Smokaz

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[shockcoil]

A full stop? Really? Now you're just getting petty.

[Heartmann]

Hey I didn't start it, but I can damn well end it with a.

[EIRRMod]

Hey I didn't start it, but I can damn well end it with a.

Fragmented sentence.

Consider revising.

[Masacree]

A couple of preliminary points:

Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a didactic poem set in a prose frame. The over-riding and oft-asked question asked in the book of Job is,

"Why do the righteous suffer?"

The text never mentions Satan as the accuser, but rather specifies the "Accusing Angel".

Job is a righteous man and is rewarded by god for his righteousness with wealth. The accusing angel claims Job is only righteous for the benefits derived from it, and so asks god to let him test Job. God agrees.

If you'd advanced beyond a pubertal grasp of english you'd be familiar with the rule that we write uppercase on the beginning letter of a name which a 'job' is not even in the slightest. However 'Job' is a fictional character in the good old fairytale book that suffers great injustice at the hands of tale's supreme authority yet never poses the question of why he is slighted.

Are you kidding? In all three of his statements to his 'friends,' Job constantly questions God's authority to punish him. In fact, he even goes so far as to ask God to put him on trial so he can prove his righteousness. Towards the end of his last speech he even says,

Oh if only God would hear me,
State his case against me,
Let me read his indictment.

Job is simply unable to understand that the world does not conform to his expectations, to his own humyn expectations of justice. It's important to remember that it's not just Job who is unable to break out of this mindset, the three friends who come to comfort him are also hopelessly inured in it. Every single one of them constantly reminds Job that he must have done something, anything, and nearly begin to shun him because they think he's lying to them. Job's conviction in his own belief in justice is so strong that he asks repeatedly to confront the master of the universe himself with it. How does god respond to this hubris? He appears and denies Job's claim to knowledge with a huge string of rhetorical questions regarding the nature of the universe which Job can't even pretend to know the meaning of. Finally, Job accepts that as "dust" he knows nothing. God ultimately punishes the three friends for claiming to have that sort of understanding of the universe by asking them to make sacrifices, and then restores some of Job's wealth.

The key point in the text is that the world isn't just, atleast in the humyn meaning of the world. Really, the world is perfect if one is willing to cast off the framework of right and wrong, and good and evil, that blinds us to it. As humyns, we are unable to understand the meaning of those term. We suffer in this world because we impose on the world some vision of the way it 'ought' to be, without any real understanding of what that means.

I should note that I'm not religious in the slightest.

[EliteGren]

A couple of preliminary points:

The text never mentions Satan as the accuser, but rather specifies the "Accusing Angel".

Job is a righteous man and is rewarded by god for his righteousness with wealth. The accusing angel claims Job is only righteous for the benefits derived from it, and so asks god to let him test Job. God agrees.

Are you kidding? In all three of his statements to his 'friends,' Job constantly questions God's authority to punish him. In fact, he even goes so far as to ask God to put him on trial so he can prove his righteousness. Towards the end of his last speech he even says,

Job is simply unable to understand that the world does not conform to his expectations, to his own humyn expectations of justice. It's important to remember that it's not just Job who is unable to break out of this mindset, the three friends who come to comfort him are also hopelessly inured in it. Every single one of them constantly reminds Job that he must have done something, anything, and nearly begin to shun him because they think he's lying to them. Job's conviction in his own belief in justice is so strong that he asks repeatedly to confront the master of the universe himself with it. How does god respond to this hubris? He appears and denies Job's claim to knowledge with a huge string of rhetorical questions regarding the nature of the universe which Job can't even pretend to know the meaning of. Finally, Job accepts that as "dust" he knows nothing. God ultimately punishes the three friends for claiming to have that sort of understanding of the universe by asking them to make sacrifices, and then restores some of Job's wealth.

The key point in the text is that the world isn't just, atleast in the humyn meaning of the world. Really, the world is perfect if one is willing to cast off the framework of right and wrong, and good and evil, that blinds us to it. As humyns, we are unable to understand the meaning of those term. We suffer in this world because we impose on the world some vision of the way it 'ought' to be, without any real understanding of what that means.

I should note that I'm not religious in the slightest.

[MorkaandBorka]

*snip* cool starry braaaa

lol my new hero

[Smokaz]

A couple of preliminary points:

The text never mentions Satan as the accuser, but rather specifies the "Accusing Angel".

Job is a righteous man and is rewarded by god for his righteousness with wealth. The accusing angel claims Job is only righteous for the benefits derived from it, and so asks god to let him test Job. God agrees.

Are you kidding? In all three of his statements to his 'friends,' Job constantly questions God's authority to punish him. In fact, he even goes so far as to ask God to put him on trial so he can prove his righteousness. Towards the end of his last speech he even says,

Job is simply unable to understand that the world does not conform to his expectations, to his own humyn expectations of justice. It's important to remember that it's not just Job who is unable to break out of this mindset, the three friends who come to comfort him are also hopelessly inured in it. Every single one of them constantly reminds Job that he must have done something, anything, and nearly begin to shun him because they think he's lying to them. Job's conviction in his own belief in justice is so strong that he asks repeatedly to confront the master of the universe himself with it. How does god respond to this hubris? He appears and denies Job's claim to knowledge with a huge string of rhetorical questions regarding the nature of the universe which Job can't even pretend to know the meaning of. Finally, Job accepts that as "dust" he knows nothing. God ultimately punishes the three friends for claiming to have that sort of understanding of the universe by asking them to make sacrifices, and then restores some of Job's wealth.

The key point in the text is that the world isn't just, atleast in the humyn meaning of the world. Really, the world is perfect if one is willing to cast off the framework of right and wrong, and good and evil, that blinds us to it. As humyns, we are unable to understand the meaning of those term. We suffer in this world because we impose on the world some vision of the way it 'ought' to be, without any real understanding of what that means.

I should note that I'm not religious in the slightest.

Not only are you not religious, a sentiment I share with you, but like Fartmann you are painfully ignorant to detail. Not once in the book of Job does Job pose the question to GOD himself why he is being punished. He cries with his friends, he complains but he does not confront God about his situation. It was the whole point of God's bet that Job would not curse God or what you call the "accusing angel" would have won it.

Furthermore he is restored to greater wealth than he had before. The book of Job is extremely criticized for lacking exactly what you glue on it in your emotional flurry, a moral to conclude on. The closest thing the story has to a message is how the just can suffer injustly and the difficulty of which someone infinitely lesser can truly understand someone infinitely greater.

Nice try, Massacre. But you should stick to posting pseudo-communistic call to arms since you're way out of your comfort zone.

[Masacree]

Not only are you not religious, a sentiment I share with you, but like Fartmann you are painfully ignorant to detail. Not once in the book of Job does Job pose the question to GOD himself why he is being punished. He cries with his friends, he complains but he does not confront God about his situation. It was the whole point of God's bet that Job would not curse God or what you call the "accusing angel" would have won it.

Furthermore he is restored to greater wealth than he had before. The book of Job is extremely criticized for lacking exactly what you glue on it in your emotional flurry, a moral to conclude on. The closest thing the story has to a message is how the just can suffer injustly and the difficulty of which someone infinitely lesser can truly understand someone infinitely greater.

Nice try, Massacre. But you should stick to posting pseudo-communistic call to arms since you're way out of your comfort zone.

You're simply wrong. In his first speech Job avoids directly blaming God for his misery, but as his friends grow more aggressive in their indictments against him, unleashes it all against him. In the second speech he says,

"I am guiltless, but his mouth condemns me;
Blameless, but his words convict me.
He does not care; so I say
He murders both the pure and the wicked
When the plague brings sudden death,
he laughs at the anguish of the innocent.
He hands the earth to the wicked
And blindfolds it's judges eyes.
Who does it, if not he?" (Mitchell 28).

That seems like a direct attack on god, himself. He then goes on to ask a series of questions, seemingly posed to god, but I suppose you could just argue it's a rhetorical flourish, but it's obvious each prying "you" is directed to God.

"I will take my complaint to God.
I will say, Do not condemn me;
why are you so enraged?
Is it right for you to be vicious?
To spoil what your own hands made?
Are your eyes mere eyes of flesh?
Is your vision no keener than a man's?
Is your mind like a human mind?
Are your feelings human feelings?
For you keep pursuing a sin,
trying to dig up a crime,
though you know that I am innocent" (Mitchell 29).

If that's not direct enough for you, in the third speech Job calls God out.

"Grant me one thing only,
and I will not hide form your face:
do not numb me with fear
or flood my heart with your terror.
Accuse me-I will respond;
or let me speak, and answer me.
What crime have I committed?
How have i sinned against you?
Why do you hide your face
as if I were your enemy?" (Mitchell 35).

I suppose you mean that Job never makes any of these claims once god appears to him? That is true, but if you remember correctly, you're initial statement in the first post was

yet never poses the question of why he is slighted.

And it's obvious he does pose the question of why he was slighted, to all of his friends and even to god himself. God's bet with the accusing angel was that Job wouldn't "curse him to his face" (Mitchell 6) which Job never does.

If you think my polemic was some sort of exaggerated moralizing, then you've completely misinterpreted it. I mean to reject the idea of morality in the world. The reason people have so much trouble with the work is that they don't understand that it functions as a critique of the entire moral framework that they're trying to find a moral in.

As Stephen Mitchell argues in the introduction,

"[the worldview propounded by the voice from the whirlwind] stands, of course, in direct opposition to the Genesis myth in which man is given dominion over all creatures. It is a God's eye view of creation before man, beyond good and evil, marked by the innocence of a mind that has stepped outside the circle of human values... What the Voice means is that paradise isn't situated in the past or future, and doesn't require a world tamed or edited by the moral sense" (Mitchell XX)

Smokey, I'm never out of my comfort zone. My comfort zone encompasses everything. All of being. Stepping outside of it is a contradiction in terms.

Mitchell, Stephen. The Book of Job. New York: HarperPerennial, 1992. Print.

[Vermillion_Hawk]

My personal thoughts on the Book of Job were that so-called punishments and other Earthly misfortunes were methods used to test the true faith of believers. The entire message that I recieved, having read through the book only once, admittedly, was that one who remains righteous and upright will attain greater rewards in heaven.

In addition, I sincerely doubt that the book was written for any other purpose than to give that message, viewed from a non-religious perspective the only "criticism" you can truly come up with is that there are no other hidden themes within this book. Methinks it is a form of ancient Jewish propaganda, and nothing more. You can over-analyze anything above the literary level of Pat the Bunny and pull this sort of stuff out (I know, I do it in Literature courses all the time, professors love it on essays), but the fact is sometimes I think the writer did not even intend these themes to be "present".

[Dnicee]

OMFG!!! Our 120 iq Einstein strike again!

Vermillion, please leave and never post in here again! Cant you see this thread is for us, the retards?!


As I said once before, go away and find a cure for something or something better...something cool!


jeeze!

[EliteGren]

You are no better, you come in here and just flame somebody. Pathetic

[Dnicee]

That is very true, but I'm also saying that I'm a retard (and you) elitegren so fuck off


I just realized that it is no point being nice anymore or use any logic on this forum...

So i figured I'd just join the rest on the dumb-dumb bandwaggen or whatever its called!

[MorkaandBorka]

So i figured I'd just join the rest on the dumb-dumb bandwaggen or whatever its called!

lol, can we change the forum name to...

dumb-dumb bandwaggen

[Masacree]

OMFG!!! Our 120 iq Einstein strike again!
Vermillion, please leave and never post in here again! Cant you see this thread is for us, the retards?!
As I said once before, go away and find a cure for something or something better...something cool!
jeeze!

d00d don't be an ass. No one likes asses.

[Vermillion_Hawk]

Wow Dnicee, I came in here to have an interesting discussion about biblical stories and then this...

Methinks you need some medication. The insecurity level of some forum members is surprisingly high. To be honest, you don't even sound insulting, you sound like you're in a state approaching hysteria.

[Smokaz]

Wow, Masacree. You enigmatic sack of pigeon droppings. Of course you can change your opinion to rectify the flaw I pointed out, that was the whole point of the gift! If you were further out of your comfort zone you'd be sitting in a armchair with no arms.

" Job constantly questions God's authority to punish him"

Yeah he questions Gods authority, he mulls about it with his friends. But he does NOT CONFRONT GOD with the punishment. Its central to the story. You can't interpret away from this. He never poses the question to God of why he is punished which clearly follows in my initial paragraphs directed at your fumbling attempt to make a appearance.

Oh and Dnice you need to take a chillpill, you're getting thrown down by Einstein like it was a rap battle between him and Stephen Hawkings. Your wheels are all spinnin', brah.

[Heartmann]

My personal thoughts on the Book of Job were that so-called punishments and other Earthly misfortunes were methods used to test the true faith of believers. The entire message that I recieved, having read through the book only once, admittedly, was that one who remains righteous and upright will attain greater rewards in heaven.

In addition, I sincerely doubt that the book was written for any other purpose than to give that message, viewed from a non-religious perspective the only "criticism" you can truly come up with is that there are no other hidden themes within this book. Methinks it is a form of ancient Jewish propaganda, and nothing more. You can over-analyze anything above the literary level of Pat the Bunny and pull this sort of stuff out (I know, I do it in Literature courses all the time, professors love it on essays), but the fact is sometimes I think the writer did not even intend these themes to be "present".

. Yea deffenetly, like the infinet search for the answer to "why does a raven need a writing desk?" in alice in wonder land, and even after the writer said that their is no real answer ppl still over analyse it.

I my self am a beliver and a follower of the protestant faith. But truly the bible is not meant imo from reading it to be analysed. It is merly a guide book, with certain blogg entries from certain important followers and scribes that where deemed worthy to be printed in the book several ceturies after they died. Plus it based on old patriarch power structures and old hate towards thatwhih is unknown. When the realmmessage is love, and how, why and when you are aupposed to share that love with others.

Now I would never mix my faith with work, and belive that Religion as an institution is bad and SHOULD NEVER mix wih politics

[EIRRMod]

When the realmmessage is love, and how, why and when you are aupposed to share that love with others.

All ya need is loooove

/beatles... I think....

[brn4meplz]

Now I would never mix my faith with work, and belive that Religion as an institution is bad and SHOULD NEVER mix wih politics

Which is why I find it weird that Political leaders go out of their way to demonstrate faith.

I'd never actually vote to elect anyone who truly thought the world was 6,000 years old and that we're completely safe in 'Gods' hands. That's just insanity.

[Heartmann]

Which is why I find it weird that Political leaders go out of their way to demonstrate faith.

I'd never actually vote to elect anyone who truly thought the world was 6,000 years old and that we're completely safe in 'Gods' hands. That's just insanity.

agreed