Textual analysis of Old Testament

Quote: Nareed

If you think Jehovah telling Job the equivalent of "Who are you to question me, you miserable worm," is a reminder of hoe much he loves Job, then 1) you've no idea what love is and 2) you wouldn't know morality if it kicked you.

God comes to Job and restores all that he has lost and commends him for his perseverance and faithfulness through many trials. He reminds Job and all of us that He is with us always even when it feels like everything is going wrong and that He will restore us and bless us. You don't know what love is if you think it is only present in the good times and that love exists to save us from all our suffering. Love is what enables us to stand by each other specifically when life sucks. If you think morality is all about making sure we ourselves experience the maximum pleasure and avoid all pain than you have no idea what true morality is all about.

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Perhaps it's time to evaluate the progress of the war. I thought discrediting your cult would be enough. Now I'm beginning to think it must be destroyed, set on fire and ground into dust.

Maybe your methods will work: hate the religion, not the believer.

As they say, if the Popes, priests, and faithful of the Church have not been able to destroy the Church through their own actions I very much doubt you will be able to do it. However, in your case what you hate and destroy is not grounded in reality. Your insane view of what you think the Church is does not exist, so congratulations you have already won. Can we go on with trying to reconcile now, better understand each other, and return the challenging yet friendly banter of yesteryear?

Quote: FrGamble

God comes to Job and restores all that he has lost and commends him for his perseverance and faithfulness through many trials.

Did Jehovah resurrect his wife and children?

See, you don't ever recover from losing someone you love. People are not interchangeable like pieces of furniture or pots and pans. Your deity would have the power to restore all that Job's lost, I suppose, but chose not to do it.

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He reminds Job and all of us that He is with us always even when it feels like everything is going wrong and that He will restore us and bless us.

Do you think Jehovah had a good laugh about the whole thing while his pet worm was being made to suffer? You know. like people who raise dogs to fight, and watch them tear each other apart?

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Can we go on with trying to reconcile now, better understand each other, and return the challenging yet friendly banter of yesteryear?

Bart: I would end all life on this planet just to get out of learning fractions.

Lisa: Oh, fractions aren't that hard. All you need to do is find the common denominator and-

Bart: END.ALL.LIFE.ON.THIS.PLANET.

Quote: Nareed

Did Jehovah resurrect his wife and children?
See, you don't ever recover from losing someone you love. People are not interchangeable like pieces of furniture or pots and pans.
.

That's a perfect example of a Christian
concept of gods horrible 'love'. If
you love a person you don't kill
somebody they're close to for sport
and tell them to stop whining and find
them a replacement. You see the
story of Job again and again used
to show what a loving god they have.
You could make a horror movie out
of that story to scare little children.

And where is gods sense of humor.
Where was Jesus ever using a funny
parable to make a point. The men
who wrote the NT had no humor,
so Jesus had none written into their
fictitious accounts. A god would be
humorless, he would seriousness
24/7. Not like real life at all. Not
like a loving god at all.

Quote: Nareed

Did Jehovah resurrect his wife and children?

See, you don't ever recover from losing someone you love. People are not interchangeable like pieces of furniture or pots and pans. Your deity would have the power to restore all that Job's lost, I suppose, but chose not to do it.

In the story the point is that Job's happiness is restored. Do you think that Job could never be happy again? Even while he forever misses his wife and children, do you begrudge him to never fall in love again?

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Do you think Jehovah had a good laugh about the whole thing while his pet worm was being made to suffer? You know. like people who raise dogs to fight, and watch them tear each other apart?

I can't get over how poorly you understand the things you attack. How willfully you misread and twist and distort. This story is about the opposite of fighting and tearing things apart. At the end with full restoration Job has become a stronger faithful man and so have his friends and all who read this story of perseverance and the difficulty of wrestling with the problems life throws at you. Job resists the temptation to give up and despair. He shows his strength and inspires and encourages all of us. This book is right before the psalms. Beautiful prayers, hymns, and poetry written to God from a chosen people mainly in exile. There are many beautiful Psalms, like the one Jesus quotes on the Cross that lament the situation we are in and yet ends full of confidence that God and goodness and love will always win in the end as they do.

Quote: FrGamble

In the story the point is that Job's happiness is restored. Do you think that Job could never be happy again? .

OMG, you didn't just say this. Somebody kills
your whole family and to make up for it
replaces them, and you're just happy as a
clam?

Are you INSANE??? You would never forgive
them, let alone be happy. Imagine a family
member you love dearly, killed for fun by
somebody. You actually think that person
could ever forgive the death, or ever be
happy with a replacement you give them?
What's wrong with you. This makes my point
in spades about how Christians have no idea
that gods 'love' is evil personified. It's a
twisted sadistic love, which isn't love at all.

If that is what you think the story is about then you are insane and I really can't help you.

Quote: FrGamble

If that is what you think the story is about then you are insane and I really can't help you.

You can't help me to me to understand the
perverted 'love' of god you're selling? You
are correct, sir! Because in no way shape or
form is it love. And the fact that you think
it's love means there is something really
wrong with you. You just said god made
everything OK because he 'replaced' the
people he killed. The fact that you think
this way is exactly why Christians have
a screw loose, why they are dangerous.

Good grief, am I glad I was brought up as
non religious. Fuck Christianity,

What's the message, keep the faith even when bad things happen?

If bad things were all that happened, maybe that lesson from that story would make sense.

However, in this case, the bad things were caused by the very thing that you are supposed to keep faith in. That makes it easy to take a lesson that the thing does not deserve your faith.

There are many examples of lessons being drawn from stories like this, which then ignore the horrible things that happened in the story. This story is an example - they distill out the part of the story where god made a wager and allowed all of those horrible things to happen, and instead just deliver the lesson to keep faithful.

What about the faith and innocence of his family? Just collateral damage in the story? What was their reward for their unbreaking faith, a quicker trip to purgatory?

Quote: FrGamble

In the story the point is that Job's happiness is restored. Do you think that Job could never be happy again? Even while he forever misses his wife and children, do you begrudge him to never fall in love again?

I thought the point was god, faith, something, nonsense, <mumble>.

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I can't get over how poorly you understand the things you attack.

Let's see:

Jehovah bets Satan Job will stay faithful no matter what, and tells him to go ahead and beat the crap out of Job, just don't kill him.
Satan goes and does just that.
After losing his family, his wealth and his health, Job begs Jehovah for an explanation.
Jehovah berates him, belittles him, and acts like an all-powerful gigantic asshole.
Then the author has to have a happy ending, else the villain is revealed to be Jehovah.

What I fail to see is why you think the most relevant parts of the story need to be ignored in order to interpret it accurately.

Quote: Nareed

What I fail to see is why you think the most relevant parts of the story need to be ignored in order to interpret it accurately.

What I fail to understand is why you think taking the most irrelevant parts of the story need to be the only thing you are focused on. You and others here are literally judging an entire bore on two sentences. These two verses come in the beginning of the Book of Job and it is clearly in the mind of every Biblical scholar an addition, as is the ending, to correspond with a popular story of the time and to use it as an somewhat clumsy and problematic introduction to the virtue of Job.

As far as God berating or belittling Job you are way off base. God exalts Job in the end and celebrates not only his questioning but also his faithfulness even when he could not understand the reasoning. It is Job's friends who are berated and punished even. They like you guys get focused on one thing and keep beating Job over the head with it - your suffering means that you are worthless and that God and no one loves you, just end it already. You guys are like the friends who keep saying - your story makes no sense and is evil because it begins with a fictional account of God and Satan arguing over the justness of Job and allowing bad things to happen to him. You ignore the 38 chapters that make up the message. I fail to see why that is the most relevant part of the story.