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+title: On „Spor o Joba“ (Dispute about Job)
+tags:
+categories:
+  - faith
+  - review
+  - english
+  - job
+  - inerrancy
+  - historicity
+date: 2015-07-06T12:11:00
+---
+
+I have just finished reading of the book by Dan Drápal „`Spor
+o Joba`_“ (Návrat domů, 2015; “Dispute about Job”) and I am
+rather unsure about it.
+
+.. _`Spor o Joba`:
+    http://www.databazeknih.cz/knihy/spor-o-joba-251107
+
+Firstly from purely formal reasons. To say it bluntly: the book
+is in my opinion longer than it deserves. The really important
+part is the first one (44 pages). When I was reading it, I felt
+constantly an intense feeling that this was exactly the book
+I would love to write myself, but I have never overcame my
+laziness and incompetence to do it. Then however, there is also
+the second part (37 pages), which is just more or less (more less
+than more) commented annotated reading notes on many books
+related to the book of Job. The third part is a comprehensive (7
+densely printed pages) bibliography.
+
+I understand that publishing of books especially in the small
+volume is quite challenging activity financially, so I do not
+suspect pecuniary motives on the side of the author. I would
+guess that it is more a wish (more and more problematic in the
+time of Kindle, Internet, and similar tools) to have his thoughts
+immortalized on pieces of dead trees. Let me just note that the
+result does not look to me sensible neither from the
+environmental nor economical point of view (on the side of
+a buyer; 44 pages for 130 CZK or how much the book costs is quite
+drastic amount). I would welcome much more than this patchwork
+(half-page paragraphs typeset on separate pages with almost every
+third page blank; is it really necessary?) if the author
+published a collection of his most timeless blogposts (including
+the part of this book), that could in my opinion in total make
+a way more valuable book and less pity for the sacrificed trees.
+
+So, fortunately now we can leave behind the only really negative
+part of this review and we can deal with something which I see as
+the real contribution of this book. First of all let me deal
+briefly with a second part of the book, which seems to me
+relevant for the rest of my thoughts, which is the consideration
+of historicity of the Book of Job. I hope, the author would agree
+with me, that The Holy Bible constitutes whole library of works
+by various human authors and various literary styles (that
+shouldn't deny the inspiration of the Bible, and I would like to
+leave that issue outside of this review). We have in the Bible
+historical books (however the concept was understood in the time
+of their writing, e.g., The Books of Chronicles), spiritual
+poetry or a prayer book (Psalms), prophecies, wisdom literature
+(Proverbs, Ecclesiastes), shockingly open erotic poem (Song of
+Songs). So, it makes sense to ask for the literary form of the
+Book of Job. It seems to me obvious that it is not (prima facie)
+historical writing, or prophetic or mythological one, but that it
+is a rather unique(?) example of the Biblical fiction prose, in
+the modern terms closest to some kind of novel or long story
+centered around the deep theological / philosophical
+contemplation of the human suffering (let me emphasize again,
+that it says absolutely nothing to do with the issue of the level
+or manner of the inspiration of the book by the Holy Spirit). If
+we accept this classification and follow its consequences, we
+have to get in my opinion to couple of conclusions:
+
+1. Whole question of the historicity of the Book of Job looses
+   its value. If the Book of Job is truly a novel, the question
+   of its historicity is roughly the same as the historicity of
+   Alyosha Karamazov. Yes, perhaps there are some literal
+   historians, who are dealing with the issue whether Alyosha
+   Karamazov is based on some historical person or not, but it is
+   completely secondary question for the literary quality of the
+   work and for its message.
+
+2. When looking at the Book of Job as a literary work, it seems
+   to me obvious that the key part are all discussions between
+   Job and his friends (and God) dealing with the main issue of
+   the book, question of human suffering in the world. The first
+   two chapters and the half of the last one are then just
+   a frame story giving a context to the rest. From this point of
+   view the whole idea of using the second chapter of the Book of
+   Job (meeting of God and Satan) as the explanation of the Job’s
+   suffering. Our author this explanation firmly rejects in the
+   first part of the book, but then in the second part he seems
+   to be playing with the ideas suggesting such explanation.
+
+   It is actually startling how most of the interpretation issues
+   in our book (and I am afraid it is the true reflection of the
+   discussion around the Book of Job generally) centers around
+   this frame story and how little work is done comparatively on
+   the rest of the book (here I need to recommend largely
+   forgotten but very interesting book of Jiří Dohnal `Pastoral
+   Care of the Job’s Friends`_; Logos, 1992).
+
+3. Moreover, using of the second chapter of the Book of Job to
+   explain it (“it was not about the real suffering of Job, just
+   a bet and game between Satan and the LORD God”) seems rather
+   suspicious. From the Job’s point of view this bet or game
+   makes rather strange testimony about the God’s character (who
+   kills all Job’s family just to prove his point to Satan). What
+   such bet says about the God’s love, his respect to the value
+   of human life, etc.?
+
+.. _`Pastoral Care of the Job’s Friends`:
+    http://www.databazeknih.cz/knihy/pastorace-jobovych-pratel-202307
+
+Here I really end with the objections to the book and I can
+finally continue with what I consider to be the most important
+about the book, and why I think it is a very valuable one, that
+is to its first part.
+
+It is some time, so I am not sure exactly when it was, I saw in
+TV (or read in newspapers?) interview with some Czech painter (or
+was it a composer?) about his last work. Young journalist, who
+obviously didn’t have much idea what to ask, and so he (or she?)
+hoped to please the author by letting him talking about his work,
+and so the journalist ask him what he wanted to say by the work.
+The answer was rather irritated: “What do you think? If I was
+able to tell it in two sentences to the newspapers, would I spent
+two years struggling with the creation of it?”
+
+I thought about this interview when reading the first part of
+our book. When we try to explain simply the Book of Job, we have
+to miss the its true meaning. Do we really think, that the Holy
+Ghost has nothing else to do than to inspire writing whole book
+of Bible, when it would be enough to tell its message on one or
+two pages of simple text? There is not a simple way in my opinion
+how to avoid reading and struggling for understanding of any
+Biblical book.
+
+Our book starts by explaining how the obvious understanding of
+the issue of evil in the world leads to belief that the good God
+always blesses virtuous and punishes sinners, and how this kind
+of faith can get very dangerous in the moment, when it turns to
+its other side and we start to believe that blessed people are
+somehow more virtuous and suffering people are sinners. Authors
+reminds us about the famous text of Luke 13:1-5:
+
+    There were some present at that very time who told him about
+    the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
+    sacrifices. // And he answered them, “Do you think that these
+    Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans,
+    because they suffered in this way? // No, I tell you; but
+    unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. // Or those
+    eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do
+    you think that they were worse offenders than all the others
+    who lived in Jerusalem? // No, I tell you; but unless you
+    repent, you will all likewise perish.” 
+
+Jesus here quite clearly rejects implicitly suggested theory of
+“some” that the killed Galileans and eighteen killed under
+the tower of Siloam somehow got what they deserved. I would even
+suggest that this suggestion that blessing is the certificate of
+just, is quite often tool of self-justification (rarely is such
+theory promoted by somebody who just goes through “the dark night
+of the soul”, but mostly by those who feels themselves blessed).
+Jesus seems to me lead his listeners by the reminder of need to
+repent away from this illusion of self-justification.
+
+The remainder of the first part of the book deals with the
+various methods, who to make Job’s suffering explainable and
+rationally understandable and proves that none of these ways make
+any sense or in fact that they don’t give any answer to the
+question of the meaning of human suffering.
+
+Some of the false paths mentioned by the author (and I wildly
+agree with him) are thoughts that Job didn’t raise up his kids
+properly, that perhaps his fear of the LORD God was just an
+unhealthy fear, that perhaps the LORD God wanted to lead him to
+higher perfection, that perhaps he could be an precursor of the
+Lord Jesus Christ a his substitute sacrifice, or that in the end
+it is a judgement over Job. It doesn’t make much sense to deal
+with these reasons more in detail. First of all, the author did
+himself very well, and moreover it seems to me that most of the
+ideas have something common with the theories provided by Jobs
+friends in the Book of Job itself.
+
+Let me just stop for a paragraph, that Job was a precursor of the
+substitute sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. This idea the
+author found in the study notes of the Czech Ecumenical
+translation and refused it briskly in one of its half-page
+chapters closing that it is just another “ornate religious
+rubbish”. Even though I generally agree, that the parallel is
+rather strained and it is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible
+(neither in the Book of Job itself or in the New Testament),
+still I would say, that the author was a little bit too fast in
+renunciation of this idea. Obviously the explaining the Book of
+Job by this theory of the substitute sacrifice suffers from the
+same problem as the LORD God playing gamble with Satan (see
+above): nobody asked Job whether he wants to be sacrificed
+(nobody even explained him that he is being sacrificed for the
+larger good). On the other hand we believe that the Lord Jesus
+Christ went to his death willingly and I would think that at
+least with some thoughts that his death will bring salvation to
+humanity. So this theory doesn’t lead to love-driven sacrifice
+but it looks very much like an useless waste of human life. On
+the other hand, the situation of the just human who because of
+his suffering gets the power (or authority) to save by his
+intercession others who violated him, seems to me legitimately
+giving some possible parallels to the situation of the Lord Jesus
+Christ. How does it relate to the strange sacrifices on behalf of
+Job’s children from Job 1:5 I don’t know as well, but to brush
+the idea in few (specifically five) sentences as rubbish seems to
+me a bit hasty.
+
+So the result of the first part of the book is that the author
+gets to the conclusion that we really don’t know (perhaps we even
+cannot know?) reason, why Job suffered the experience he got
+into. In the same time we can see from the whole story that Job
+accepted the reply to his situation, that there was some specific
+reply to be accepted, and so in the end the Book of Job leaves us
+instead of simple answer with an encouragement to search for the
+answer from the LORD God when we get into similarly murky
+situation and that we should look for the answer in meeting with
+Him. In this context I always think about Psalm 73. Psalmist
+stands in it in the similar situation as Job: how come that he in
+his justice and effort to achieve holiness experiences just
+suffering (“For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked
+every morning.”), whereas the wicked lives in comfort and peace?
+Psalm actually doesn’t give unequivocal answer but suddenly in
+the verses 16 and 17 he claims: “But when I thought how to
+understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, // until
+I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.”
+After this meeting with the LORD God suddenly remaining part of
+the psalm changes into the hymn of praise of the God’s justice
+and goodness.
+
+.. vim: textwidth=65 wrap: