Not long ago, for various reasons that will not be highlighted here, I came to the point of rejecting any kind of canonical
status for the book of Revelation—a judgment that a great many Christians before me, including Martin Luther, have shared. From taking a class on the methodologies in the study of biblical literature, I’ve since altered my position somewhat regarding that text. Though I am not really a student of the New Testament, my education in Redaction Criticism has enabled me to see quite clearly the composite nature of the Apocalypse and thus to distinguish between the letters which prefix the apocalypse and the apocalypse proper. Instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, I now accept back into my canon the letters to the churches in Revelation. There is one text, however, which almost no Christian throughout the church’s history has stood against, but which has so thoroughly disgusted and offended my understanding of Judaism and Christianity that it has now become the second book to be unequivocally rejected from my canon: Job.
Like Revelation, Job has undergone its own editing and redaction over time. Some believe that the narrative portions were distinct from the poetic portions and that each part had a different purpose and understanding of Job before being combined. This may be the case. However, both narrative and poetic portions, whether separate or combined, should be equally offensive and abominable to anyone but a Fideist or a consistent Calvinist (I consider both fideism and Calvinism antithetical to Christian faith). After combing through many Christian analyses of Job online to see if anyone, anywhere was dealing with the very specific situations and answers in Job that have caused me so much consternation, I was shocked to find only two types of Job responses represented. Either blindly ignorant statements were made or the most important things that cut to the heart of the problem with Job were smoothed over or ignored completely. Before we bring out the big issues that nobody seems to want to talk about, it would be good to dispel some errant assumptions about Job.
First, Job does not have a happy ending by any true or good standard of judgment. Yes, Job receives enormous riches and an even bigger family with more kids and so forth. However, this neither fixes nor resolves the situation at hand. Job’s children and servants were slain by God. God does not give them back to him or to their loved ones. Nobody would agree that if their child was permanently severed from their lives, that having several other children could either make up for or replace the one that was destroyed. We know Job loved his children dearly. He even sacrificed on their behalf lest they should fall into sin. A significant part of the wretchedness of his state throughout the book is the fact of his children’s destruction. Having a great deal more children and servants later does not redeem him or the families of the slain servants from their loss. And then there is the appalling suggestion of a just ending for those who have, themselves, been destroyed. Would you think if God were to kill you for no fault of your own, that if God then gave someone else to your loved ones, it made up for your own destruction? Would you consider it a fair trade if your existence was replaced with someone else’s at merely the whim of the deity? Surely no one other than the suicidal and the depressed would even consider that a valid suggestion. And to think that great riches far exceeding the riches Job had before are any type of consolation to someone who has gone through these sorts of things is utterly pathetic. Only someone who believes that love and happiness have a cash value would give it any thought.
Second, no one should be fooled into thinking that Job does not turn his face against God and condemn God for his situation and for God’s injustice. He does not curse God like his wife says he should and like the satan had wagered he would, but his complaints and arguments against God are bitter, strong, and blasphemous. He says that God judges mankind too harshly or makes too much of mankind’s sin and fallibility. Why should an All-mighty God need to cause such suffering to the innocent? He says God perverts justice and covers over the eyes of the judges so that they pass faulty decrees. He says God is capricious and strikes down the sinner and the righteous. He says that if there were anyone who could stand up against God and defend Job, Job would be found innocent—but the fact is that God is both the judge and the accuser and so no one, even if they are in the right, could win their case (though I am innocent, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse
–9:20). He says God is responsible for his own injustice and a great deal of injustice in the world.
Third, there is no afterlife in Job—no justice to be served after death to make up for the injustice in this life. This seems to be something a lot of Christians overlook. They assume that redemption and vindication in resurrection or afterlife is part of the story in Job, but it is not. Job is consistent in his portrayal of the finality of death. A tree that is cut down can rise up again, but not mortals (14:7). An often misunderstood passage, 19:23-26, does not say that Job will rise from the dead or be vindicated at a final judgment in the afterlife. Rather, it says Job knows that some day later in his life, his judgment against God will be proven true and God will be seen to agree with him or be on his side.
In case this happens after he is long dead, he asks that his testimony and witness be written down and preserved since he won’t be. Job 16:19 echoes this whole situation. Job wishes that when he dies, his blood not be covered up by the earth and his outcry not be silenced, so that his witness against God can continue (because he does not continue to witness for himself). Indeed, all this is fulfilled at the end of the book when God appears to Job and confirms Job’s own words. God defends and supports Job’s own argument against God and instead rebukes and condemns Job’s friends
for not speaking correctly about Job or the situation (you [Job’s
- 42:7). In the narrative portion, with the satan in the heavenly court speaking to God about Job, an afterlife or a resurrection is never mentioned. Throughout their friends
] have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job hascounsel
to Job, his friends never mention an afterlife or a resurrection as a possible way that Job may be vindicated and injustice dealt with. And when God appears to Job in the end, God says nothing about an afterlife where injustice will be dealt with and justice established. The Testament of Job, a Hellenistic document written by someone like myself who was extremely uncomfortable with what Job actually says, has Job rewarded eternally in afterlife for his sufferings, but this is not part of the Hebrew text.