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This entry is part of the Blogging-the-Bible series. To see a list of passages, covered so far click here. |
Chapter 22 has not one but two passages that made me sit up in my bed. The first has Eliphaz’s most impassioned attack on Job yet:
You know that your wickedness is great
And that your iniquities have no limit
You exact pledges from your fellows without reason
And leave them naked, stripped of your clothes
You do not give the thirsty water to drink
You deny bread to the hungry
The land belongs to the strong
The privileged occupy it
You have sent away widows empty-handed
The strength of the fatherless is broken (v.5-9)
Now, the prophets section of the Bible is supposed to be famous for its long social diatribes against the injustices found within society. There are two interesting things about this passage. Firstly, it’s not part of the prophetic tradition since Job is not a prophetic book but belongs to a much later stage. However this is probably the best the Bible has to offer in terms of social diatribe. It’s well-written, impassioned, something any modern-day political blogger would be very proud of. What more could you ask for?
But secondly, the diatribe is completely misdirected. Up to this point, Job’s friends have generally being saying something like “you must have sinned because God has punished you so much”. Now Eliphaz is saying “you have sinned [and here's how]“. His accusations are of course untrue, as going back to chap 1 will testify. The fact that he’s accusing him of injustice (ie. bad dealings with people, as opposed to bad dealings with God) makes his outburst all the more heinous. However it only highlights further how theodicy hurts interpersonal relationships. When something bad happens, those who want to provide a defence to the problem of evil are psychologically forced to look for flaws in the victim. When this clashes with reality, they can be driven to look deeper and deeper, until the victim-blaming gets completely indescribable. Which is what we see here.
The other WTF is Eliphaz talking about people [like Job, supposedly] who mock God
You say “What can God know?
Can He govern through the dense cloud?
The clouds screen Him so He cannot see
As He moves about the circuit of heaven” (v.13-14)
Now, this is supposed to be one of the most [theologically] sophisticated books of the Bible. Certainly a believer will be hard-pressed not to interpret that metaphorically as saying “do you think God is blind to evil?”. Checking Rashi on verse 13 appears to give the metaphorical interpretation. However, read that verse again.
Methinks….
methinks….
that it is asking Job whether he thinks God cannot see the earth through the extremely-literal clouds in the extremely-literal sky! Even Rashi on verse 14 appears to falter. Now, you could read Eliphaz as being sarcastic (what, you think God can’t see past His own nose?). Then he’d be a comedian like Job. But I’m not sure about it, and given some of the other ridiculous things the authors of Job put in the mouth of his friends, I think the null hypothesis is that Eliphaz is being serious.
This is a great example of how the Bible is often far more simplistic than even non-believers give it credit for. We shouldn’t expect it to be any different — after all, the YHWH of the early Bible is a person amongst a pantheon of gods much like Zeus is. But I think this section in Job brings it home especially.
2 comments ↓
1. What makes you think Job is young? Many people think parts of it at least go back to pre-monotheistic periods (though admittedly that wouldn’t be that old–pre-Josiah perhaps?)
2.As you point out the first passage is related to stock criticisms of the land-owning classes and are typical of the prophetic movements (as well as of the Jesus movement later). I don’t think it contradicts the image of Job in the first chapter. The first chapter represents the self-unerstaninding of the aristocratic class, this passage shows the understanding of peasants. I don’t thin its a contradiciton, but the author wishes his audience to consider each view for himself. Its a very simple-minded way of looking at the text to say the author is looking for reasons for why god is punishing Job and settles on ascribing a putative and perhaps false wickedness to him. Apart from anything else we know that within the narrative context of the story that is not why Job is being punished. The argument in that passage is clearly an explanation of human wickedness that does not involve theodicy.
3. It strains credulity that you think the author wants this business about god seeing through the clouds to be taken literally. This is the Epicurean objection to religion: If god exists what is the sue, he obviously doesn’t care about what goes on down here anyway (and today its increasing clear that Greek and Semitic culture are expressions of a common Eastern Medditerranean culture, so expressing it in the way I have is not tendentious).
And before you start acting like Dwayne Gish and start dismissing my comments as invalid because I’m a religious fundamentalist, let me tell you that I am a Classicist, a specialists in Neoplatonism and Patristics, (though trained largely in NT), and in profdessional matters such as these a strict methodlogical Atheist (though I would gladly worship Zeus and Apollo if it were intelelctually possible). But, this being the internet, probably you will find some other reason to dismiss my comments.
By young, do you mean late? If then, sorry, I forgot that Job was written by Moses, I recant! But in reality, who argues that it’s an early book and why?
It isn’t the authors who are straining to find false wickedness in Job but Job’s friends. The authors’ intentions are a bit more complex than that (although they’re extremely hard to ascertain for this book).
Same for the visions of God behind the literal clouds which belong to Job’s friend.
I sincerely apologise for the ad hominem in which I dismissed your arguments because you’re a religious fundamentalist (as per your comment) — but it is the internet after all so I have to…
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