Just wondering if that book made anyone think about God in the bad light? It seems to me after thinking about it that it was God who was all in all responsible for Jobs suffering. Satan was only the vessel but at the end of the day it was because of God Job has been suffering and what is worse it was also him who was feeling sorry and repentat for something that he didn't do? Doesn't God seem like a bit of a dick? Or a big kid with an ants farm and a magnifying glass?
life of Job
by raxxxx 6 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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wobble
I agree that Yahweh doesn't come out of the story all that well, if you take it as literal truth, which it plainly is not.
This is an allegorical story, an extended parable, vary ancient in origin probably, certainly pre-dating by hundreds of years the kind of worship that the Jewish faith evolved into after the exile, probably pre-dating the formation of the nation of Israel.
Having said that, even just drawing lessons from it as a parable, Yahweh is still a bit of a dick.
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Black Sheep
You are making sense raxxxx
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alias
All of your livestock destroyed?
All of your children killed?
Don't worry, God can make more!
Even if it's meant to be a parable, to make a parent suffer the death of their children is unthinkable. The story would have us think that Job got more than what he lost and lived a long happily ever after life, but what parent would go on to live normally after that? What person wouldn't have PTSD every time a windstorm kicked up?
To love and respect an almightly who "allowed" this test to take place and then allowed an inferior spirt to up the ante the second time around ("Just don't kill 'im") troubles me greatly and contradicts the "God loves us all so much he knows all the hairs on your head" thing. How can I pour my heart and soul out to a being that willfully allows us to suffer just to satisfy the arguments of others?
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designs
The Book Of Job is a Jewish Tale about the principal balance of good inclinations and bad inclinations- Yetzer Tob and Yetzer Ha-Rah. Writing Job showed that the Jewish perspective had turned an important corner away from fatalism toward free will and the perfectability of man.
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WTWizard
The whole point of this is to create a story where, if Jehovah is unjustly sabotaging everything you do toward fulfillment, he can refer you to that book and make you anticipate a happy ending. The happy ending is already there--and is confined to that one incident. That Almighty Lowlife Scumbag had it written down so he can get out of doing anything good, or allowing anyone to experience good for the work they do, and still get praise. Remember, the key requirement for the happy outcome written down is supposedly having the kind of faith Job supposedly did. And, since it is "never good enough", no one gets the happy outcome. Reminds me of that work at home scam, where you waste your money on products and none of the work you do is ever good enough to get paid for.
And that assumes it's even true. I don't have any way of knowing if the whole thing is made up so Jehovah can snake-bless everyone, or if it is embellished. These stock "blessings(??)" are usually a means of Jehovah to snake-bless us, and he could have just as easily snake-blessed Job and written it all down wrong to give himself a good name (and vilify poor Satan, who was only trying to free mankind from Jehovah).
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Band on the Run
I only read Job carefully when I was very ill and seeking an answer to suffering. Some commentaries pointed out that Job is inconsistent as presented in the Bible. The s tory of Job in the narrative is a Canaanite legend. The poem itself, the main part of job, is a beautiful poem. Job is suffering and cannot square such suffering with a loving God. He aches for some union with God. God does appear out of the whirlwild. The resulting answer, Don't question me, who created the crocodile is a nonanswer as far I am concerned. Job does have some mystical union with God.
The beginning and the end-- all the dead daughters simply replaced by new daughters infuriates me. The writing style is different for the main part of Job. The main point is not that objectionable. I love that Job's rage toward God was allowed by the writers. His friends who console him by stating he must have done some great evil to deserve such treatment are shown as fools.
A WT reading of Job would completely destroy its poignancy and message.
T