/lit/ - Literature

>>14005847
i'm sure you mean אִיּוֹב - oh, you read a translation? holy kek i'm keking at you lmaoooo pleb

god really fucked with that dude lol

>>14005847
no bc im not a pusillanimous cur

>>14005847
The absolute suffering makes me want to. Last time, I read it in NRSV and for college. What translation did you read, OP?

>>14005881
I have various translations of the Bible but right now I'm reading it in my native portuguese.

If you pay close attention at the end you'll see that Job's catharsis is achieved solely from his encounter with God, not from the restoration of his goods and property. Further, Bildad et al. are censured is such a manner that Job's woe at his suffering, and his bemoaning of his fate, his questioning of God without denying God, is implied to have been righteous. Job is a weak response to the problem of evil theologically/philosophically speaking, but it is a strong answer at the level of the human navigating the awfulness and awesomeness of life.

>>14005942
Good post.

God's speech at the end is one of the most beautiful in all of literature.

"Where were you when the sons of morning sang for joy?" Fuck dude.

>>14005847

Job is not innocent. The Reason and Morality are hidden behind the hysteria, giving in to hysteria would make you precisely like Job.

Pasting this AGAIN:

>The story itself is ironic in that the principle of Job being innocent is completely absurd, and people taking it as dogma are themselves exemplary of Job's perverse "innocence". It is implied that God could have destroyed everyone and everything around him, and Job would have thought nothing of it. Worse still, that he only thought about it once he became afflicted, was utterly unrepentant in his ignorance, but still self-aggrandized in both refusing to admit fault and refusing to consider that, if he is indeed innocent, anyone and everyone that God likewise tormented could have been innocent as well, making him the disciple of a monster. So many mutually aggravating offenses that they indeed make lesser Mosaic sin redundant and Job formally innocent thereof. God's non-reply being not only perfectly adequate in mirroring Job's casual monstrosity, but quite merciful as well in letting Job carry on as usual.

>>14005847
it was good right until he gets his money and fortune back, in true jewish fashion.
this is a recurring theme in the old testament which bastardizes martyrdom and suffering by 'paying' money for them.
Job should've gotten his grace in Heaven but oh wait, the old testament doesn't have heaven, or any true metaphysical dimension for that matter (it's only: if you do X as God said, you'll have money, cattle, many children, wives etc.; it's all tiresome)

>>14005847
No, it makes me want to beat them all up , god satan and job, giving pride to a being just crush it, it's very twisted but then i cant imagine how boring and how fucked up your moral compass gets when youre the one that invented morals and you're being around literally forever

>>14005847
Why did God even bother testing Job if he is fucking omniscient? He literally just murdered Job's family for no reason.

>>14005847
no but the part where God tells Job to shroud the faces of his enemies in the grave was pretty fucking sick

>>14005847
Only if Job was a woman.

I remember thinking "Wow, God's a douche" after reading it.

>>14007405
More like Satan outsmarts God and God has a fragile ego

>>14007301
dude it's all good he gave him another familty afterwards lmao

>>14007301
Job is a really ancient book. You can see the polytheistic roots of Judaism in the Council of Gods (also in the descriptions of Leviathan later on), which works as a sort of court. The satan (prosecutor) makes the case that humans only obey god out of self-interest, not because they're inherently righteous and moral. God needs to prove the contrary.
Also, is it even stated in the Old Testament that god is omniscient? Could just be Hellenistic influence.

>>14007764

Would you be able to point out where in the Bible the Council of Gods is mentioned? I don't recall ever seeing such a thing at least up until the book of Job. There are other spirits and angels and Satan for sure, but a council doesn't ring any bells.

>>14005847

The Old Testament never denies or makes clear whether reincarnation happens or not.
Job could've been a sinner in his previous life, beyond Satan's agency.

>>14007783
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Council#Hebrew

>>14007811

I understand what you mean now. I do not know anything about the polytheistic roots of Judaism, where could I read about it? How did it work?

>>14007783
>>14007852

Literally read the opening of Job. God is discussing this stuff over a feast with others, which medieval christian theology posits as a host of angels and pre-fall Lucifer. As the anon says earlier though, it is The satan, NOT Satan that tortures Job.

good blog post:
https://raymondusrex.wordpress.com/2016/08/20/the-gods-and-goddesses-of-canaan/

If you were to look at the progression of the God of Israel, you can see him as a tribal God with Abraham, who later merged into El Shaddai when in the Levant, which is roughly parallel with the Canaanite tradition. Whilst in Egypt there is a religious revolution and the forming of the Yahweh cult and its forms which are tied deeply to the figure of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jethro_(biblical_figure) Jethro, a Midianite priest and Moses' stepfather. After 400 years a new religion had formed which rejected the council of El and made him LORD (hence shaddai in the bible). When the Israelites and Caananite Yahwehists returned to the land under Joshua it was with a new monotheist faith that ultimately conquered several caananite cities and destroyed the caananite pantheon through assimilation.

if you want to read more, nahum sarna is a good read on it.

>>14007880
btw here is a good source book from the link

Coogan, Michael D. Stories from Ancient Canaan 2nd. Edition Westminster John Knox Press. 2012

it is not unreasonable to assume that caanites WERE polytheistic isrealites or so culturally close that it didnt matter prior to the events of Joseph and Exodus (outside the clan of the patriarchs of course). Consider throughout the book of prophets how easilly and syncretically the peoples of israel flip flop between YHWH/El and El and Baal and Dagon etc.

>>14007083
>unironically being a contemporary moralist
Neck yourself

>>14007880

Interesting, thank you.
Just a little correction: in the opening of the book it is Job himself and his sons who are feasting, God just gathered his sons.

>>14007852
Here's a excellent lecture about Yahwism:
https://youtu.be/h_UmuEBmS5k?t=1622
This is when god first reveals himself to Moses as Yahweh. Before, he was only known as El to the patriarchs. It's theorized that there was a shift in the Israelite pantheon, which then became monolatry (worship of Yahweh without denying other gods) and ended up in monotheism by the time of the Babylonian exile (when they were looking for reasons why Judah fell).
Watch Lecture 3 if you want a comparison of the creation myth in Genesis and other near eastern traditions, and Lecture 20 for an analysis of Job. Professor Hayes is a tremendous speaker so her lectures are easy to sit through.

>>14007928
You are correct, I was referring to Job 1:6 "6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan[b] also came among them. 7"

I saw this as God (El Shaddai) on his throne at court or at feast with the other god's abasing themselves before him

>>14007931
She is good, and The Learning Company also has a lecture by Amy Levine (The Old Testament) which you can pirate with btdig

>>14005847
For me it's Hosea and Amos

>>14007941
>>14007931
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/meaning-of-life-perspectives-from-the-world-s-great-intellectual-traditions.html

this is another good lecture on Job. He is much more focused on the fact that Humans assuming that the Justice of God reflects human concepts of Justice implies that you can mediate between yourself and God, which in Job, you cannot. God is sovereign, his law is sovereign, and Job and his friends are chastised for seeking amends or understanding.

>>14007916

I'd try to explain that separating your Morality from God's actually has implications opposite to the ones you think it does, but I am talking to someone who probably partakes in ritual cannibalism and whose Trinity consists of Mary, a Pharisee, and a pedophile so I fear it might be in vain.

>>14005942
>>14007083
You are applying a humanist morality to a non-humanist text (and abrahamic religion at large)—no wonder you find strange answers. Job is in fact an excellent answer to the Problem of Evil, because it doesn't adress it. Man only has value through his Creator, and is in that regard completely depraved through the Fall of Eden. We deserve all ill that could come our way, regardless of actions or thoughts. Job is fully aware of this, and accepts his fate. Anything but would be a blasphemous act of raising man above the only God.

>>14008115
>this is an excellent answer to that because it doesn't address it
>as if the statement is not bad enough he literally addresses it in the next sentence
>makes statements from a god's eye perspective
>then says it's blasphemous to do so

The absolute state...my God. How do you manage to breathe?

>>14007764
>humans only obey god out of self-interest
did the book of Job retroactively refute Pascal's wager?

>>14007301
Doesn't say God is omniscient.

Says human are so much lower than God* that they cannot hope to fully understand God's reasons and should therefore be humble.

*You could secularize the teaching by treating God as an anthropomorphization of fate or nature, and it would be essentially the same. A stoic intrepretation of the book would be something like "you can't control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it".

>>14005847
No

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVgZqnsytJI

>>14008115
>We deserve all ill that could come our way, regardless of actions or thoughts.

Then why bother trying to obey god at all?

>>14005850
You made me kek, have a (you)

>>14007880
Wow, based and interesting post anon. Got anything else to read to supplement this?

>>14005847
The considerations that most people offer up to Judaic nonsense often move me to tears through the process of hearty belly laughter. Take you for example.

>>14011249
No need to be mean to them, anon. I might feel similar to you about Judaism and it's offshoots, but I try not to hurt the feelings of the folk who such ideologies bring comfort to.

>>14008115
I love this, but please clear something up. Job can be said to accept his fate, even when cursing God for his torment?

>>14005967
I love you

Are there any other works that balance suffering with beauty like Job does?

>>14005893
Based? Are you Brazilian or Portuguese?

>>14005967

Based

so what was the point of elihu

Love the book of Job.

Also, would recommend Chesterton's introductory article: it is very beautiful.

https://www.chesterton.org/introduction-to-job/

>The book of Job is chiefly remarkable, as I have insisted throughout, for the fact that it does not end in a way that is conventionally satisfactory. Job is not told that his misfortunes were due to his sins or a part of any plan for his improvement. But in the prologue we see Job tormented not because he was the worst of men, but because he was the best. It is the lesson of the whole work that man is most comforted by paradoxes. Here is the very darkest and strangest of the paradoxes; and it is by all human testimony the most reassuring. I need not suggest what high and strange history awaited this paradox of the best man in the worst fortune. I need not say that in the freest and most philosophical sense there is one Old Testament figure who is truly a type; or say what is prefigured in the wounds of Job.

>>14008115
>Job is fully aware of this, and accepts his fate. Anything but would be a blasphemous act of raising man above the only God.
That is what this anon says, >>14005942 , so why do you claim to disagree with him?

>>14015065

See:

>>14007083

Job is perhaps the most perverse man in the Bible.

>>14005850
based

Job is God, Yahweh is God, Satan is God. It is all God interacting with Himself. Most “Christians” are unwittingly hypocritical and self-contradictory in their Christianity. They can’t give a good reason why God allows evil or Satan to exist if he is simultaneously omnipotent and omnibenevolent. They call Manichaeism a heresy, yet they can’t properly argue against it.

Good and evil are manmade constructs. This doesn’t mean the “law of karma” or something like it doesn’t exist, or that good and evil don’t have a relative significance and meaning. Good leads to good and evil leads to evil, but good could not exist without evil and vice versa. God needs Satan to exist. No love without hatred. Ultimately, Old Testament morality is closer to a grand and awe-inspiring, almost Nietzschean existentialism than to some lukewarm “Christian” piety, in the modern sense of Christianity.

>>14005850
>Not reading the bible in the original scythian

>>14015627
>Why yes, I think that Christianity is just a re-branding of the tenets of Judaism, those Christians worship the same gods, have the same rituals, et cetera. The only difference is that they have a book filled with the sayings of their leader, the founder of their religion, completely denouncing Judaism. A bit weird, but that is what I choose to think

>>14016137
Good for you.

Read Answer to Job by Carl Jung

>>14007783
It's explicit in Psalm 82. Elohim criticises the other gods for ruling unjustly and will take over their jurisdictions as punishment.

>Godhas taken his place in the divine council;
>in the midst ofthe gods heholds judgement:
>2“How long will you judge unjustly
>andshow partiality tothe wicked?
>...
>areshaken.
>6I said, “You are gods,
>sons of the Most High, all of you;
>7nevertheless, like menyou shall die,
>and fall like any prince.”
>8Arise, O God, judge the earth;
>for you shallinherit all the nations!

>>14005847
Art by Blake?

the only think i took from this is that God is subordinate to it´s own law, hence the law of God is the supreme ruler of reality itself and not the God being, really makes you think, satan at least is his own master, not even law transcends him

>>14005847
No, I think I read the wrong translation. Few parts of the bible have made any lasting impression on me.