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theawkwardvirgin · 10 months

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Catholic Understanding of the Book of Job

So after watching the first three episodes of Good Omens season 2, I did some research on the Catholic Church’s teachings on the Book of Job. I’ll admit, I did this because the show very pointedly highlighted some issues I’ve personally had with that book in the past. Namely, why does God test Job in this way, and why does He seem to harshly criticize Job when the man finally begs for answers?

Interestingly, this question about “why did Job suffer like this” is precisely the POINT of the Book of Job. This is a dramatic literary poem, one that’s often compared to other epic poems like Dante’s Inferno. It’s not a historical account. Job didn’t actually exist, and his suffering and God’s response are not real either. They’re an author’s attempt to describe and dramatize an innocent person’s suffering to make a point about the nature of suffering as a whole.

Specifically, the author is saying that suffering is not necessarily caused by a person’s sin. This was an extremely new idea at the time the Book of Job was written, which is why Job’s three friends try to convince him that he must’ve done something to deserve this suffering—they’re echoing the popular belief of the time.

So if suffering isn’t a punishment for sin, then what is it? The author offers a few suggestions: It’s a test of holiness, to ensure that people aren’t just fair-weather friends of God. It’s an opportunity for people to increase in holiness, by demonstrating patience and good virtue in the face of suffering. It’s a way of preventing pride (like Job’s kids clearly demonstrate in the show).

Ultimately, though, the author doesn’t give a conclusive answer. This is where God’s seemingly harsh response comes into play: By having God expound on His power and creation of the world, and how Job was not present, the author is saying that, while the options he presented are possibilities, he doesn’t actually know. God has wisdom far beyond any human, and plans that we can’t even begin to comprehend. We can’t truly understand His justice.

Despite His seemingly harsh rebuke of Job, the author shows that God is actually on Job��s side by having God reprimand Job’s friends for trying to convince him of fault, and then restoring his goods. The author’s saying that God isn’t just criticizing Job for lamenting his suffering, He’s making a point to the whole human race that none of them can understand His justice.

In addition, by having God restore twice Job’s goods, the author says that God is merciful and just—even though he doesn’t have to be. As Job just learned, God is the creator of all, and as such can do whatever He wants with His creation. However, the author has God choose to abide by the legal requirement at the time: If you harmed a man, you’re required to pay him twice what you harmed.

The Book of Job has many possible interpretations. It’s ultimate goal was to get people thinking about the nature of suffering, rather than blindly accepting the popular beliefs of the time. It’s unsurprising that the author couldn’t provide a conclusive answer to the question of suffering, as it’s a questions we still wrestle with today.

However, the New Testament offers some additional wisdom: Our earthly suffering is nothing compared to the heavenly reward we will experience if we remain faithful. This is a concept Job couldn’t even comprehend, as he had no idea what happened to souls after death, and people believed their reward for faithfulness would be given on earth. Thus, we see that our understanding of God increases over time: First, with the realization that suffering isn’t necessarily caused by sin. Second, by the realization that our reward is found in Heaven, not on earth. We may never completely understand the problem of suffering during our lives on earth. But on the day of the Second Coming, we will all witness God’s justice firsthand, and we’ll see even more clearly.

#good omens #good omens season two #catholicism #catholic #the book of job #theology #catholic nerdstuff

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 7 months

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[I am sharing this eloquent post as a cry from the hearts of all people of good will ; when like Job we seek voice for our despair.]

* * * *

People both here and around the world have checked in to ask how I am. I appreciate this more than you can imagine. But it puts me in a bind as to how to respond, beyond to affirm my physical safety and that of my children.

Those of you who know me personally, or even at length virtually, know that I struggle to restrict my responses to such a question to generalities and formalities. On the other hand, I’ve been working over the past year, in the wake of radical upheavals in my personal life, to restrain my openness. Some see that openness as oversharing that overburdens them.

So, responding to this question is challenging.

Yes, it would be correct to say that I’m fine. Because in many senses I am. Especially if we contextualize this with how others are doing. And even in this situation, I try to remember that context, and I try to remember both the morality and usefulness of gratitude. But I don’t always find the strength.

So, for those who want more detail, here it is.

I’m angry. This is of course to be expected. Joe Strummer (because you knew I’d quote him somewhere here) once wrote “let fury have the hour / anger can be power / you know that you can use it.” He was talking about a rather simple situation of resistance. When anger is directed in one clear direction, and it’s righteous, then outrage, literally directing one’s rage outward, can be an antidote to despair and fear. And if directed effectively, can be a powerful force for change, or at least survival. But that’s not where I am. Because I’m angry in so many directions I struggle to find a center on which to stand. In some senses, all of my angers are pulling me apart.

Given this predicament, I want to add a caveat before I particularize them. I am conscious of being in extremis. I may change my view on many of the things I lay out here. I may repudiate them. I may be embarrassed by them. I may be very wrong about some of these things, though explaining to me how I am wrong, even if done with good will, likely won’t help either of us. At any rate, the question “how are you?” is in the present. This is how I am now. A snapshot of the moment.

Yes, I am answering because I know some of you are personally interested, and yes, I am answering because I need to speak, and I live alone, and because I am Ori. But I also know that some have found value (because they’ve told me so) in my openness in sharing my views and experience.

Nonetheless, I’d like you to keep in mind the most important line in the Book of Job. After Job loses everything and is subjected to intense physical and emotional trauma, he cries out to God, demanding an explanation. Three friends gather to discuss how he might continue to believe in a just and good God and the possibility of a just and good world. And they all mean well.

The friend who speaks last, Eliphaz the Temani, holds he most correct position. He’s really smart, even wise. He isn’t simply an orthodox (small ‘o’) apologist for religious dogma demanding fidelity. He probes the problem deeply and calls for a complex subject position and view of God and the world.

God then speaks to Job from out of the whirlwind, before pivoting to the friends, not addressing all three, but speaking directly to Eliphaz.

וַיְהִי אַחַר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה אֶת הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה אֶל אִיּוֹב וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל אֱלִיפַז הַתֵּימָנִי חָרָה אַפִּי בְךָ וּבִשְׁנֵי רֵעֶיךָ כִּי לֹא דִבַּרְתֶּם אֵלַי נְכוֹנָה כְּעַבְדִּי אִיּוֹב.

“And after Hashem spoke these words to Job, Hashem said to Eliphaz the Temani, ‘I am incensed with you and your two friends, because you didn’t speak to me appropriately like my servant Job.’”

God doesn’t commend Eliphaz’s powerful theodicy, one that has provided many later rabbinic theologians – the Rambam (Maimonides) foremost among them (see the discussion of Providence in Part III of the Guide of the Perplexed) – with great intellectual inspiration. He doesn’t say ‘yep, well done Elushkeh, you got it right my brilliant child and your benighted brother Job just needs to listen to you.’ Rather, as the Rambam emphasizes, God rebukes him for being too invested in his own argument and correctness. The great Jewish historian Amos Funkenstein read Job as teaching that we don’t always deserve answers, but we have the right, and even obligation, to demand a hearing. Especially in extremis. Even if we are wrong or lost or broken or. . .angry.

With that in mind, my answer to the question “how are you?”, that I’m angry includes a list of things I’m angry about. In no special order and certainly no hierarchical ranking.

I’m angry at Hamas about the vicious slaughter and widespread trauma they inflicted, gleefully, on so many people.

I’m angry at Israel’s vaunted security and intelligence communities and institutions, whose often appalling moral decisions and violations of rights have been justified with recourse to the necessity for security, for nonetheless failing to keep us safe.

I’m angry at this absurd government led by a man who has time and again placed his own interests and power above duty to country, while posing as a superlative patriot. And has never paid a political price.

I’m angry at his party for clinging to him despite his amorality (or immorality) because doing so has served their own interests.

I’m angry that for years he funneled cash from Qatar to Hamas while posing as the only one who can keep Jews safe. And I’m angry that so many people bought into this. And angry that so many still do. I’m angry that more than 2% of the population somehow doesn’t want him to resign immediately.

I’m angry at everyone who voted for any party in this government who hasn’t apologized for empowering such a group of corrupt and irresponsible chauvinists and zealots.

I’m angry at Hamas for undercutting the struggle for Palestinian rights and lending credence to the caricatures of Palestinians as bloodthirsty savages who just want to kill Jews, which is far from the truth. This will not only cost Palestinian lives in the immediate, but it will also set back their pursuit of justice and dignity by decades. They have alienated hard-won support in the international community. And they have made it harder to stand for their recognition, rights, and justice. Here, in Israel, it makes answering the refrain that ‘they don’t really want freedom, they just want us all dead and gone’ exponentially more difficult. And they have reinforced the flawed attitude that any failure of brutality to subjugate others is evidence of the need for more brutality.

I’m angry at the harm that this will perpetuate for Israel and Israelis, now and in future generations, on so many levels. Dehumanizing themselves and us, dehumanizing us all, plunging us ever deeper into a morass of hatred and violence. There is no security and dignity for Israeli Jews if there is no security and dignity for Palestinian Arabs.

I’m angry at those on the right who are already waving this as vindication of their cruelty and hate-mongering.

I’m angry at those on the left who are celebrating this as valid resistance and a step in the direction of justice.

I’m angry at their glib equivocations that show zero compassion for individual lives.

One cannot seek justice for peoples if one isn’t seeking justice for people.

Justice only comes when we provide safety and dignity for all.

I’m angry at the arrogance of so many privileged people with little knowledge and enormous self-righteousness, who deny their own implication in a global system that has enabled this situation and glory in accusing others, and who celebrate or rationalize this slaughter as just desserts. Especially those who have never stepped foot here, haven’t read a 100th of what I’ve read, who don’t interact and work with Palestinians every day, yet who like to “educate” me about the Palestinian suffering I’ve witnessed, stay abreast of, and seek to alleviate. There is no justice without humility.

My supposed allies on the left in regard to so many causes, including justice for Palestinians, this isn’t about YOU.

I’m angry at those who obscure context and discredit it by calling it justification. Understanding something more deeply and broadly doesn’t mean one thinks it is just. To any and every brutal situation, some will inevitably respond with brutality. Others will not. That brutality is therefore inevitable, but not justified. It doesn’t exonerate someone who decapitates a parent in front of their child. It doesn’t exonerate someone who throws grenades at people who are dancing. It doesn’t exonerate someone who rapes or beats or shoots or bombs others. Systemic and historical analysis does not neutralize moral agency and responsibility. When we fail to attend to either, we are part of the problem.

I’m angry that someone next to whom I sat Shabbat after Shabbat for years in synagogue went to a music festival, had his arm blown off with a grenade, applied his own tourniquet, and now is a hostage in Gaza with no medical attention to his grave injury. And his parents and sisters, like so many others, are living a nightmare.

I'm angry that my youngest child has spent hours with her best friend, keeping her company, while she's overcome with fear for her beloved older brother (they are so close that one of his profile pictures is of the two of them) who was sent to the front.

I’m angry at myself that this is the world and childhood I’ve given my three children.

I’m angry that I did not build a career that would have given me a meaningful role of some sort in this crisis. I’m angry at the reasons I didn’t do so, many of which have to do with an illness I was both born with and that was exacerbated by my experience and failures to overcome it.

I’m angry at my supposed allies here in Israel who have refused to recognize that democracy and dignity for only some is a delusion. In fact, it is democracy and dignity for no one.

I’m angry that my country is filled with creative energy and courage when it comes to technology and the arts, but absolutely devoid of any creativity and courage when it comes to politics.

I’m angry that I once found Israel’s precariousness romantic and thought it provided a more authentic experience of life and greater purity of commitment and affiliation.

I’m angry at the dishonestly partial and propagandistic education that informed those sentiments.

I’m angry at those who have turned my people’s traditions into distorting mirrors of superiority and cudgels of cruelty.

I’m angry that thousands of Palestinian children will be killed and traumatized in the next days and weeks.

I’m angry that my own children’s immediate welfare and that of my people, and the immediate welfare of another people and its children, are now seemingly mutually exclusive.

I’m angry that I don’t currently possess a plausible vision for a better future.

I’m angry that I live by myself and that the nights are very very long.

I’m angry that this week will forever shape my children’s lives, and my own.

And I’m angry that, unlike Job, I don’t have the kind of faith that gives me an address to demand a hearing and express my anger.

So if you’ve read this, you will have to do.

And I’m angry that some who read this will feel pain.

[Ori Hanan Weisberg]

#war in Israel #Israel Hamas war #words and writing #Ori Hanan Weisberg #the book of Job #theology #war

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queen-of-weird-girl-nation · 2 months

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Job. Oh Job. I’m sorry

#I wouldn’t be as strong #and you were #but at what cost job #you lost everything #everything #and we want to lose everything too #don’t we #we want to lose to prove ourselves #to prove we are holy #for what is holier than sacrifice #than martyrship #I’m sorry job #the book of job #bible study

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tabernacleheart · 1 year

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When we are passed over for promotion or lose a job, when we become chronically ill, when we lose people we love, what then? We face the question, “If God was blessing me during the good times, is he punishing me now?” This is a hugely important question. If God is punishing us, we need to change our ways so he will stop. But if our difficulties are not a punishment from God, then changing our ways would be foolish. It might even oppose what God wants us to do!

The Bible reveals that sometimes our suffering is not a result of our sin. Consider the example of Job. He suffered greatly, losing his substantial wealth and his family. His friends urged him to admit that it was divine punishment because of his sin, but Job resisted, insisting that he had not deserved his sorrow. In the end, the Lord rebuked Job’s friends, revealing that they had not spoken rightly about God when they said God had been punishing Job. In fact, it was Satan who had caused Job’s suffering all along! [Nevertheless,] we are not told why God allows Satan to torture Job. One harrowing day, nearly everything Job treasures is stolen. The people he loves—including all his children—are murdered or killed in violent storms. But Job neither assumes God is punishing him nor becomes bitter over God’s treatment. Instead he worships God.

Because Job has experienced prosperity as a blessing from God, he is prepared to suffer adversity without jumping to conclusions. He recognizes the limits of his own understanding. He doesn’t know why God sometimes blesses us with prosperity and sometimes allows us to suffer adversity. He just knows that God is faithful. [When we, too,] know that sometimes [our] suffering is caused by forces [we] don’t now understand, [we can prayerfully ask God to] help [us patiently] suffer adversity without jumping to the conclusion that it is a punishment. Instead, [our trust in God's faithfulness] will lead [us] to worship and trust [Him] always.

Theology Of Work Project

#suffering #the book of job #this is very relevant to my life lately #i needed to hear this so badly tonight #god is faithful #for everything there is a reason #trust in God #radical surrender #theology of work project #punishment #faith #reflect on this

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setsailforthestars · 10 months

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Thank u Good Omens for highlighting how absolutely fucked up the book of Job is in the Bible

#like why was all that necessary this poor man #the book of job #the Bible?? do I tag that??#good omens #good omens s2 #good omens spoilers

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thequietabsolute · 1 year

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Poets have to dream, and dreaming in America is no cinch. God 'giveth songs in the night,’ the Book of Job says. I've devoted lots of thought to all these questions and I've concentrated hard on Humboldt's famous insomnia. But I think that Humboldt's insomnia testified mostly to the strength of the world, the human world and all its wonderful works. The world was interesting, really interesting. The world had money, science, war, politics, anxiety, sickness, perplexity. It had all the voltage. Once you had picked up the high-voltage wire and were someone, a known name, you couldn't release yourself from the electrical current. You were transfixed. Okay, … I'm summarizing: the world has power, and interest follows power. Where are the poets' power and interest? They originate in dream states. These come because the poet is what he is in himself, because a voice sounds in his soul which has a power equal to the power of societies, states, and regimes. You don't make yourself interesting through madness, eccentricity, or anything of the sort but because you have the power to cancel the world's distraction, activity, noise, and become fit to hear the essence of things.

— Saul Bellow, from Humboldt’s Gift

pg., 312

#saul bellow #humboldt’s gift #poem #poetry #the book of job #america #american literature #quote #english literature #insomnia #sleep #dreams

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luke-o-lophus · 1 month

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When Aziraphale and Crowley first meet during The Trial of Job, both of them try to recount when they'd last met. But the eyes they made, and the pauses they had, before saying "The Flood"....genuinely makes me think they spied on each other multiple times in between. Maybe coz their head offices asked to, maybe other reasons.

And in those moments they were both going SHIT SHIT when am I SUPPOSED TO last have seen them?? If I remember wrong THIS LITTLE SHIT will NEVER let me live it down!!!

#luke shares #good omens #aziraphale #aziracrow #crowley #ineffable husbands #the book of job

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marlowe1-blog · 2 months

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Job Chapter 28

Wisdom

I feel like Job is going to contradict this statement

And he said to the human race, “The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.”

The rest of this chapter is rather beautiful. Where does wisdom come from. Iyov really goes into a major discourse on how humanity digs into the earth for all the metals, all the diamonds. Food comes from the ground.

It sounds like a very humanist chapter. Like Job is praising humanity for being able to find sapphires, grow food and dig into the earth.

But wisdom? How the fuck do you find that? It's not like you can just go exploring. It's not in the ocean. It's not in the sea. You can't buy it. "A pouch of wisdom is better than rubies."

It's an interesting question since there's an entire book of the Bible dedicated to the aphorisms of the society (Proverbs) and then a book of wisdom when you understand that life isn't about all the nice sayings (Qoheleth). And of course, the section of the Bible (Tanakh) is calls Kethuvim so all of it is considered Wisdom (basically Wisdom is everything that isn't Torah or Prophets. Prophets is history plus the Prophetic works - major and minor).

And unlike in Dungeons & Dragons, intelligence and wisdom tend to be inversely proportional. Grow up gifted and you think you know everything. That is the opposite of wisdom.

But yeah, G-d makes rain and wisdom. G-d knows everything, so fear G-d. What does that mean on a symbolic level? Fear everything or fear whatever makes the rain and the waters.

Fear G-d. Because G-d is beyond the rest. If you fear G-d, you don't have to fear anything else - not fire, murder or zombies. G-d is running things.

Also, it's ironic in the context of this book since G-d can always fuck with you, so you better fear g-d.

#Job #The Book of Job #wisdom #G-d #Judaism #Jewish #Jewish thought #monsters #diamonds #pearls #iron #bronze #nubia #topaz #silver #ophir #gold #rain #winds #natural world

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gwydionmisha · 10 months

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Good Omens 2 Job and Buddy Holly: Spoilers, Obviously.

I am still mulling over Good Omens 2.

People following my thoughts mostly on Tumblr, will know that I think the Book of Job was an incredibly clever choice, not just because of the notoriously messy thought and argumentation around it likely going back to when it was first written down and likely continuing on into our future. I think it really illuminates the characters involved, does sharp commentary on human nature in general, and is poking at a lot of the themes from the original novel and first series. It's playing with a lot of fascinating things in the text and playing with fundamental questions about existence.

I also took one look at the series 2 ending and thought: We're Job. The people watching series two are Job. So are Crowley and Aziraphale faced with the ineffable and associated ethical dilemmas and the brutal season two ending. We are all in the suffering part when the goats and the house and the children and the fields are destroyed.

In the Good Omens 2 version they aren't destroyed really, of course. They goats and the children are hidden. Transformed even. But Job and his wife Get Them Back in the end. I think in season 3 what looks destroyed is only transformed and/or hidden and it will turn out all right in the end, assuming renewal.

I needed to explain this to give you context for the next bit.

Let's talk about Buddy Holly's "Every Day."

For reference: Every day, it's a-getting closer Going faster than a rollercoaster Love like yours will surely come my way A-hey, a-hey-hey

Every day, it's a-getting faster Everyone said, "Go ahead and ask her" Love like yours will surely come my way A-hey, a-hey-hey

Every day seems a little longer Every way, love's a little stronger Come what may Do you ever long for true love from me

So on it's face it's the theme for Gabriel and Beelzebub, right? It's their song. It's the story of what happened to them.

It's an earworm. It's ubiquitous, threaded through the episodes. It's very clearly the main musical theme for series 2 not counting the theme song itself which is in both series, which in season 2 is eclipsed. I haven't wandered around humming and singing the them song for weeks. It doesn't play in my head when I'm awake and wind through my dreams. Buddy holly does though. "Everyday" gets different contexts and arrangements, but it's still recognizably itself.

Beelzebub/Gabriel aren't the main characters. They are important characters, like Maggie and Nina, but they aren't the main characters of Good Omens: Crowley and Aziraphale are.

I posit that "Everyday" is also about Crowley and Aziraphale too. It's both couples. Go back and look at the lyrics again. One of the most famous and hotly debated lines of the first series is “You go too fast for me Crowley.” Faster than a roller coaster one might posit. I'd argue that by the end of Good Omens 2 Aziraphale is going too fast for Crowley because the two of them haven't been communicating enough about the what they wants and the whys they want and what might that look like. Crowley's still roaring around with his own ideas about together without properly checking in either, don't get me wrong. Crowley is still going to fast along the road he'd mostly been following towards what he things together looks like. Aziraphale though, presents Crowley with heaven by fiat without ever knowing how Crowley might feel about heaven and what they did to him.

In Good Omens 2, it's sure getting faster, and I keep thinking about Maggie and Nina giving Aziraphale a talking to about communication right before his fiat. I keep thinking that both Crowley and Aziraphale both go ahead and ask the big question along the lines of will you come with me/will you stay with me over and over since the gazebo rejection in the first series. They ask it different ways in second series of each other, but they forget to ask the question that get a couple to longer/stronger. you know all the things that come before 'will you marry me.' Run away with me to alpha centauri/heaven is basically 'will you marry me.' They skipped straight from flirting to proposals without the stuff in between. They missed all the serious questions between what's your favorite coffee drink/what kind of books and movies to you like and elopement. Generally there are a lot of serious conversations when you're dating someone long term. Conversations about life goals. Conversations about where you want to live. conversations about your relationship to your family. That sort of thing.

Beelzebub/Gabriel speed ran the love story; Aziraphale and Crowley tried to speed run past the middle game and tripped in season 2, because the A couple need some hardships and obstacles in the middle game.

At the end of the Good Omens 2 version of Job, they turn the lizards back into children and crows back into goats. "Everyday" is the earliest stage of love. They aren't there yet. He hasn't asked her yet, but the song is his way of asking. The end of "Everyday" is hopeful. The love gets longer and stronger. The song is a question and a promise of what could happen with a little patience.

Crowley and Aziraphale need a little patience. We need a little patience too.

#Good Omens 2 #Everyday #Buddy Holly #The Book of Job

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