Satan roamed earth, not hell; Satan at right hand of God
Quote:
Originally Posted by
weepingforloman
Satan was not God's "confidante" at this point. He was already fallen in Genesis (the serpent). But he presents himself before God because God is still sovereign, and he cannot defy God's will (I separate permissive will from active will in this instance... causing pain is not something God desires, but something He permits). And God did not "torture" Job. Satan was the one who struck him with disease. And God allowed this, in part to take Satan's bait, but in part to ensure that Job would not rest upon his blessings. God alone is man's joy, not wealth or family, as Job had. We take pleasure from these things, but they are from God nonetheless. If we had nothing, we would still be happy if we knew Him.
Can you give proof for your first and third sentences? Because I don't agree with it. While it would appear that God cursed the serpent, causing it to crawl on its belly:
Genesis 3:14, “The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life.”
the conflict is that God also listened to Satan, and was complicit in allowing Satan to torture Job:
Job 1: 6 One day the angels [a] came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan [b] also came with them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?"
Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it."
8 Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."
9 "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. 10 "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."
Satan is roaming the earth, but so are humans, and so are all creatures. Why do you equate that with "fallen"? If Satan was fallen, then he must also have been "risen" to appear before God. Also, note how God talks to Satan. It's not exactly the conversation one would expect between the condemner and the condemned.
Also, compare with Zechariah 3:
1 And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of Jehovah, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary.
2 And Jehovah said unto Satan, Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?
In any case, there he is, standing near Jehovah, not in hell.
To Redzeppelin:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
Jung was a very intelligent man - but his analysis of Job (despite some fascinating comments and insights) treats Job as a literary text rather than a single episode within the cohesive narrative of the Bible.
My contention is that there is no such thing as a cohesive bible. An anthologized collection of books that eventually came to be called "The Bible" is something that developed in later centuries. I grant that when you read the bible, you might interpret a cohesive continuity. When I read the bible, it appears as distinct and disparate books that sometimes make references to earlier books, sometimes not.
I will refer to a statement in an article posted by Washington State University,
"The Bible is not so much a book as a library of books, a collection of writings which evolved over many centuries and did not become completely fixed in its classic form until the first century CE."
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/worl...rew_bible.html
Before the modern, bound codex-form of the Bible, each Bible story were separate scrolls, distinct and individual. This was the case with Job, as it was with Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel, etc., and many others that remained uncanonized. This is where a study of the Dead Sea Scrolls is most helpful to get a context of what Jewish people were reading--not one book, where each story was simply a coherent and sequentially arranged chapter. They were separate scrolls. The Bible, in other words, is an anthology, a collection of books, not a long continuous narrative. Therefore, in my opinion Jung did not unfairly treat the Book of Job.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
1) God did not "punish" Job - He allowed Job to be put under trial by Satan - and this is something that all believers understand is a reality of living in a fallen world. Any one of us could have such an experience - and the NT appropriately warns us thusly.
I take issue with that "all believers" part. Specious, statistical. Which believers constitute "all believers"? Only a certain kind of believer? Not sure how you can support such a judgment call. For instance, I might be a believer who does not believe suffering as a universal reality, much less that the intelligence that created me would not raise a hand against extreme cruelty, and much, much less that my creator literally made a deal with the devil.
I will concede that God gave Satan a liberal amount of authority to traumatize, torture or cause Job anguish. That we resort to euphemisms, saying it wasn't really punishment, it was a trial, doesn't quite do it for me, sorry. Job was inflicted with punishment while on trial? This is what makes Job such a great case study of God's emotional ambiguity. In the end, I think Jung gave YHVH a generous benefit of the doubt. Still, Jung was unequivocal in saying that Job's punishments (oops!) resulted in a change in temperament in God. Why? Because the creator was incapable of empathy with his creation. I am reminded of a little boy who tortures an animal, but later feels remorse and vows never to do it again. God learned!
