Question on Job 14: Does it support, or contradict, the idea of a resurrection?

by sir82 10 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  sir82

  A question for all the Bible / Jewish theology scholars out there....

  The WT Society has long championed Job 14:13-15 as being the earliest reference to a resurrection. Here it is, quoted from the NWT:

  13 O that in She´ol you would conceal me, That you would keep me secret until your anger turns back,That you would set a time limit for me and

  remember me!

  14 If an able-bodied man dies can he live again? All the days of my compulsory service I shall wait, Until my relief comes.

  15 You will call, and I myself shall answer you. For the work of your hands you will have a yearning.

  But wait a minute, take a look at the immediately preceding verses (reading the context - what a novel idea!):

  7 For there exists hope for even a tree. If it gets cut down, it will even sprout again, And its own twig will not cease to be.

  8 If its root grows old in the earth And in the dust its stump dies, 9 At the scent of water it will sprout And it will certainly produce a bough like a new

  plant.

  10 But an able-bodied man dies and lies vanquished; And an earthling man expires, and where is he?

  11 Waters do disappear from a sea, And a river itself drains off and dries up.

  12 Man also has to lie down and does not get up. Until heaven is no more they will not wake up, Nor will they be aroused from their sleep.

  I can easily read this another way. Job seems to be saying, in verses 7-12, something like this:

  "Even a seemingly dead dead tree can spring to life again. But not man - once he's dead, he's dead - no hope at all."

  With that in mind, I can also read verses 13-15 (the "resurrection verses") this way:

  "Boy, I'd rather be dead. I'd rather just be sleeping in the grave than going thru all of this suffering. God has forgotten me, and left me here in agony. Hey, but maybe he'll remember me soon, have mercy on me, give me relief, and kill me off, so I can rest and not suffer any more."

  That also seems to make sense, given the context.

  What is the traditional Jewish (or even mainstream Christian) understanding of Job 14? Does it support the idea of a resurrection, or does it in fact actually contradict that idea?
• 

  sir82

  Bloody 'ell, I didn't think the question was that boring!

  Shameless bump for the afternoon crowd.
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  Philadelphia Ponos

  It apperas to me that verse 12 is making a reference to a resurrection.
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  sir82

  "Until heaven is no more they will not wake up" is a reference to a resurrection?

  How do you figure?
• 

  moggy lover

  Modern Jewish beliefs concerning a resurrection are as relevant to that religion as it is to Christianity, making it a cardinal tenet in both belief systems. In Jewish belief, a time of millennial peace ruled by a messianic figure will usher in a renewed existence, where those counted worthy will be resurrected. However divergences do occur in the two religion's approach to this subject.

  The place, for instance of such a resurrection in Jewish thought is not fully constructed. It must be remembered that any teaching of an afterlife is only peripheral in the OT, and would need a further revelation to explain. Whereas Christians believe that they have such a revelation in the NT, Jewish belief had to evolve its understanding through several centuries of post revelatory writings all of which were produced in the intertestamental period.

  Although there was a hiatus in divine revelation between Malachi and Matthew of some 5 centuries, the Jews were not left without any written records during this time. Literature in the form of an Apocrypha and a Pseudipegrapha exploded on the Jewish scene at this time, and since much of this literature was apocalyptic in nature, rather than pastoral, much was said about the afterlife.

  Thus, the Jewish doctrine of the resurrection evolved into a coherent form only when the Jews entered the period of their history called the Hellenistic era. References to a resurrection are only opague in the OT, with the only positve and unambiguous reference being that of Dan 12:1.

  Naturally, the Watchtower has made several attempts to trace a doctrine of the resurrection in earlier portions of the OT, but none of these produce any unambiguous testimony, or any that can stand up to close scrutiny. Texts such as Isa 26:19, are hyperbolic rather than revelatory, and even Job 19: 25 -27, made famous by Handel, expresses a desperate hope for the impossible, rather than a yearning for the inevitable.

  Jewish [and most Christian] theology does not read a resurrection sequence into Job 14. It is rather a banter between Job and Yahweh, without actually resolving any clear issue.

  To Job, as is to most OT theology, Sheol is a place of a continued existence but which is a permanent finality from which there is no resolution. It is for this reason that Jewish belief, in evolving its resurrection teachings, proposed some sort of benign and salvific area demarcated within Sheol, a sort of Elysian Fields, if you will, where any resurrection is effected.

  Job 14:12, for instance is a reference, made while Job is still considered alive, to a testifying of God's providential care while still in this existence. Whereas Sheol is permanent, this life is not, and when God calls Job to testify regarding this, he will answer.

  Other passages have at various times and in different places in Watchtower literature been quoted to support a concrete OT doctrine of the resurrection, but again these are ambiguous at best. Among these texts are: Deut 32:39, 1 Sam 2:6, Ps 16:10, 49:15, 73:24, but the most that can be said about these references is that they allude only to rescue from imminent death, rather than to a resuscitation after it.
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  sir82

  Thanks!

  That's what I was looking for.
• 

  processor

  In German translations, there are two ways to translate these words. One way (used in the NWT) expresses that Job believed in resurrection. "You will call, and I myself shall answer you. For the work of your hands you will have a yearning."

  However, most translation use the question form for this sentence: "Will you call, and will I answer you? Will you have a yearning for the work of your hands?" - with the implicit answer "No". Actually the whole context of Job 14 indicates that Job (or whoever wrote it) did not believe in the resurrection.

  (Job 14:7-12) 7 For there exists hope for even a tree. If it gets cut down, it will even sprout again, And its own twig will not cease to be. 8 If its root grows old in the earth And in the dust its stump dies, 9 At the scent of water it will sprout And it will certainly produce a bough like a new plant. 10 But an able-bodied man dies and lies vanquished; And an earthling man expires, and where is he? 11 Waters do disappear from a sea, And a river itself drains off and dries up. 12 Man also has to lie down and does not get up. Until heaven is no more they will not wake up, Nor will they be aroused from their sleep.

  A tree that dies will live again, "but an able-bodied man dies and lies vanquished. ... Until heaven is no more they will not wake up."
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  Leolaia

  Here is a paraphrase I did in an earlier thread on the subject:

  1) Man lives and dies.
  2) Man dies because God has predetermined the number of days he lives; when he reaches this limit, he dies.
  3) Man will not surpass this limit that God has set.
  4) For example, a tree has the hope of living again once it has died.
  5) Water can bring it back to life.
  6) But when man dies, he is like a river that has dried up and disappeared.
  7) He does not rise again. In fact, he will never wake from his sleep unto eternity.
  8) Oh, I exclaim, I wish God could instead hide me in Sheol where I could wait for his wrath to subside.
  9) That way my suffering would end, and then when God remembers me, he will bring me back to life.
  10) But no! In reality, man's end is like a mountain that crumbles away.
  11) Instead of bringing a restoration of life, water rubs down stones and washes away what remains.
  12) In like manner, God destroys man's hope of living again.

  This is the rhetorical argument distilled down to a minimum (I've marked the critical rhetorical devices inred underline). Verse 7 corresponds to line 4. The causal conjunction ky "for, on account of the fact that" is crucial. It ties the nature simile of the tree directly to the statement about God limiting the life of man. It makes the two statements logically connected. Now, if Job is saying that man is like a tree and has a hope of a return to life, how does the tree simile illustrate the fact that man reaches the ultimate limit of his life when he dies? It doesn't...it is an illustration of a creation that does not have such a limit. Job is thus bringing up the example of the tree to set up a contrast that illustrates his earlier point. God has numbered the days man has to live, and when he dies his days are complete and these are limits "he cannot surpass" (v. 5). For at least trees have a hope of returning to life (v. 7-9), but as for man, he does not have this hope, "he will not be wake or be roused from his sleep" (v. 10-12). The causal conjunction introduces a two-part antithesis. There is a return to life for trees: "Its roots grow old in the ground and its stump dies in the dry soil, at the scent of water it will flourish and put forth sprigs like a plant" (v. 8-9). This life-cycle partly parallels that of man, growing old and dying....but behold, there is hope of the plant flourishing again. Is that what also happens in man? No.

  Line 6 in my paraphrase corresponds to verse 10. Here Job goes on to contrast the life-cycle of a plant with that of man: "But (w-) man dies and lies prostrate and where is he? As water evaporates from the sea and a river becomes parched and dried up, so man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens are no longer, he will not wake or be roused from his sleep" (v. 10-12). This is not at all what we'd expect him to say if Job was likening man to a tree. We'd expect something along the lines: "Indeed, man dies and will again one day return from the dust again. Like the roots that flourish again, man lies down and will again rise. He will wake and will be roused from his sleep". Job does not say this...he unequivocally says that man will not wake from death. He disappears like a river that dries up into a dead river bed. This just doesn't fit at all with the tree simile. The waw-conjunction in v. 10 in fact marks what follows as an antithesis of the tree simile.

  We have a second two-part antithesis in what follows. Job expresses his desire ("Oh") in v. 13 (= line 8 here), which receives its refutation in the passage beginning in v. 18 (= line 10). The KJV has translated the strong adversative w'wlm as "and surely", which obscures the fact that it is emphatically marking an antithesis or opposition. It is better translated as "But no!" (JB), "but" (NIV, NASB, HCSB), "But in the real world" (CEV), or "but indeed", "however", or "nevertheless" as indicated in the lexicons. By using the adversative, Job indicates that his wish is not a real hope. As mentioned in my earlier posts, the nature similes that follow reinforce the point Job made earlier that there is no return from death: mountains erode away, and waters wear stones down. Stones do not reform like trees. These would be the wrong nature similes to mention if Job wanted to express his hope for a return to life from death! His point is the opposite: "Water wears away stones, its torrents wash away the dust of the earth, so you destroy man's hope" (v. 19). Here water has the exact opposite function as it had in v. 7. For the tree, water restores life. For man and for stones and dust, water erodes and washes away whatever might remain. The tree has "hope" (tqwh), it can be enlivened by water. But like water washing away and destroying what might remain, so does God destroy man's hope (tqwh). It's the same word Job uses, and obviously we are to think back to the hope of a return to life that the tree has (v. 7). The tree has hope, but man's hope is destroyed by God. How does God destroy this hope? Job already explained in v. 5-6: God has predetermined the days of man and set limits that cannot be surpassed. This is the stark conclusion that Job comes to: God destroys man's hope. How can one ignore this plain statement (and the entire rhetorical construction of the chapter) and think that Job had a real hope? In v. 13-17 he did express a wish (and marked it as such, by using the exclamation and desiderative), and its a wish that bears some resemblance with the later Jewish hope of a resurrection, but in v. 18ff he admitted that his wish had no basis in reality. He had no real hope....it had been destroyed by God.
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  applehippie

  Well then if Job's hope has been destroyed doesn't that mean that God cares more for trees than for man and specifically for Faithful Job?
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  Leolaia

  applehippie....That's exactly the kind of question that would provoke Yahweh out of the whirlwind to say "Where were you when I created the earth, tell me since you are so well-informed?" The implication is that humankind is incapable of understanding Yahweh's ways and thus Yahweh owes no explanation for his actions. A common theme throughout Job is that God places limits on his creation which he has every right to do because "everything under heaven belongs to me" (41:10-11). With respect to the stars, Yahweh has bound them into constellations and "on them he sets a seal" (9:7, 9). In the present passage, "A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed" (14:5). With respect to the ocean, "I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt' (38:10-11). That is just the way God made things. Yahweh tells Job that he gave wisdom and understanding to the ibis and rooster (38:36) but as far as the ostrich is concerned "God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense" (39:17). Is that unfair? Yet Yahweh goes on to say that he endowed her in other ways, specifically, by giving her swiftness of foot. Job describes humankind as created with a limit on life expectancy without the hope a tree has for future renewed life, and yet humans are endowed in ways that trees aren't; they are granted a measure of wisdom and understanding (cf. 12:12-13). The theme of God setting limits on humankind is also prominent in the primeval narrative of J (e.g. preventing man from attaining a knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2:16-17, preventing man from attaining the tree of life in 3:22-24, preventing man from doing whatever they purpose to do by confusing their languages in 11:6-9; cf. the identical phraseology in Genesis 11:6 and Job 42:2). The difference here is that humankind's mortality is not due to sin or a divine curse but is rather the way human beings were created according to the purposes of God. The nature similes that Job uses in ch. 14 emphasize the idea that death is a normal part of the natural order; human beings were created mortal.

  And indeed Job has no hope; remember he takes a very pessimistic view and he views God as his adversary (cf. Job 40:2, 8). He says: "Now my life ebbs away...In his great power God becomes like clothing to me, he binds me like the neck of my garment, he throws me into the mud, and i am reduced to dust and ashes. I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer, I stand up but you merely look at me. You turn on me ruthlessly, with the might of your hand you attack me. You snatch me up and drive me before the wind, you toss me about in the storm. I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living" (30:16-23). His perspective and phraseology is very close to that of Deutero-Isaiah who states God brings both blessing and evil (Isaiah 45:7). So he says: "If he holds back the waters, there is drought, if he lets them loose they devastate the land....He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings utter darkness into the light. He makes nations great and then destroys them; he enlarges nations and then disperses them" (12:15, 22-23). Job has no hope because he knows that the Almighty is the source of his calamities: "The arrows of the Almighty are in me, my spirit drinks in their poison; God’s terrors are marshaled against me....What strength do I have, that I should still hope?" (6:4, 11), "My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without hope....As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so one who goes down to the grave does not return. He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more" (7:6, 9-10), "If the only home I hope for is the grave, if I spread out my bed in the realm of darkness, if I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’ where then is my hope. Who can see any hope for me?" (17:13-15).

  The point of this morality play, as I read it, is that bad things can happen to good people without them doing anything that warrants such misfortune. Job maintains his innocence throughout and while he recognizes that God is the source of his misfortune and is the one heaping calamities upon him, he refuses to declare God unjust. His friends meanwhile insist that Job must be guilty and wicked in order to deserve such calamity; their notion of theodicy requires that a just God would punish only the wicked, not the righteous as well. Job is caught within a condundrum and he asks God for an explanation of why all this is happening to him. Yahweh, at the end of the poem, chides Job for demanding even that, for mankind is utterly incapable of understanding divine justice. God cannot explain divine justice to man because God did not give him/her the understanding and wisdom to comprehend it, just as he did not give wisdom to the ostrich. The best God can do is demonstrate to Job the limits of his knowledge. And at the end of the poem, Job acknowledges this: "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know...Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:3, 6). It is a somewhat empty conclusion, the main question remains unanswered, but that is the solution the author took in wading through this theodicean conundrum. The moral advance however in this work is the claim that indeed horrible things can happen to innocent people without them doing anything to deserve such calamity. The takeaway lesson is that if you see a person experience calamity, do not judge the person and think he or she is guilty of some fault on the basis of your own limited understanding of God's justice. This is an advance from the older ANE concept that one can infer guilt from one's experience of calamity.