Job
A THEODICY
The Purpose of the Book of Job
 A challenge to traditional views of God
 Old presumptions have lost authority--
Deuteronomistic redactors attributed Israel’s fall and
Judah’s collapse to their failure to obey Yahweh’s
commands
 Sumerian cuneiform variation of
Theodicy
A literary attempt
to reconcile beliefs
about divine
goodness with the
prevalence of evil
the story of Job
A Perplexing Theme
 Egyptian, Babylonian, and Israelite literature all
explored the perplexing theme of the concept of a
good God and the prevalence of unmerited human
pain.
Who is Job?
 Job is not an Israelite
 Written by an anonymous author after exile
 The first to mention Job is Ezekiel [during
Babylonian exile], who calls him an ‘ancient figure’;
 The author makes him a native of Uz who lived long
before Israel
Opening scene
 The Book of Job opens in the Heavenly Court
 Yahweh points out what a devoted person Job is
 One of Yahweh’s “sons of God” or divine beings
suggests if Job suffered, he would not be so loyal
The satan
 Original Hebrew texts use the article “the” before satan
 Later translations use an upper case “S” as if it is a name
of a specific entity
 The satan takes on the negative qualities once attributed
to Yahweh
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It is the satan’s task to be an adversary to humans
It is the tester of humanity
His role is to carry out Yahweh’s orders
In the Hebrew scriptures, satan has no independence from God
Hebrew word means ‘opposer’ or adversary’
 Satan’s adversarial relationship is with humanity, not
Yahweh
Yahweh Allows Job’s Suffering
 Job is afflicted by all maladies and losses
 Job tells God he would rather be in pre-creation, in
the chaos of “Leviathan”
Leviathan
 Mythical dragon of chaos, the embodiment of
darkness and disorder that Yahweh subdued at
creation.
 Later, Yahweh is proud to possess the Leviathan
Leviathan
In Mesopotamian
literature, Leviathan is
the primal monster of
chaos
The Friends of Job
 Eliphaz
 Bildad
 Zophar
 They point out that although Job appears good, he
must have sinned against God.
Classic Problem for Post Exile Israel
 The human-divine relationship is not simple
 It is not simply if one follows the Torah, one will be
rewarded.
 Job is an example of an upright man who suffers
nevertheless
Attempt to Understand
 The Book of Job is a more complex theology
 The Book of Job attempts to understand the role of
evil in the world
Elihu
 Elihu is the voice of redactors who are disturbed by
Job’s evolving understanding of God
 Elihu presumes to speak on behalf of God
 His words are ultimately empty of meaning, he is just
repeating the old arguments
God Interrupts
 In a whirlwind, God gives two speeches
 They emphasize the enormous distance between
divinity and humanity
 Job is reduced to silence
 God introduced Behemoth
Behemoth
 A creature so powerful, so grotesque, and removed
from humanity, that it causes Job to realize the
world may not be designed primarily for human
welfare
Yahweh reveals
 Yahweh reveals himself far more concerned with the
complex phenomena of the universe he has created
than resolving issues of good and evil that trouble
humans.
 Yahweh discloses the divine paradox that
encompasses polar opposites of light and dark
Request from Yahweh
 Yahweh asks Job to intercede for his three friends
 While they have more conventional ideas of God,
they have missed the point:
 THE DISPARITY BETWEEN STANDARD NOTIONS
OF DIVINE JUSTICE AND THE FACTS OF REAL
LIFE, WHERE PEOPLE DO NOT ALWAYS
RECEIVE WHAT THEY ETHICALLY DESERVE