The book of Job

Whooo. Big one last night. I've known since last year that one of the biggest (not length, but depth) readings of sophomore year is Job, and I can now heartily say: Yea, but it is.

So, there's this guy Job. And he's "perfect", according to God. He prays, he sacrifices, he has his sons do the same, and he lives in fear of god. Nice guy. Prudent.

Then, one day, God's just sort of chatting with Satan ('The Adversary'). Satan says he's been around, milling about Earth. God asks: Hey, did you notice that Job guy? He's pretty rockin'! Satan says: Yeah, he's all about you, God, but that's just because you've been so great to him. I bet that if you put the smackdown on him, then he'll tell you off. God replies: Hey, you're own. Don't kill him, but go for it. Have fun.

Now, I'm paraphrasing a bit here, but that's the gist of it. So all of Job's animals are killed or stolen, and a house falls down on his seven sons (seriously. A house blows down on them. And they live in Uz.) Job pretty much loses everything, and he's seriously bummed out, writhing about in the dirt and whatnot. Doesn't curse god. God says; Told you so! Satan says: Eh, lemme try again.

So he afflicts Job with boils all over his body; it makes me think leprosy or something. Job's completely freakin' miserable. He's got no family left, no animals, no money, nothing. His wife tells him to curse god, and Job refuses. Then three of his buddies come over, and end up saying that obviously, Job must've screwed up: he's evil, he deserves it, etc. Job moans for god to kill him, but doesn't curse god. Then another friend shows up and tells him that God's just trying to get closer to Job: When God undoes this horrible stuff to Job, Job'll appreciate god more.

Then, God enters and rants about how awesome he is, how mighty, and so on. Job's all: Whoa, you're awesome. God says: Yes. Now that we've cleared that up, those three friends of yours suck. Job: Aw, don't kill them. God: Fine. Make them go make sacrifices to me. Job: Okay! God rocks! God: Yes, I do. Have a whole bunch of she-asses.

Um.

It blows my mind, beacuse to me? This very clearly is A) A cheap-ass cop-out for "why do good things happen to bad people" (So that they love god even more), B) Exploring the very clear possibility that God is, in fact, a jerk who makes cheap and meaningless bets with his angels and doesn't even stop to think in advance about how it'll effect the humans involved, or C) all of the above.

An interesting possibility was raised in seminar last night: Maybe it's impossible to say whether or not God is good, because God created good, and one cannot be something you've created. At this point I want to say that's wrong. Genesis 1:4 "God saw that the light was good." Obviously, God's going to have some sort of concept of good and evil, regardless of whether or not *god* is good or evil.

But what God does to Job is not nice. Period. There's no way that it can be construed as such. Malevolent and cruelly-intended? Debatable. But it's not nice. I think it's significant that it's not even God doing these things, per se: God's sitting there idly, watching this all happen, watching as Satan screws Job so completely. Maybe it's a tough-love thing and he knows Job'll learn something and he wants this to happen.

Or maybe it's a 'shit, now I've got to cover my tush and at least give Job some sort of lesson out of this'.

Or maybe it's a 'Huh, I wonder what will happen here.' According to several Psalms, god knows everything that's going on, what you're saying, what you're thinking. But he doesn't nessecarily know what will happen in the future, such as when Job suddenly loses everything (cf. Jonah).