{"id":242,"date":"2010-10-10T21:06:30","date_gmt":"2010-10-10T10:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/?p=242"},"modified":"2010-10-10T21:06:59","modified_gmt":"2010-10-10T10:06:59","slug":"malevolent-or-mysterious-gods-character-in-the-prologue-of-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/?p=242","title":{"rendered":"malevolent or mysterious? god’s character in the prologue of job"},"content":{"rendered":"

My latest article on Job will appear in the next volume of Tyndale Bulletin<\/a> with the above title. Here’s the synopsis:<\/p>\n

Readers of the Book of Job often believe that the prologue reveals the entire reason for Job\u2019s loss and suffering and so the full background for all that transpires throughout the remainder of the work. Many readers find that this raises significant problems about God\u2019s character as depicted in the book. There are, however, subtle indications both in the structure of the prologue and the content of the entire book which suggest that the exchanges between Yahweh and the Satan do not offer to the reader the complete rationale for Job\u2019s suffering. Furthermore, it appears that the author of Job has deliberately created a riddle which, left unsolved, traps the reader into believing\u2014as\tJob\u2019s\tfriends believe\u2014that a full reason for Job\u2019 s suffering is at hand. Solving the riddle, however, entwines the reader in Job\u2019s ignorance and thus the book\u2019s insistence that there is some wisdom only Yahweh holds.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I’m right then I’d argue that many claims made about the book of Job are spurious. For example, in a recent article by Deane Galbraith<\/a> on Job (h\/t Jim West<\/a>), the following from its synopsis could no longer stand:<\/p>\n

The injustice of the story of Job also reveals itself repeatedly in God’s totalitarian, universalising strategies, which deny the uniqueness of Job’s case, where he is made to suffer arbitrarily because of the wager between God and the Adversary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many other scholars make the assumption that the prologue tells us all we need to know about Job’s suffering. Grab a copy of the next Tyndale Bulletin to find out why I think this is incorrect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My latest article on Job will appear in the next volume of Tyndale Bulletin with the above title. Here’s the synopsis: Readers of the Book of Job often believe that the prologue reveals the entire reason for Job\u2019s loss and suffering and so the full background for all that transpires throughout the remainder of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,17,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-job","category-old-testament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shields-online.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}