The Book of Job Part II

There are a few important aspects of the story I have overlooked, which came to my attention by a series of Youtube videos totaling 30 minutes (URL found at the end of the essay), in which ProfMTH goes far deeper than I did, particularly after God's appearance to Job, and the implications are absolutely enormous.

I had already covered God's reaction to Eliphaz, but there is something here I missed the first time around.

God played Nietzsche. In playing Nietzsche ("Might is right"), and later apologizing for it, God was doing two things: He was disproving and rejecting the complacence of Job's friends, and He was establishing that there exists a standard of justice external to Him. This means that by God acting unjustly, He was admitting that Justice does NOT come from Him; furthermore, Job, by responding as he did, was holding God to an external standard of Justice, for which he was rewarded1. Job is actually making an ironic remark here: Now that he has seen God for what he is, he is terrified for the natural order (justice) that such a monster as unjust as he could be in charge of it all. God, in turn, exonerates Job for holding Him to this standard, and punishes Job's friends for defending Him.

It is no secret that I love this story. It turns what most people say about God on its head in about 30 pages. Most people are content to merely parrot the sentiments of Job's friends, without understanding the whole issue. The story of Job is as engaging as it is complex, it requires a reader to think and interpret the text on his or her own. And in the back of my mind, I can't help but wonder why nobody has turned it into a rock opera yet, or has performed it onstage.

1) Then Job answered the Lord:
"I know you can do
all things,
and that no purpose of yours
can be thwarted.
'Who is this that hides counsel
without knowledge?'
Therefore I uttered what I
did not understand,
things too wonderful for me,
which I did not know.
'Hear and I will speak;
I will question you, and you declare to me.'
I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes." [J42:1-6]

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cpK1zcMXWw --Part 1