How the Bible Rides Our Animal Nature (Job 26-30)

Job the Pretentious Asshole?

Chapters 26-30 had nice poetry but only one new ideas. Until now, Job is shown as totally righteous and (something very important in an emotional work like Job) sympathetic. I myself like Job especially as he’s a comedian with some very sophisticated anti-theist arguments. So I was surprised by Job’s tirade in chapters 29-30 (excerpts below):

When I passed through the city gates
To take my seat in the square
Young men saw me and hid,
Elders rose and stood
[...]The voices of the princes were hushed
Their tongues stuck to their palates
[...]For I saved the poor man who cried out
The orphan who had none to help him
[...]I was eyes to the blind
[...]But now those younger than I deride me
[Men] whose fathers I would have disdained to put among my sheep dogs
And feet to the lame (29:7,8,12,15;30:1)

Job comes across as an arrogant, pretentious asshole! He looks like a fat cat whose philanthropy is more self-congratulatory than anything else.

Unravelling modern sensibilities

Maybe the authors of Job are still trying to maintain that Job is an innocent victim of Satan’s dirty trick. Maybe I’m reading too much 21st century sensibilities into Job’s poetry. After all, landed gentry looking down on commoners would have been considered a sign of good character as opposed to elitism, snobbery or bigotry.

There are still billions who think children should be seen but not heard, is it any surprise that children hiding from you would have been considered a mark of honour? I guess it drives home just how inegalitarian the whole world of the Bible is. And of course it doesn’t mean that it’s inegalitarian because of religion (although the religious aspects certainly don’t help).

And then it hits me

Imagine you make a phonecall and get the wrong number. However, instead of saying “sorry, wrong number,” the person at the other end swears at you and hangs up. If you’re anything like me you’ll feel a momentary torrent of extreme rage, although it might pass quickly. Some of us might express this in an extreme way (eg. saying “I hope he/she dies” to yourself).

Reading Job’s tirade, and interpreting it as arrogant, let me see the book of Job from the other side. For the first time, a part of me became enraged and said “if that’s the asshole Job is, he does deserve what happened to him!”

Maybe the reason the Bible’s been such an enduring book is that the animal, vengeful part of our nature is fed by such stories. A part of me really did scream “kill him! kill him!” — if only for a second. And this can happen even to a very placid, compassionate reader (which I ain’t). Such is our biological impulse. And this is the impulse many biblical stories take advantage of, to the point where people end up justifying atrocities.

The best example is from 2 Kings 2:23-4 where Elisha the prophet is taunted by 42 children about being bald. He curses them in YHWH’s name, and two she-bears come and eat all 42 “delinquents”. As horrible as the story is, Elisha’s not just some monster: I think the average person might well have yelled back “drop dead!” in his place. Fortunately the average person doesn’t have access to a child-killing YHWH! Still, the fact that these animal, gut responses are so natural could explain why so many feel compelled to defend such “moral” fables.

I guess the main difference is what happens after the Bible whips up that animal part of you. For some, you just go along with it. If you are used to checking your animal nature, you might concoct some harmonisation as to why Job’s punishment was really “in his best interest”. If you’re really able to look at the Bible from the outside, you may say “even if Job is a pretentious asshole, why are his kids killed?” But those of us who can see this from the outside, who are used to checking our animal nature, are the lucky ones.