Kassiana

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Originally posted by Hobbs:
What about Job's wife? I've heard a lot of sermons on that books, and I don't think she ever gets enough credit.
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Originally posted by Boro Nut:
That's because he turned her into a pillow of salt, silly.
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Originally posted by Talulah:
That was Lot's wife.

My husband says Job's wife was turned into an excellent spread to go with the pillow of salt. Job was often invited to the brimstone barbecues over in Sodom and Gomorrah.

(Of course, you must remember my husband is married to a semi-Discordian...)

semi-Discordian Pagan Kass

Hugh Jass

No, I think you are right. I wonder what he got when he actually reached heaven....bet it wasn't 72 virgins! No fun in Xtianity. What am I saying! Job was OT so of course he went to Hell........didn't he? It's all so complicated.

Hobbs

As Helen pointed out, Job's wife didn't die. She's the one who advised him to "curse God and die." What she says in the passage Helen linked to is ambiguous, but one interpretation is to take her as pointing out, as Helen notes and Ron Garrett emphasizes, that Job is blameless and his afflictions are not due to his own wrongdoing. If God had any integrity, he would not have allowed all this to happen to a person as good as Job is reported to have been. Thus, if Job has any integrity, he should reject God: to maintain your own integrity when God has wronged you, curse God and die rather than, as Job says, accept evil (no matter how undeserved) as well as good from God (read: grovel and worship what looks for all the world like an evil monster, on the thought that "God's ways are higher than our ways, and though he looks like a monster to us, we must have faith that he isn't as bad as he appears").

If that is her meaning, then I think she does not get enough credit. (But as I said, her statement is ambiguous; scholars and commentators have strong disagreements about what she meant [but those who reject the above interpretation tend to be ones I find to be lacking in the kind of integrity I think she was talking about].)

As an aside, I've heard more than one preacher joke that God inflicted Job by taking away his children, his animals, his wealth, and his health, and not taking away his wife.

HelenM

Well, Job was instructed to pray for his friends and not for his wife, indicating that what they said was worse than what she said, presumably.

I don't think she comes across as especially supportive but...actually it's probably quite realistic to have a spouse who disagrees with your stance on something and tells you so in no uncertain terms

I was at a service with a guest preacher - I mean, he only comes once or twice a year. His text was from John's gospel but at the end a woman went up to him to argue with him that his comments about Job's wife in a former sermon were out of line...she was quite worked up about it...

I do think that preachers' jokes are sometimes rather ill-advised, revealing things about them that it would be better had they not revealed, really

But who am I to judge, anyway...

love
Helen

Boro Nut

I think you have all missed the point of the whole Job story. The impression I get is a bit like reading Shakespeare's 'The Comedy of Errors' from cover to cover only to find out it doesn't have any jokes in it. This is the scenario as I see it.

God gets a strop on with Job for no good reason just to prove a point to his mates, and strips him of all his worldly goods etc.

Job spends the best part of his life in total penury, quietly accepting this new status quo.

Eventually, just before he kicks the bucket, God refunds what he owes him and Job is over the moon.

In fact he is so pleased with himself that he doesn't realise he is still only a fucking Neanderthal peasant living in a mud lean-to, and what little he has got for the remainder of his pathetic existence, he can't take with him, because God says so.

Now that's funny.

Boro Nut

Megatron

Umm... what the hell is a strop? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Boro Nut

Strop (n) - A bit of a bad mood. A temper tantrum. (from the latin stroppy bastard = french)

HelenM

With all due respect, Boro, you need to read it. It was Satan who was in a strop, if anyone, and he dared God and God accepted the dare.

There's scant evidence in the text that God was ever much in a strop with Job - although that depends a little what 'tone' you infer into God's comments to Job

love
Helen

Scotty

Thanks for the updates on Job. It really has been a long time, I must go re-read that stuff, but whenever I get started I just get very unnerved with the content.
It is disturbing to say the least.

-Scott

Yellow3

I like the part where it devolves into nature poetry, myself; the imagery there is delightful. The story itself, however, sucks. It probably says something when the most noxiously outspoken 'God-loves-you' person in my entire religion class says straight out that she doesn't like this story. Heck, even our teacher told us he doesn't care for the story. I forgot what he said we should go do with it, but I think afterwards he played Rabbi Kuchner's sermon on the all-loving but non-omnipotent god.

I liked that teacher.

- Jen

[ March 05, 2002: Message edited by: Yellow3 ]</p>