huckelberry wrote:Californiakid, I do not think anybody ever engages in unconditional lovey dovey. I do not believe anybody anywhere should engage in something like that.
Do you believe killing children is an appropriate divine response to sin?
I had supposed that it is clear that it is fiction and engages is the sort of exaggeration that fantasy uses to create questions. . . . Your complaints I do not experience as relevant to a poem. Yet as a poem it should be troubling. Why is life harsh and dangerous? Why do we die? How do we live with honor and courage knowing that we all die? isn't that what Job is wondering about?
The question under discussion isn't whether it's intended as fiction. The question is what kind of God it portrays. The questions Job is asking are good questions, and so is his rejection of the answer offered by his friends. Insofar as the book shows that bad things can happen to good people, the message of the book is good. However, the beginning and ending of the book are seriously problematic. God basically slaughters Job's family in order to prove a point to Satan, refuses to explain himself to Job, tells Job he doesn't have any right to question God, and then gives Job prosperity as if that makes up for all the suffering and death God had arbitrarily caused. For all the book's virtues, it portrays a largely uncompassionate God.
I cannot hear God answering with self aggrandizement. I hear God answering Job with love.
I don't see how you can read God's response to Job and feel that it's an expression of "love." Just a sample, from chapter 38:
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?
You don't tell someone to brace himself like a man if you're going to comfort him. You don't use sarcasm if you're speaking to him in love. You don't start listing your achievements if you're uninterested in self-aggrandizement. This is not a loving response. This is God giving Job what-for.