The Way it Was
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0I’ve always wondered why God did the things he did, particularly in the Old Testament. Giving it some thought, it becomes pretty obvious. I mean, what else was he going to do? When all you’ve got is an ant hill and a magnifying glass, some folks are bound to start incinerating some ants.
I suppose it’s a little too much to ask that the individual in question just observe the ants and leave their tiny lives in tact.
Omnipotent beings clearly cannot be trusted.
But seriously, the story of Job is probably one of the most confusing and contentious tales told in the hallowed pages of an already pretty confusing and contentious book known as The Bible. The Old Testament bits are particularly confusing in their portrayal of God, a being whose personality nobody seems to really agree on anyway. It’s really when you take the New Testament bits and compare them to the Old Testament that things start to seem a little weird. The story of Jesus and the redemption of mankind through his sacrifice paints a portrait of Yaweh that seems more inclusive and inviting and a little more consistent overall. The Old Testament, on the other hand, is all about a god that is fiery, tempestuous, and very flawed when looked at through the lens of modern morality. No story highlights the dubious Old Testament morality of Yaweh better than Job.
In the tale, Job is a very successful, healthy man with a large family and a great many animals in his flocks. Job is Hebrew and a devout worshiper of Yaweh, who has seen fit to rain blessings down upon him throughout his life for his faith. All of this ends one day when Satan points out that perhaps Job is only faithful because of the wealth he has received and because of the protection that God offers him. God, apparently just to prove a point, removes his blessings and his protections and Job subsequently suffers misfortune after misfortune at the hands of Satan. His crops wither, his animals die, his sons and daughters all perish, and Job himself falls terribly ill but isn’t killed. Job is bereft. He has nothing and no one but his wife who wonders why he doesn’t curse God and though he questions why this has happened to him, he never quite gets around to accusing God of anything. In the end, God answers Job in a rather unsatisfactory way. When Job demands answers for his treatment, God simply tells him about what it is like to be the Creator and then tells him that he need not answer questions from his creation. He restores Job to health and wealth and Job has new children to replace the old dead ones (nice, one God!) and ultimately Job lives on for another 140 years or so.
Scholars differ on what, exactly, this story is about and what it means. There are those who believe it is really about a man maintaining his faith in spite of adversity and being rewarded for it. There are also those that believe that Job’s unquestioning nature is what keeps the punishments coming. There are some that take it just as an explanation for why God does not answer our questions.
If you take the story literally, the whole thing is a bit of a travesty. Just another instance of an omnipotent deity being needlessly cruel to make a point that isn’t even clear in the end. The story of Job is one that makes atheists of former believers and those that were on the fence about the whole God thing.
To me, God’s treatment of Job is clearly an act of boredom from a deity that has nothing better to do. If only he’d had some TV to watch! Maybe then he could have enjoyed the thrilling adventures in Game of Thrones and left poor Job alone.
Who knows, maybe that’s part of why God’s been so silent lately!
Thanks to my brother Jonathan for helping me with this strip idea!
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Discussion (20) ¬
Actually, the book of Job is the answer to the question people had even back then: why do bad things keep happening to good people all the time? Is there no god? This is quite a conundrum that god’s “ground crew” has to answer for, so they say, “he’s just testing your faith”. Why would he do that? Some kind of bet with the devil. Oh, that’s ok then.
The takeaway from the story is that we ought not to be good for the rewards, Santa Claus notwithstanding. Because, you know, sometimes (often?) being good just isn’t rewarding and may appear to be the opposite. (Everyone you love is going to die, many of them before you.) The true reward for being good is having a soul that is whole, as kitschy as that sounds. The reward is me being myself.
I am soooooo glad that people like mendel, are privy to God’s reasons. After a couple millenia, most people start to forget that kind of detail.
After all, if the Jews, who wrote the Bible, have no clue, resort to people like mendel!
Being sarcastic eight months late is much better, I can see that!
Also, word to the wise: no living human being is privy to god’s reasons. I thought that went without saying, but I see now that apparently not everyone knows that.
And Neil Simon thought that God did it just because he was a dick, and that he possibly had a gambling problem.
Actually, you just have to compare different Old Testament bits to each other and things will start to seem a little weird: God’s omnipotent! God isn’t! God gets down and dirty with stuff himself! God doesn’t! God is YHWH! God is Elohim! Etc.
Look up the “documentary hypothesis” if you want to see what you can learn just from the different writing styles used.
Uhh I read Job in humanities, he questions his fate and his two friends tell him to accept and not question. Then at the end when the all mighty god appears he shows his powers to Job but he is not mad at him, he is mad at the complacent friends. Because of course critical thinking is highly important and blind belief causes the christian god wrath
I don’t know if the Catholic Bible is different than all the other Christian Bibles, but the story I learned was that Satan didn’t think Job’s faith in God was true. So God said, “Oh yeah? Well, you do whatever you want, and Job will still have faith in me.” So then Satan did all that crap to him, not God. Even then, it comes down to God kind of abusing his people’s faith by allowing evil incarnate to “test” it.
A lot of people hate their Job… Even Biblically lol.
And then there was the ho who knew her job and her costumers. Biblically.
An interesting attempt to reconcile the Old Testament diety and the New Testament diety may be found within the Marcian heresy.
Then again, it may not.
I remember in History class, we were taught that in the old days, if people don’t go to theater for entertainment, they watch people getting executed at the public square.
So maybe it’s not a bad thing to have TV, so we don’t actually need to watch people suffer to be entertained.
Unless it’s reality show… ?
Trust a (Cat) God, to toy with his followers like mice!
Poor Job, he only had one job to do, and God decided to toy with him and cause him suffering and sorrow.
Jeesh, I may have a strong dislike, and mistrust towards humans, but come on, I wouldn’t do that to any followers of mine!
Besides I hate suffering and sorrow, I’ve seen too much in my long life.
My favorite part of the Job story is that at the beginning, God and Satan are chatting like they’re pals and end up making a friendly bet with each other.
My fascination with Greek Mythology was due in part to the fact that the gods not only messed with humans “for teh LOLZ”, but also proudly admitted to doing so.
Awesome comic and awesome text!
Honestly, based on the HUGE amount of dramatic dialogue Job sprouts after several days of being silent in bed, I always just assumed that the book of Job is actually a book.
Like, it was some kind of scripted theatrical play or story people told back then and didn’t actually happen. I mean, there’s frankly no particular proof that this (idea) is true, but it just seems fundamentally different from the other parts of the good book.
God and Satan are never depicted directly talking to one another-actually, interactions in heaven in general aren’t shown because no one’s there to see and write about it. Which begs the question, “who wrote the book of Job?”. I can generally logically attribute the other books to someone, but this one is just, as stated, outright confusing.
A book? You mean it’s actually just something someone wrote down for some obscure theological reason hidden behind and transformed through mulitlayered history? GASP!
Be warned. Jim Bakker might not approve.
For the killing of innocent children see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathsheba
And for good measure http://www.twainquotes.com/Bible.html
That’s the way it’s meant to be.
As dear Jesus said: it is intended that nonbelievers shall be confused. They shall hear, but they shall not understand. http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-Chapter-13/ Otherwise they accidentally might figure out what to do to be saved from everlasting torture in hellfire. How in good faith would want that?
Ya see. It’s all about spit roasting. It’s a cook book! A cook book!
No. Wait.
This was he other one.
Here we go again: It’s a crooked book! A crook’s book!
Mmm .. yeah. Way better.
I admit that i don’t know what that dickhead is trying to do but i do speak of this, that dickhead doesn’t care if his creation is completely destroyed (he would build a new one if that were true). The only way to make him suffer is to commit sin (hey you can’t hurt him because he is almighty get it) which he never liked. Because that will somehow distort the highest equlibrium he created of sort.
Remember this joke from George Carlin’s show where he says god sends you to the lake of fire, torments you because of the sins you have committed, pulverise you, attack you. But yet he still loves you. Ha can’t forget that one. What a dickhead god.
Well i think he is rather impotent, because why create this material world if already he is spiritual. Burn everything which related to god, all kinds of worship places.
I was once told that there was a jewish belief that God was rather young back then and that he has matured through the centuries. Therefor, yes, he used to be a real **** but he has since learned better.
Otoh, i was also told that it is a jewish belief that what God says is absolute and unchanging, and therefor, if you should learn that some random person is actually a member of one of the ethnicities that God ordered exterminated what back when, then you would be obliged to kill them.
Just shows that Judaism is as confused as all the other religions.