Topic: Story of Job

[Builder]

As the Judgement Day of Turkeys is at hand and many turkeys are going to get their long-term forecast of world developments and their own fate completely wrong, it is time think of Job.

Brief narrative of the story of Job:

Job is a wealthy man living in a land called Uz with his large family and extensive flocks. He is “blameless” and “upright,” always careful to avoid doing evil (1:1). One day, Satan (“the Adversary”) appears before God in heaven. God boasts to Satan about Job’s goodness, but Satan argues that Job is only good because God has blessed him abundantly. Satan challenges God that, if given permission to punish the man, Job will turn and curse God. God allows Satan to torment Job to test this bold claim, but he forbids Satan to take Job’s life in the process.

In the course of one day, Job receives four messages, each bearing separate news that his livestock, servants, and ten children have all died due to marauding invaders or natural catastrophes. Job tears his clothes and shaves his head in mourning, but he still blesses God in his prayers. Satan appears in heaven again, and God grants him another chance to test Job. This time, Job is afflicted with horrible skin sores. His wife encourages him to curse God and to give up and die, but Job refuses, struggling to accept his circumstances.

Three of Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, come to visit him, sitting with Job in silence for seven days out of respect for his mourning. On the seventh day, Job speaks, beginning a conversation in which each of the four men shares his thoughts on Job’s afflictions in long, poetic statements.

Job curses the day he was born, comparing life and death to light and darkness. He wishes that his birth had been shrouded in darkness and longs to have never been born, feeling that light, or life, only intensifies his misery. Eliphaz responds that Job, who has comforted other people, now shows that he never really understood their pain. Eliphaz believes that Job’s agony must be due to some sin Job has committed, and he urges Job to seek God’s favor. Bildad and Zophar agree that Job must have committed evil to offend God’s justice and argue that he should strive to exhibit more blameless behavior. Bildad surmises that Job’s children brought their deaths upon themselves. Even worse, Zophar implies that whatever wrong Job has done probably deserves greater punishment than what he has received.

Job responds to each of these remarks, growing so irritated that he calls his friends “worthless physicians” who “whitewash [their advice] with lies” (13:4). After making pains to assert his blameless character, Job ponders man’s relationship to God. He wonders why God judges people by their actions if God can just as easily alter or forgive their behavior. It is also unclear to Job how a human can appease or court God’s justice. God is unseen, and his ways are inscrutable and beyond human understanding. Moreover, humans cannot possibly persuade God with their words. God cannot be deceived, and Job admits that he does not even understand himself well enough to effectively plead his case to God. Job wishes for someone who can mediate between himself and God, or for God to send him to Sheol, the deep place of the dead.

Job’s friends are offended that he scorns their wisdom. They think his questions are crafty and lack an appropriate fear of God, and they use many analogies and metaphors to stress their ongoing point that nothing good comes of wickedness. Job sustains his confidence in spite of these criticisms, responding that even if he has done evil, it is his own personal problem. Furthermore, he believes that there is a “witness” or a “Redeemer” in heaven who will vouch for his innocence (16:19, 19:25). After a while, the upbraiding proves too much for Job, and he grows sarcastic, impatient, and afraid. He laments the injustice that God lets wicked people prosper while he and countless other innocent people suffer. Job wants to confront God and complain, but he cannot physically find God to do it. He feels that wisdom is hidden from human minds, but he resolves to persist in pursuing wisdom by fearing God and avoiding evil.

Without provocation, another friend, Elihu, suddenly enters the conversation. The young Elihu believes that Job has spent too much energy vindicating himself rather than God. Elihu explains to Job that God communicates with humans by two ways—visions and physical pain. He says that physical suffering provides the sufferer with an opportunity to realize God’s love and forgiveness when he is well again, understanding that God has “ransomed” him from an impending death (33:24). Elihu also assumes that Job must be wicked to be suffering as he is, and he thinks that Job’s excessive talking is an act of rebellion against God.

God finally interrupts, calling from a whirlwind and demanding Job to be brave and respond to his questions. God’s questions are rhetorical, intending to show how little Job knows about creation and how much power God alone has. God describes many detailed aspects of his creation, praising especially his creation of two large beasts, the Behemoth and Leviathan. Overwhelmed by the encounter, Job acknowledges God’s unlimited power and admits the limitations of his human knowledge. This response pleases God, but he is upset with Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar for spouting poor and theologically unsound advice. Job intercedes on their behalf, and God forgives them. God returns Job’s health, providing him with twice as much property as before, new children, and an extremely long life.

I had a discussion with my friend priest who totally surprised me by saying that every story of dedicated search for truth is a story of Job. He has always been on the protestant position - work hard, live well and God's love will overwhelm you.

Now he says that it is about the quest and trusting the voice of truth within in all adversity. Interesting developments!

[Michael]

It's always been a tricky one. Firstly, what is plain, is that this story striks at the heart of those who believe bad things happen to people because they are bad. Bad things can happen to good people as a way of preparing them for future glory.

This is a devise I use myself, although I don't believe it. When people say to me that something bad happened because they must have had bad karma, or deserved it somehow, I say perhaps it is more about the future than the past - an opportunity, or a way to pay for future benefits.

Personally I think it's crap. I accept karma, but I don't accept we can comprehend how it works in the linear way to which our mind resorts. I have no doubt that wrong decisions build suffering, but that in no way means suffering is caused by wrong decisions. Trying to justify events, backwards or forwards, according to behaviour, is founded upon the principle we can have a logical discussion with God. That is a complete misunderstanding of reality.

What is true, is that we can use events to build personal power. This then provides the stepping stone to address "every story of dedicated search for truth". I feel the Christian religion has completely misguided its adherents, by setting them forth from a false premise. It is best to dismiss any attempt to critique this, and just start correctly. We don't have to defend ourselves to anyone - we just have to get it right.

Whatever happens to us in life, it is an opportunity - up until the point where the adversity overwhelms our ability to respond constructively. It is a sign of our level of personal power, the extent to which we can continue to profit from experience. I don't believe we are given no more than we can handle. I believe anything can happen in this universe, and we can easily be pushed way beyond our capacity. Mush of this path is sheer luck.

Nonetheless, I also believe it is possible to reach a covenant with the power behind the universe. To reach that, is the goal of everyone on the Path. And even when reached, it can never be taken for granted.

The correct approach for Job was firstly to remove God from any thoughts. That is a complete waste of energy. Secondly, to become flexible enough to turn every event into a profit, internally. Sure, he can complain and bewail his fate - we are all human and needing to let off our frustration. But then we have to assess our situation, not complain, perceive how best to find some way through the maze while sustaining our inner core. This is damn hard in the worst cases, and I feel only the greatest respect for any of us who finds themselves on such a road.

What it does, for what it's worth, is to move our sense of identity back from the outer world, to a place the world can't reach - deep inside us is a core that exists outside of our worldly life. This is the task of all of us, in or out of strife. We have to relocate our identity to our spirit, or its intermediary - the double.

What is odd, is that good fortune causes the same effect for a person-of-the-path. Because every time something good happens to us, we are left with the deep realisation that it is only superficial - it changes nothing about our core reality. Only efforts which affect that core reality are satisfying.

The problem with such advise, is that if we are truthful enough, we will see that in the end, inner silence sabotages everything. I say that's not entirely true - that there is a 'residual' from the correct approach to Job's challenge, which sticks with us through the eye of the needle. But that is just my personal belief.

Let me put it this way, in meditational inner silence, we realise that everything is futile - that is the unavoidable truth. But ask yourself, how long can you sustain that realisation? Why is it, that you not only found that realisation, but can sustain yourself within it? Where did that capacity come from?

[Jahn]

What it does, for what it's worth, is to move our sense of identity back from the outer world, to a place the world can't reach - deep inside us is a core that exists outside of our worldly life. This is the task of all of us, in or out of strife. We have to relocate our identity to our spirit, or its intermediary - the double.

That is what I,ve done but I have never put Words to it. In fact one can say that to reach our core and maintain our awareness from there, is what some call "freedom". There is no true freedom for us as human beings but to align with our core is the next best we can get.

[Firestarter]

The story of Job is a fascinating one and I have often thought about the story.

Why would God wager with the devil with one of his most devoted folks and let him torture him so.

Then in the end Job got rewarded for this faith. But still he lost so much.

I never really liked this story. I have always seen it rather sadistic.