgment about which god is worthy of respect and worship. `Bad intent’ and\u00a0`wickedness’ are moral terms and it is just here that Job is innocent – he has\u00a0neither bad intent nor wickedness – the story makes that clear. `Guilt’ may be a\u00a0moral term; that is, one may feel guilty if one has done something wrong, but\u00a0to feel guilt in a general sense is a pathological, not a logical phenomenon.\u00a0“But you should not feel guilt for that” is a perfectly reasonable and healthy cor-\u00a0rective to the guilt ridden innocent. Weiss’s fourth category seems to include\u00a0the notion that ought implies can – one can not be held morally responsible for\u00a0things beyond one’s control. `Metaphysical guilt’ as described by Weiss is hard\u00a0to understand. What sense does it make to hold a person responsible for not\u00a0being all of reality?[3]<\/a> Can one rationally blame one’s dog for not being a camel?\u00a0A human being? This concept would have evil built into the very fabric of the\u00a0universe, a notion as puzzling as its counterpart of having good built into the\u00a0fabric of the universe. Religious doctrine may assert such a position, but it is\u00a0not clear precisely what would count as evidence for such a position. As Job\u00a0discovers in the story, good and evil are the province of men and women, and\u00a0have nothing to do with God. The universe is not good or evil – it is. For Weiss\u00a0Job is guilty because he is a man and all men are guilty. But the Book of Job\u00a0tells us that Job is innocent, and yet he suffers. What does this story tell us\u00a0about the nature of the god it depicts as a major character?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Notice first that it is a piece of literature, a story of a particular kind. It\u00a0is a play. It has a framing device. It has long boring speeches and little action.\u00a0It is repetitive. The key images have to do with knowledge, wisdom and under-\u00a0standing. These are to be gained in a court room setting with God as judge and\u00a0accuser, Job as wrongly accused defendant who aches for his day in court to\u00a0prove his innocence. Job is a radical protestor, struggling against a system that\u00a0strikes him as unfair and unjust. He is not patient, and he is not Jewish, though\u00a0many think of him as the paradigm of Jewish patience. The existence of God is\u00a0assumed; it is his nature that is in question. Suffering does not imply\u00a0wrongdoing; the bad do sometimes prosper. There is no necessary connection\u00a0between morality and the size of one’s portfolio. The Book of Job is like some\u00a0massive chunk of marble that has within it a beautiful sculpture that has not\u00a0yet been completed: rich, extensive, suggestive, but incomplete. It has been\u00a0praised as a great work:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not only its value as a work of art, displayed by the power of its<\/p>\n

language, by the depth of its feeling, by the grandeur of its<\/p>\n

structure, but also the subject with which it deals, the daring titanic<\/p>\n

struggle with the immemorial, yet ever new, questioning of man-<\/p>\n

kind concerning the meaning of suffering, places this composition<\/p>\n

as regards its general significance beside Dante’s Divina<\/p>\n

Commedia and Goethe’s Faust.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The book consists of two distinct parts. The bulk of the work, and by far\u00a0the more important, is the long poetic section which is framed by the brief\u00a0prose narrative which relates the legend of the righteous man’s travails,\u00a0beginning in heavenly council, and the happy ending when the suffering man\u00a0has everything restored to better than ever status. Biblical scholars[5]<\/a> tell us that\u00a0the framing device, written in an archaic style, bears all of the marks of an\u00a0ancient and popular folk tale, while the dramatic interchange in poetic form is\u00a0from a much later, probably post-exilic time. In any case, it is easy to see the\u00a0difference between the two, even in translation, for the simplicity of the frame\u00a0is even more obvious when set off against the complex and philosophical\u00a0poetic debate between Job and his “comforters”. An editor has molded the two\u00a0parts together to form one literary whole, and as readers we must judge how\u00a0successful the whole has been completed and how the two parts function to-\u00a0gether.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Look at the frame: we are told immediately that Job is “a man of\u00a0blameless and upright life” who fears God and has his face set against\u00a0wrongdoing. He is given as perhaps a bit too much of a good man; that is, he\u00a0seems to approach the good life like an accountant, offering sacrifices for\u00a0possible wrongs on the part of his children because he thinks “that they might\u00a0somehow have sinned against God.” William Blake in his illustrated edition of\u00a0Job has the family at the beginning of the story reading the book to be sure\u00a0that they are following all of the commands of God, but appearing to have a\u00a0fairly bleak and stiff time of it. The musical instruments are not being used,\u00a0there is no joy in this family life before the experience of the whirlwind.\u00a0Blake’s story is visually projected, and he gives us three characters: God, Satan,\u00a0and Job, \u00a0 all of whom look alike. In Blake’s vision God and Satan are forces in\u00a0us, psychological parts of us. Suddenly in the prologue we hear of the members\u00a0of the court of heaven who gather in the presence of the Lord, and this sudden\u00a0shift from earth to heaven is presented with no transition and with no hesi-\u00a0tation. In this heavenly court Satan challenges God to a contest to test Job.\u00a0God will allow Satan to torment Job in order to see if he is steadfast. Satan\u00a0takes his task seriously and destroys Job’s flocks, his servants, and his children.\u00a0Job’s children are killed by a whirlwind sweeping across the desert, which\u00a0knocks their house down and crushes them. We will see a whirlwind again\u00a0before this tale is over. “Throughout all this Job did not sin; he did not charge\u00a0God with unreason.” Satan tries further tortures, with God’s approval, and\u00a0attacks Job’s body and mind. His three friends arrive and “for seven days and\u00a0seven nights they sat beside him on the ground, and none of them said a word\u00a0to him.” So far a cracking good fairy tale: powerful forces are at work above\u00a0who will interfere with events in the human world either to pass the time or to\u00a0test a man to see what kind of torture he can take before breaking. These are\u00a0the forces of some child-like, cruel and sadistic place, imaged in monsters and\u00a0presented as powerful but without moral sense. A god who will break his own\u00a0commandments against killing is not worthy of worship. What do we learn\u00a0from the frame outside the frame? After seven days of silence Job breaks\u00a0silence and curses the day of his birth, for “there is no peace of mind nor quiet\u00a0for me; I chafe in torment and have no rest.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Job at this point seems to believe that there is a correlation between\u00a0being good and being rewarded with the goods of the world. Follow the rules,\u00a0be careful, take a few extra steps of precaution by sacrificing even if you do not\u00a0need to and all will be well. His attitude seems to be one of an overly strict,\u00a0rule-bound worrier, completely uptight about righteousness but forgetting\u00a0about the joy of life itself. Yes, Job is righteous, and no, he has not sinned\u00a0against the laws in the book of righteousness, but he has forgotten to enjoy life\u00a0in all its bountiful glory. He is not really straight with life. He snaps at his wife,\u00a0worries about his children’s obedience to the book of rules.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is one of the ironies of literature that the phrase “patience of Job” is\u00a0now part of our linguistic heritage. Job is, in fact, not at all patient, but wants\u00a0his problem dealt with now, right now – wants to face God and argue his case,\u00a0not sit patiently awaiting resolution. This rebellious demand for a chance to\u00a0plead his case can be seen in the \u00a0 complex of images that revolve around the\u00a0key motifs of justice, balance, and scales of justice. Until he is able to do so the\u00a0world and everything in it is flat and without taste. Notice the images in the\u00a0following passages from the King James translation:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But Job answered and said,<\/p>\n

2. Oh that my grief were throughly<\/p>\n

weighed, and my calamity laid in the balance<\/p>\n

together!<\/p>\n

3. For now it would be heavier than the sand of<\/p>\n

the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up.<\/p>\n

4. For the arrows of the Almighty are within<\/p>\n

me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit:<\/p>\n

the terrors of God do set themselves in array<\/p>\n

against me.<\/p>\n

5. Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass?<\/p>\n

or loweth the ox over his fodder?<\/p>\n

6. Can that which is unsavoury be eaten with-<\/p>\n

out salt? or is there any taste in the white of<\/p>\n

an egg? (Job 6.2-6)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Even though Job is filled with grief and racked with pain he continues\u00a0to cry out for justice. His is a just cause and he wants to be heard in the court\u00a0of the Almighty, where he believes Justice resides.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

11. Therefore I will not refrain my mouth;I<\/p>\n

will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will<\/p>\n

complain in the bitterness of my soul. (7.11)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath<\/p>\n

heard and understood it.<\/p>\n

2. What ye know, the same do I know also: I<\/p>\n

am not inferior to you.<\/p>\n

3. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I<\/p>\n

desire to reason with God.<\/p>\n

4. But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physi-<\/p>\n

cians of no value. (13.1-4)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Job is not a coward; he faces his torment with a desperate strength fed\u00a0with moral outrage. One can almost see his inner conflict at work in the play;\u00a0the drama in this work is indeed in the mind of the protaganist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

15. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him:<\/p>\n

but I will maintain mine own ways before him.<\/p>\n

16. He also shall be my salvation: for an hypo-<\/p>\n

crite shall not come before him.<\/p>\n

17. Hear diligently my speech, and my declara-<\/p>\n

tion with your ears.<\/p>\n

18. Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I<\/p>\n

know that I shall be justified. (13.15-18)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Awash in tears, afraid of the threat of death, but constant in his\u00a0assertion of innocence, Job cries out to earth and to heaven to allow him his\u00a0day in court.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

16. My face is foul with weeping, and on my<\/p>\n

eyelids is the shadow of death;<\/p>\n

17. Not for any injustice in mine hands: also<\/p>\n

my prayer is pure.<\/p>\n

18. O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let<\/p>\n

my cry have no place.<\/p>\n

19. Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven,<\/p>\n

and my record is on high.<\/p>\n

20. My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth<\/p>\n

out tears unto God.<\/p>\n

21. O that one might plead for a man with God,<\/p>\n

as a man pleadeth for his neighbour! (16.16-21)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lack of understanding, of comprehension, is the real cause of Job’s\u00a0torment – he wants desperately to know what is going on in his presumed\u00a0moral universe. Where is the moral centre of the universe to be found? How is\u00a0it that the innocent suffer?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then Job answered and said,<\/p>\n

2. Even to day is my complaint bitter: my<\/p>\n

stroke is heavier than my groaning.<\/p>\n

3. Oh that I knew where I might find him! that<\/p>\n

I might come even to his seat!<\/p>\n

4. I would order my cause before him, and fill<\/p>\n

my mouth with arguments.<\/p>\n

5. I would know the words which he would<\/p>\n

answer me, and understand what he would say<\/p>\n

unto me. (23.1-5)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

6. Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God<\/p>\n

may know mine integrity. (31.6)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We cannot miss this recurring imagery pattern, and it supports the idea\u00a0that Job feels he is a righteous sufferer who wants justice, who wants to argue\u00a0his case before he who is (apparently) judging him. He continues to believe\u00a0that there must be a moral connection between behaviour and benefits. Thus,\u00a0his cry to be heard, to present his argument: if God is the final arbiter and is\u00a0reasonable and comes to know the facts then he can not possibly continue to\u00a0torment Job. In his balance ledger understanding, good should bring good and\u00a0bad should bring bad. I can hear my German Lutheran step-father every time I\u00a0read Job. I hear him crying out to his Lutheran God from the wheat fields in\u00a0Colorado after a hail storm had just wiped out the entire crop: “Why are you\u00a0punishing me? What have I done wrong? Why not the Renzelmens across the\u00a0road? Why me?” There was, of course, never an answer. Otto, like Job,\u00a0demanded to know the relationship between suffering and action, between\u00a0deed and resulting reward or punishment. Job’s friends, like my Lutheran\u00a0pastor on those childhood Sundays, offer him old arguments about how there\u00a0must be a correspondence between the way we live and the rewards we get.\u00a0They offer the old notion of rewards for the good and suffering for the bad.\u00a0See a man’s condition and you can read off his spiritual status. But Job (and\u00a0Otto) knew he was not guilty and feels outraged to be a citizen in a system of\u00a0justice that seems to have gone crazy. We know what Job does not: that God\u00a0has agreed to let the devil use Job in a test of loyalty. This ironic situation\u00a0reveals a God who seems not interested in justice in particular or in morality in\u00a0general. In the prologue God\/Satan flagrantly violates at least three of the\u00a0commandments he gave out on Mount Sinai.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And what do we discover when God, as the voice out of the whirlwind,\u00a0speaks to Job in the dramatic conclusion of the “justice-scales” theme? Job,\u00a0who has suffered in mind and in body, who has lost his children, his flocks, his\u00a0health, has cried out to be heard by his tormentor. And when the answer\u00a0comes what does God have to say about the nature of justice? What does he\u00a0offer in explanation of the relationship between crime and punishment? What\u00a0insights does God offer about the nature of good and evil? What does God say\u00a0to Job about the reasons for his suffering? Absolutely nothing. Job, who\u00a0wanted to reason with God, who wanted to argue his case in court, who wanted\u00a0to understand the relationship between acts and rewards, has no chance for ar-\u00a0gument. Expecting a wise judge to debate his case with, he gets a God of\u00a0power, sheer power. All of the long speeches of Job and his friends in which\u00a0arguments were presented and analyzed, in which causes and effects are\u00a0posited, are set against the voice from the whirlwind. And this voice does not\u00a0present argument, does not offer explanation, provides no thesis on cause and\u00a0effect; no, this voice does not speak as a rational first cause, but instead says:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then the Lord answered Job out of the<\/p>\n

whirlwind, and said,<\/p>\n

2. Who is this that darkeneth counsel by<\/p>\n

words without knowledge?<\/p>\n

3. Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will<\/p>\n

demand of thee, and answer thou me.<\/p>\n

4. Where wast thou when I laid the founda-<\/p>\n

tion of the earth? declare, if thou hast under-<\/p>\n

standing.<\/p>\n

5. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if<\/p>\n

thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line<\/p>\n

upon it?<\/p>\n

(38.1-5)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The voice out of the whirlwind releases a whirlwind of rhetoric, a series\u00a0of creation images of sheer brutal power, but has absolutely nothing to say\u00a0about the situation that Job is in. What we have waited for throughout the\u00a0play finally comes and it is totally unexpected. The human questions about\u00a0morality and suffering, about justice and fairness, are not resolved, are not\u00a0even directly addressed. What answer does the story provide? What of all\u00a0these questions of the human spirit? A transcendent God is not concerned\u00a0with justice – justice is a human concept and is to be worked out by humans in\u00a0this world and in this life. This powerful urge, creative and destructive, is life\u00a0itself, confusing, inexplicable, powerful, unknowable in detail, and not captured\u00a0in words, but only imaged in whirlwind. The images in the voice out of the\u00a0whirlwind’s speech at the conclusion of the play resonate off the opening\u00a0speech in Part I where Job says in the third chapter of the King James transla-\u00a0tion:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed<\/p>\n

his day.<\/p>\n

2. And Job spake, and said,<\/p>\n

3. Let the day perish wherein I was born, and<\/p>\n

the night in which it was said, There is a man<\/p>\n

child conceived.<\/p>\n

4. Let that day be darkness; let not God regard<\/p>\n

it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.<\/p>\n

5. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain<\/p>\n

it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of<\/p>\n

the day terrify it.<\/p>\n

6. As for that night, let darkness seize upon it;<\/p>\n

let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let<\/p>\n

it not come into the number of the months. (3.1-6)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This lament, filled with images of darkness and death, is not so much\u00a0suicidal as it is a cry for non-being. Job wants to blot out of history the night he\u00a0was conceived and the day he was born. There is excess here – much like the\u00a0excess piety hinted at in the prologue. To speak of changing history to blot out\u00a0the day of one’s birth is still to insist upon one’s importance in the scheme of\u00a0things. `I must have been important; just look at all of the worldly goods that I\u00a0had before my fall.’ These are not the lines of a patient, long suffering man.\u00a0Try reading them aloud with patience and quiet resolve. Notice the form of\u00a0those poetic lines. They echo the opening passages of Genesis, the creation\u00a0story: “Let there be light…” and “Let there be…” – a refrain for the creation of\u00a0everything in that story. Job uses a similar imperative in his opening speech,\u00a0but his statement is negative, black and destructive. The whirlwind will later\u00a0refer to the creation also, and put Job in his place as a finite limited being\u00a0because he was not present at the beginning. From the light of the creation\u00a0story \u00a0 to the darkness of Job’s spiritual condition is the distance from rational\u00a0creativity to irrational destruction. Job’s only sin is that before the whirlwind he\u00a0believes that the universe is rational and moral, attributes which he believes its\u00a0first cause shares. The Book of Job shows us \u00a0 a deep truth: mortals are cut off\u00a0from any god-authority as the foundation for moral life. Justice, as King Lear\u00a0also must discover, is not in the heavens but in men and women. And this les-\u00a0son comes as part of a lesson in interpretation. Trying to read the world as a\u00a0one-dimensional playground where the good boys and girls are rewarded with\u00a0slices of cake and the bad boys and girls are punished is not a legitimate\u00a0reading. Certainly Job learns something in the course of the play, and that\u00a0lesson is about the nature of morality – morality is not founded upon God. This\u00a0new knowledge \u00a0 is imaged in the motifs of “knowledge” – “wisdom” – “teaching”\u00a0presented in a series of images which cluster around those words: “tell the\u00a0creatures that crawl to teach you”, “to give you instruction”, “there is wisdom”,\u00a0and “long life brings understanding”, “uncovers mysteries” and so forth. But as\u00a0far as the key experience of the play – the voice from the whirlwind – none of\u00a0these cliches bears any fruit (to use another cliche). Job’s lesson comes in the\u00a0form of a tempest, a powerful image of the irrational forces that the writer sees\u00a0at work in life. You cannot make sense out of life any more than you can make\u00a0cents out of life. “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without\u00a0knowledge?” questions the voice. And the answer to the question is Eliphaz,\u00a0Bildad, and Zophar, for in the epilogue God says to Eliphaz, “My wrath is\u00a0kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for you have not spoken of\u00a0me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Lord admits here that Job has been right, but right about what?\u00a0His “comforters” are given a light punishment for saying that which is not right,\u00a0but what were they wrong about? Clearly, on one level, Job is right because he\u00a0did not follow his wife’s advice and “renounce God and die’. He continued to\u00a0have faith beyond all reason, continued to believe in a just universe based upon\u00a0some rational principles of fair play. His friends claim to know these principles,\u00a0and in that must lie their sin. Time after time they tell Job that the righteous\u00a0never suffer, only the evil suffer, and that therefore since he is suffering he\u00a0must be evil, and that to stop the suffering he must correct his ways.[6]<\/a> Job can\u00a0not and will not accept this simple-minded “stimulus-response” theory of\u00a0justice because he has seen too often that, in fact, innocents suffer and the\u00a0corrupt prosper. He wants to know why the innocent suffer, but he does not\u00a0claim to have the answer. He wants to plead his case in front of God in order\u00a0to gain that knowledge and to understand how it is that God has arranged the\u00a0moral world. As we have seen Job is to be disappointed for he never gets to\u00a0have the kind of discussion that he hopes will untangle forever the problems of\u00a0moral philosophy. Instead when God finally does appear to him as a voice out\u00a0of the whirlwind[7]<\/a> Job learns of God’s power but not of justice as fairness or as\u00a0the relationship between punishment and crime. Job is rewarded, finally, for\u00a0his blind loyalty and for having faith beyond reason – and the point is: that is\u00a0exactly what the official line of the book of Job proclaims, blind faith is re-\u00a0warded by revelation. Eliphaz errs by claiming to understand the ways of God,\u00a0as if mere and puny humans could possibly understand the mysteries of this\u00a0creator god. Dogmatic explanation is punished; skepticism is rewarded. One\u00a0can not read the condition of man in the outward manifestations of wealth and\u00a0property. What does this experience mean? How can I read it? The meaning is\u00a0in the revelation of the master story teller.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read the clever little masque called “A Masque of Reason” by Robert\u00a0Frost[8]<\/a> for an interesting take on the story of the relationship between Job and\u00a0God, and “Mrs. Job”. For a more serious modern rendition read the play JB by\u00a0Archibald McLeish. Artists throughout the world and at various times have\u00a0found the Book of Job a rich source of inspiration with its deep and problem-\u00a0atic questions and its powerful figures of God, Satan and their plaything Job,\u00a0or everyman. It is hard not to respond to the searing passages in the play, for\u00a0the human conditon is oten found to be just like it is portrayed here: irrational,\u00a0unjust, and lying above or beyond the reach of the human mind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why do the innocent suffer? Why do time and chance function as they\u00a0do? Why me? Where is order? Who is running this show anyway? Why does\u00a0evil exist? Where has the promised innocence of the garden of Eden gone?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We can not fault the Hebrew writer for not being able to sort out the\u00a0problems of evil in the world. Several centuries later we are still discussing\u00a0these same problems. As philosophers and theologians have known for thou-\u00a0sands of years, it is extremely difficult to explain the existence of evil in a world\u00a0created by a God who is both infinitely good and infinitely powerful. Various\u00a0attempts have been made: evil has been traced to the fall of Adam, or God\u00a0permits unmerited suffering as a means of purifying the soul for eternal life.\u00a0Some have tried to relieve God of the apparent responsibility for evil by sup-\u00a0posing he is finite in knowledge or power or both. The god as revealed in the\u00a0Book of Job simply asserts all of these propositions as being true together:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. I am.<\/p>\n

2. Suffering is.<\/p>\n

3. So what.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A god who reveals himself in time is a part of many of the stories of the\u00a0Old Testament. In the beginning we learn of him through his revelation to the\u00a0patriarchs and to Moses. There is no way to tell when and if he will reveal\u00a0himself to any particular character, for his ways are mysterious and the signs\u00a0he provides are ambiguous. What is his intent? What does it all mean? \u00a0 These\u00a0questions are asked of all texts; it is no different here. For the Christian the\u00a0answer to Job comes in the story of the man-god Jesus, another comes from\u00a0Koheleth, in the book called Ecclesiastes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE WAYS OF GOD ARE INSCRUTABLE<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the Hebrew Bible Ecclesiastes stands alone in theology and in style.\u00a0It probably never would have been included in the canon except that it was\u00a0believed to have been written by King Solomon, and that authority was\u00a0sufficient to assure it a place in the collection of “revealed” books. It is the most\u00a0footnoted of books in the collection. On occasions the “footnotes” have\u00a0become a part of the text as the redactor added a line here and there to try to\u00a0force the story into the official line. For example, as the headnote to the book\u00a0in the New English Bible puts it: “Glosses which relieve the gloom (and,\u00a0indeed, the impiety) of the book seem to have been added in later times….” It\u00a0has often been read as a gloomy and impious book because it departs from the\u00a0official line in such a basic way. Right after the Speaker says “I saw under the\u00a0sun that, where justice ought to be, there was wickedness, and where\u00a0righteousness ought to be, there was wickedness,” a gloss (at 3.17) is added\u00a0which states that God’s purpose is to test men “to see what they truly are.” Or\u00a0again at 7.18 after the Speaker suggests a balanced approach as the best\u00a0psychology to pursue (“Do not be over-righteous and do not be over-wise”) the\u00a0“Explainer” adds, “for a man who fears God will succeed both ways.” And at\u00a08.12-13, after the Speaker has stated that wickedness is not punished, and\u00a0goodness not rewarded the Explainer adds, “A sinner may do wrong and live to\u00a0an old age, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God…” and the\u00a0“yet I know” rings false in the overall story of skepticism that it presented in the\u00a0text. The dramatic question in both Job and Ecclesiastes arises precisely\u00a0because the human characters do not and cannot know what, if any, plan\u00a0surrounds and defines their lives. In the Speaker’s response to this question we\u00a0see it makes no difference whether there is a plan or not; it is not knowable in\u00a0any case. “True, the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once in an evening class I had the students listen to a recording of\u00a0Ecclesiastes as read by Jame Mason and asked them to jot down responses as\u00a0they were listening.. I too kept notes of what came into my mind while listening\u00a0to the Mason interpretation of the text. My “reader’s response” notes follow:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The opening passage with its circular images of cyclical activity<\/p>\n

without purpose: eyes not satisfied with seeing, appetite not filled,<\/p>\n

rivers that flow to the sea but the sea is never filled – all accurately<\/p>\n

describe a mental state of despair and weariness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Obviously the speaker is a middle aged man who has attempted to<\/p>\n

live his life with some ideas and beliefs that have proved to be false.<\/p>\n

The path he has followed has been a long one with many attempts<\/p>\n

to make life meaningful by aiming at particular external goals. He<\/p>\n

has tried wisdom, madness, folly, pleasure, great works, money,<\/p>\n

sex, mirth, and found them all to be empty, because always was the<\/p>\n

reality of his own mortality.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The text is like a huge symphony with separate and identifiable<\/p>\n

movements. It opens with an emptiness of spirit that is palpable to<\/p>\n

the \u00a0 senses, but then it starts to move to a different level of ac-<\/p>\n

ceptance and resignation and finally to an amazing finale of<\/p>\n

optimism, acceptance and joy. (Herb is asleep now; his head<\/p>\n

leaning further and further toward Cathy. He may be faking it just<\/p>\n

to lay his sleeping head on her shoulder. He wakes and looks at<\/p>\n

me, ah, did the instructor see me sleeping? Emptiness, all is<\/p>\n

emptiness.) Is it boring? Well, yes I suppose the beginning parts<\/p>\n

are boring to a twenty year old who still believes he is immortal.<\/p>\n

(How many people will drop off to sleep? The room is hot, the<\/p>\n

reading accurate but monotonous – oh, how right Mason is to read<\/p>\n

it just that way – David’s book falls off his lap as he too drops off.<\/p>\n

What difference does it make? “One event happeneth to all.” No<\/p>\n

one will remember or care tomorrow what happened today.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The poem which The Byrds stole to make “Turn, turn, turn” is the<\/p>\n

first move towards life and acceptance. There is a time for every-<\/p>\n

thing has a comforting sound to it. There is a time to sleep and a<\/p>\n

time to study. I think again of the large number of literary texts that<\/p>\n

are rooted in Ecclesiastes: The Sun Also Rises, King<\/p>\n

Lear, Waiting for Godot (“two are better than one”- see<\/p>\n

Beckett’s clowns acting out that cosmic connection that holds<\/p>\n

people together; we need someone to help us up when we fall<\/p>\n

down. “He couldn’t remember where his home is. But he wanted to<\/p>\n

go there anyway.”) “So I hated life.” Why? Because it didn’t yield to<\/p>\n

my hopes and plans; it went on not paying attention to me, not<\/p>\n

caring about me. What is missing? Why this despair and hatred of<\/p>\n

life? An entire inventory of goals is given and none have produced<\/p>\n

the feeling of life, of value. Are there more goals that haven’t been<\/p>\n

considered? Will it become clearer when I am older? Will Herb<\/p>\n

wake up? What is missing? Why is everything stale and flat?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And finally – and finally an answer:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“The light of day is sweet, and pleasant to the eye is the sight of the<\/p>\n

sun; if a man lives for many years, he should rejoice in all of them.”<\/p>\n

(11.7)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Everyone should write her own response to this book. Read it; listen to\u00a0it; write about it. It suggests to me these themes: Get rid of goals and life\u00a0begins to flow, have goals and you get tied up in knots. This does not mean\u00a0that you should not save for a rainy day. These are life-goals that the Speaker\u00a0talks about. If you set out to find wisdom, labor, pleasure as ends in them-\u00a0selves, and expect these ends to deliver results as an investment might, then you\u00a0are doomed to emptiness, for happiness is always a by-product of doing\u00a0something and not a thing to be sought out like a coin lost on the floor. Life,\u00a0says the Speaker, is an attitude not a program, a scene and not a plot. With\u00a0divine justice in human affairs an illusion, and truth unattainable, the Speaker\u00a0is left with little upon which to build. All that is certain for man\\woman is that\u00a0there is a desire for happiness. Thus, the basic theme of the book is an\u00a0insistence upon the enjoyment of life, of all the things in this world since it is\u00a0the only world we can know. \u00a0 Live capriciously, do not calculate like Job did;\u00a0joy is our categorical imperative and we must taste of life’s joys without\u00a0self-deception. The Speaker reminds us that the realities of life do not\u00a0correspond to the yearnings of the heart. Often our deepest desires are\u00a0thwarted by the hard facts of experience, and our timeless yearnings are\u00a0frustrated by our time-restricted days.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Speaker answers Job. The Speaker says: “Do not be over-righteous and do not be over-wise. And above all do not try to be God.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

[1]<\/a> John Milton\u2019s Paradise Lost<\/em> has this notion embedded in th efall of Satan from grace. Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy<\/em> is the literary high point of mystical Christianity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[2]<\/a> Paul Weiss, \u201cGod, Job, and Evil,\u201d Commentary, <\/em>Volume VI, (1948).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[3]<\/a> This understanding of metaphysical evil and its logical problems comes from Dale Beyerstein.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[4]<\/a> Arthur Weiser, The Old Testament: Its Formation and Development<\/em>, D. M. Bartn, tr. New York: Association Press, 1961, page 288.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[5]<\/a> See, for example, James King West, Introduction to the Old Testament,<\/em> pages 391ff, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1971.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[6]<\/a> Often one runs into this argument:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If we are evil then we will suffer.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We are suffering.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Therefore we are evil.<\/p>\n

But this is not a valid argument. It would make the following parallel argument valid, which it clearly is not:<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If I am Superman then I am a man.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am a man.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Therefore I am Superman.<\/p>\n

The fallacy here is called \u201caffirming the consequent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[7]<\/a> Consider the image of the whirlwind: a whirlwind is capricious, powerful, inarticulate, a natural force.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[8]<\/a> The poem can be found in The Poetry of Robert Frost, op.cit., <\/em>page 484, 485.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"menu_order":8,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-38","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/38\/revisions\/39"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/38\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/readingthebible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}