In the opening verses of Job it mentions Job celebrating birthdays with is children.--jula71.
You need to read it again. There's nothing in the account that says Job attended those events with his children.
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Job and the resurrection
by peacefulpete 31 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Schizm
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jula71
My bad, Job wasn't at the celebrations, all his kids were, but he does call them and offer gifts after such feasts.
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Schizm
My bad, Job wasn't at the celebrations, all his kids were, but he does call them and offer gifts after such feasts.
LOL You make it sound as if Job gave such gifts to his children. If memory serves, I believe those were sacrifices that Job offered to God in order to cover any wrongs that his children might have commited.
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jula71
Yup, but it is made to sound like it is in conjunction with their birthdays.
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Schizm
Job 14:1-22
1 “Man, born of woman, Is short-lived and glutted with agitation.
[True to fact!]
2 Like a blossom he has come forth and is cut off,
And he runs away like the shadow and does not keep existing.[True to fact!]
3 Yes, upon this one you have opened your eye,
And me you bring into judgment with you.4 Who can produce someone clean out of someone unclean?
There is not one.[True to fact!]
5 If his days are decided,
The number of his months is with you;
A decree for him you have made that he may not go beyond.[True to fact!]
6 Turn your gaze from upon him that he may have rest,
Until he finds pleasure as a hired laborer does in his day.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.[True to fact!]
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?
[True to fact!]
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.[Yes, under his own power man is unable to "get up". No man can wake himself up from out of death.]
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![Which clearly shows that Job believed in a resurrection.]
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.[Which verifies that Job believed in a resurrection.]
15 You will call, and I myself shall answer you. For the work of your hands you will have a yearning.
[Yes, Job believed in a resurrection.]
16 For now you keep counting my very steps;
You watch for nothing but my sin.17 Sealed up in a bag is my revolt,
And you apply glue over my error.18 However, a mountain itself, falling, will fade away,
And even a rock will be moved away from its place.19 Water certainly rubs away even stones;
Its outpouring washes off earth’s dust.
So you have destroyed the very hope of mortal man.[Man's "hope" was that he NOT die. Of course that hope was, out of necessity, "destroyed" as the result of God's preventing Adam further access to the "tree of life". However, this didn't mean that there would never be any hope for man to be delivered from death.]
20 You overpower him forever so that he goes away;
You are disfiguring his face so that you send him away.[I wonder about the word "forever". I remember from times past that there's been much confusion with regards to translating such words.]
21 His sons get honored, but he does not know [it];
And they become insignificant, but he does not consider them.22 Only his own flesh while upon him will keep aching,
And his own soul while within him will keep mourning.”.
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Schizm
Yup, but it is made to sound like it is in conjunction with their birthdays.
I agree. And I agree that they were probably celebrating each others birthdays. But it didn't necessarily express Job's approval of what his children were doing. Instead, it expressed his fear that they had possibly engaged in wrong conduct. Hence the sacrifice.
Something that I've always wondered about, is why it was only the fellas that celebrated their birthdays. The sisters aren't said to have celebrated theirs.
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Leolaia
Schizm.....As I pointed out in my earlier post, v. 13-17 of Job 14 is a digression...the author temporarily expresses the wish that there is hope after death, but then returns to his pessimism in v. 18-22. In v. 12, the author declares that the dead will not awake or be roused from their sleep. This does not, as you claim, mean that man cannot awake of his own volition; it is a blunt statement that man will not awake at all. This is the pessimistic view that the author generally holds (in contrast to v. 7: there is hope for a tree, there is no hope at all for man), and repeats elsewhere in 7:7-10, 10:21, 20:7-8. But then, in an emotional exclamation, the author wishes and desires such a hope: "Oh (my), that you would hide me in Sheol!" (v. 13). This is a wish that Job is expressing, and uses a desiderative construction with the interrogative my + the verb ytn "give" in the optative mood (cf. Gesenius, §151a), yet it is a wish he fears is not going to be fulfilled, for he goes on to ask his rhetorical question: "If ('m) a man dies, really shall he live (h-chyh) again?" (v. 13; compare, ean "if" in the LXX). The conditional marker marks this question as proposing a hypothetical situation and the particle h- is prefixed to the verb, indicating that the question ought to be answered in the negative (cf. Gesenius, §150d). Compare with other examples in the OT: "Am I really (h-shmr) my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4:9), "Am I really (h-'lhym) God? Can I kill and bring back to life?" (2 Kings 5:7), "Have you really (h-shmt) considered my servant Job?" (Job 2:3). Rather than expressing a real hope in a future life, Job expresses a wish that he is somewhat doubtful of. He develops the wish further in v. 14-17; if only he were dead, that would at least give him some relief from God's wrath....then he will wait until the wrath has subsided and God would remember his deeds and long for his servant which he had created. But Job knows that this is not to be. In v. 18, he sets aside his wish and gets back to reality: "But no! (w'wlm) Just as the falling mountain crumbles away, and the rock moves from its place, water wears away stones and washes away the dust of the earth, so do you destroy man's hope" (v. 18-19). The w'wlm in v. 18 is a strong adversative, marking an antithesis of the hypothetical and wishful scenario entertained in v. 13-17. In verse 19, he reaffirms the original point made in v. 7-12; he again uses nature similies to make the point that there is no hope of a return from death for man: "So do you destroy man's hope (tqwt)". The hope being referred to here is not, as you suggest, that man would not die in the first place. It is clearly the hope that there is a return from death:
"For there is hope (tqwh) for a tree, when it is cut down, that it will sprout again" (v. 7)
"Its stump dies (ymwt) in the dry soil, at the scent of water it will flourish and put springs like a plant, but man dies and lies prostrate ... He will not awake nor be roused from his sleep" (v. 8-12).
"If a man dies, indeed will he live again?" (v. 14).
The nature similes used in v. 18-19 reinforce this point: water rubs stones down into nothingness, the stones will not reform anew like a sprouting plant. The same word for "hope" is used in v. 7 as it is in v. 19; in both cases, it refers to the hope of a return to life. The rhetorical structure of the passage is thus quite clear: (1) Job first explains that unlike trees and plants, men do not have a hope of a future return to life from death (v. 7-12), (2) then he gets emotional and exclaims his own wish that he would be an exception to this rule (v. 13-17), but before he gets too carried away (3) he comes to his rational senses and denies that such a thing is possible and returns to his original claim that no hope exists for a return from Sheol (v. 18-21). Job maintains this position again in 20:7-8, which again claims that man "perishes forever (lntsch y'bd), like his own dung".
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Flash
13 "If only you would hide me in the grave [ b ] and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me!
It is clear to me that Job understood both the power of God and the permenance of death that was apparent to him. Like Joseph's insight, knowing it was wrong to lie down with another mans wife. I see no undoing of the resurrection teaching here.
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peacefulpete
I have no desire to undo anyone's treasured beliefs. For those who care, there are passages in other parts of the Bible which clearly do express belief in a day of resurrection. There are also a number of other expressions which say exactly the opposite as well as a number that describe a very different view about an afterlife as a disembodied spirit.
The book of Job (and others that WT uses) however cannot objectively be said to endorse the resurrection doctrine.
The book itself is a compilation of two authors the narrative containing some apparently ancient nonJewish folk legend, the poetry by another hand. It was compiled, and modified in the prosess, apparently between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC.
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JosephMalik
Peaceful Pete,
On what basis can anyone postulate that everytime Job wrote a verse regarding death that he would also include a reference to a resurrection from such death? Is this reasonable? It is evident from the texts that for the most part he simply considered the practical and visible or apparent aspects of death without regard to such a spiritually derived resurrection. Flash made his point well and this is enough. Job is not a book about resurrection but of deep seated Faith in God. Yet Job did have a concept of some future life in this God as shown.
Joseph