Whither Job?
Job is one of those intriguing books. It’s basically an short original primitive prose story (composing the beginning and end) that then has this masterful poetic expansion constituting most of the book. It’s likely that more than one poet contributed to it. However Job is always a kind of problematic text to many people. They’re never quite sure how to take it. It isn’t just the issue of the historical accurateness of the text. It’s the doctrine.
J. Stapley made a comment over at New Cool Thang that made me think of this.
In October 1922, while Heber J. Grant was in Washington, the First Presidency received a letter from Joseph W. McMurrin asking about the position of the church with regard to the literality of the Bible. Charles W. Penrose, with Anthony W. Ivins, writing for the First Presidency, answered that the position of the church was that the Bible is the word of God as far as it was translated correctly. They pointed out that there were, however, some problems with the Old Testament. The Pentateuch, for instance, was written by Moses, but “it is evident that the five books passed through other hands than Moses’s after his day and time. The closing chapter of Deuteronomy proves that.†While they thought Jonah was a real person, they said it was possible that the story as told in the Bible was a parable common at the time. The purpose was to teach a lesson, and it “is of little significance as to whether Jonah was a real individual or one chosen by the writer of the book†to illustrate “what is set forth therein.†They took a similar position on Job. What is important, Penrose and Ivins insisted, was not whether the books were historically accurate, but whether the doctrines were correct. (Alexander, Mormonism in Transition, 283 emphasis mine)
Here’s what worries me about Job more so than most OT books, including Song of Solomon. It’s not the historical issue. I’m more than willing to accept that over the years before a stable canon was established that things got conflated, embellished or so forth. Heavens just look at many events in our own history that were primarily conveyed orally until historians started investigating them more carefully. But I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to scriptures - even the more problematic OT ones. I just chalk up a lot to my own misunderstandings of the culture and environment.
Like Elders Penrose and Ivins I tend to see the real importance as ultimately not the historicity but the doctrine. Now of course the most effective doctrinal teaching comes not by doctrinal discourse but by narrative demonstration. And Job certainly is a prime example. But . . . here’s where I run into trouble.
Consider the opening of the poetic section of Job that has God and Satan basically gambling ala a horse race over Job’s behavior. More precisely, consider how God is portrayed here in the narrative. Now I recognize we can salvage this a bit by modifying things. But really as given we get a rather disturbing portrayal of God. Something more in line with what one would expect to find in a Greek myth than our understanding of a loving Father. So then, given this, how do we approach Job?
I don’t have a clear answer. Even the ultimate climax of Job - that one basically can’t understand God and just has to accept it all - seems problematic both in terms of the given narrative but also our theological understanding. (After all the very notion of the Plan of Salvation is a kind of answer to Job’s dilemma, but an answer God won’t give Job in the story)
So how do you respond?
Clark,
Could the story of Job whether figurative or real, be akin to the story of the Savior; that when His ultimate suffering occurred, no One came to put a halt to his pain and agony? Further, as an example to us that although we can receive some relief through prayer etc., that no One comes to stop certain experiences that we must handle on our own in the quest for salvation and exaltation. Yet in the end of the story, things are restored beyond their original portion which I would think is reference to beyond this life.
The “gambling” (ala a horse race) portion does seem odd and is probably one of many mistranslations. I would hope that is not the Heavenly Father I believe in, know and love.
The question remains does the story in fact teach more doctrine and answer a few of life’s questions, MORE than it confuses the reader. It seems to provide both of those opportunities.
Thank-you for the post.
I’ve done some work with Job and suffice it to say it’s a real enigma. There’s a possibility that it’s in some way satirical, a kind of protest against the absurdity of the Deuteronomic theology (that good things always happen to good people). A wilder suggestion is that God = the Persian king; Satan = the king’s spies and imperial agents; Job’s friends = Jewish collaborators; Job = the poor of Judah. But really, I don’t know. I just have a feeling that ancient audiences would have realised that as a theodicy it’s lame. God comes out very badly.
God comes out as beyond our scope and understanding in many ways in Job. You hit a good point there Ronan, about the Book of Job.
The CES manual says, about the conversation between God and Satan, “These verses may be a poetic way of setting the stage for what follows…rather than a reporting of an actual conversation.” I went with that explanation when I taught Job in Gospel Doctrine recently.
For my particular group, I felt the key thing to focus on from this story was the behavior of Job’s friends, and we spent a great deal of time talking about how to be a good friend to those going through trials.
In that regard, I quoted a good bit from John Tanner’s article in the Dec 1990 Ensign, “Hast Thou Considered My Servant Job?” Before going off to BYU, the Tanners used to live in our state and he has a fair bit of credibility ’round here. He seemed to “get” Job, so that might be good reading for anyone looking to ken it better.
Some points worth considering:
Job is placed with the Khetuvim (the writings) and not the Neviim (the prophets) in the Hebrew Bible. The Jewish traditional approach to this text is easily researched.
Nowhere else in Scripture is there the sort of gambling horse race thing occuring. According to the Scriptural test of “in the mouth of two or three witnesses” that leaves this one favorable witness for the questionable doctrine, and many, many hostile witnesses.
I just want to take a moment to point out that Mogget is doing a long series of posts on Job at Faith-Promoting Rumor. Please feel free to continue about your business.
In terms of reading scripture as allegory or purely symbolic, it is always a double edged sword. It is probably the only way to read some passages, but once you start, it is hard to know where to draw the line (just ask Augustine). I recently read a critique of Pentateuch in which Egypt was Persia and the whole thing was actually a battle over ethnic inclusivity in 4th century Judah.
If we scrape away the horse race language, though, the God-Satan encounter is reasonably true to our doctrine: we are here on earth to be tested in all things, to prove our faithfulness. Get rid of the crass language and I think what God does to Job is a fairly good approximation of the tests we all face: Do we only worship God when things are easy, or will we still be obedient and hopeful when it looks like God has turned against us?
And, FWIW, I think Job has a historical kernel, embellished by a few really long-winded poets.
HP,
Who’s idea is that? (Egypt = Persia)
Julie,
Now that’s a great paper idea (something I’m slowly working on, that the Jobian Satan is very “Mormon”).
I followed the Wikipedia link in number 5 and found this of interest to me:
“Job was an unexamining, pious man, not a philosopher, and he didn’t have providence. He was unwise, simply grateful for what he had.”
Whether this is the case or not, it does ring true that we need to examine our religion…
FOr what its worth, the first two chapters of Job which involve the dialogue between God and satan, the loss of job’s riches are not origional to the the book. Even the dialogue of Elihu is a more recent addition.(sp)
I approach the book of Job through Mogget.
Adam,
Interesting points about the dialogue not being original to the book. Do you have a reference source for those of us hoping to do some further investigation?
I approach the book of Job through Mogget.
Here, here!
Whoops, sorry for appearing to thread-steal from Faith Promoting Rumor. It wasn’t my intention. I’ll fully admit that due to work and new babies I’m sleep deprived and haven’t read blogs that much the past couple of months.
No problem, Clark. The more we talk about Job, the happier I am.
Ronan,
It is an idea found in Mark Brett’s recent commentary on Genesis and F. V. Greifenhagen’s on Egypt in the Pentateuch.
This may be totally off the wall but a thought struck me as I was reading Moggets review on FPR.
This could be seen as a satirical view of the life of the Messiah. God and the Adversary meet and have a disagreement about how wonderful and incredible that Job fellow is(understated War in Heaven, Satan doesn’t want to leave his only chance at salvation to Christ, they have a falling out and he is left as the adversary with the power to bruise man’s heel).
Christ comes to Earth, lives the perfect life, Satan gets his chance to show everyone– see, it was easy for him to be perfect before, Christ suffers more than any of us ever will, leaving the author to wonder exactly why it is God would let this happen, “what kind of reward for his trouble is that.â€
At the absolute apex of suffering Christ even cries out “Why hast thou forsaken me?â€
Without the perspective of the greater purpose God appears spiteful, vindictive, prideful. The perspective begs the question, “If God is real, why does he allow bad things to happen to good people?â€
I believe ultimately the answer is apparent because of our greater perspective. God is painted as shallow, manipulative precisely because we know better and it highlights the wonder of the character of God and the plan of salvation in a rather clever and unique way.
What I am saying is Job makes the most sense as a type of the savior, with the story written from the perspective of one of the Third of the host of heaven who rejected God’s plan, sort of like the Screwtape letters by CS Lewis. Mr. Lewis teaches some truths very powerfully by taking the perspective of the enemy, a devil named Screwtape writing to his apprentice wormwood.
It may be insane, but it made a lot of sense to me.
I like this paragraph from Jim F’s sunday school lesson (at T&S) on Job–especially the parenthetical in the middle:
“In spite of the variety of interpretations, there is almost universal agreement that the book of Job teaches that the natural order of the world is not a moral order. Like Koheleth in Ecclesiastes, Job teaches us that the good do not always prosper, nor do the wicked always come off worse in this life. (If the natural order were a moral order, then it would be obvious to everyone that goodness is better than wickedness and they would be good so as not to suffer rather than because it was good. In other words, righteousness would not be possible if the good were always rewarded and the wicked always punished in proportion to their goodness or wickedness.) Job also teaches that we cannot judge God using our understanding of morality. Thus, though James emphasizes Job’s patience in suffering (James 5:11), that is probably not the main theme of the book. Instead, it is an attribute one acquires if she understands the lessons of the book of Job.”