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Some of the worst theology I've ever seen comes from a literal reading of the Book of Job.
Job is the only book in the Bible where angels are called "sons of God." Many Christians today would consider that to be blasphemous. It is also the only book in the Bible that identifies angels with stars in the sky.
Angels are "sons of God" and Satan comes among them in Job 1:6, and again in Job 2:1. Again, in Job 38, when God is speaking from the whirlwind:
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?
Job 38:6-7 NIV
a Job 38:7 Hebrew the sons of God
Here angels and stars are one and the same, and they sing. The Book of Job gives human characteristics to stars.
Even more extraordinary is the picture of Satan in heaven advising God on how to deal with individual mortals. How does this fit with standard theology, where Lucifer was expelled from heaven, and became Satan, before the foundation of the world?
In Job 1:16, Satan rains down fire from heaven to destroy Job's sheep. In no other book of the Bible does Satan ever exercise such power. In all the prayers in the Bible not once does anyone pray to God to be protected from Satan's power to do physical harm.
16 While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
Job 1:16 NIV
What is meant by the fire of God? In John Gill's commentary, he acknowledges that this is a most extraordinary event and concludes that the "fire of God" is lightning.
"... this being such a fire as was never known, since the fire that came down from heaven and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities of the plain. I am inclined to think it was a prodigious flash or flashes of lightning; for as thunder is the voice of God, so lightning, which accompanies it, may be called the fire of God; and this agrees with the phraseology of the passage; it comes from heaven, or the air, and falls upon the earth, and strikes creatures and things in it ..."
In no other passage in the Bible does Satan have the power to unleash lightning, a God-like power. The only possible explanation for this is that God gave Satan permission to harm Job's possessions.
12 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Job 1: 12 NIV
Yet, even with God's permission, where does Satan get the power to control the elements? Where does he get power over nature and also over human events?
One answer:
"The Satan of the Prologue, who makes the wager with Yahweh, is masterfully individualized, not as the malignant tempter and enemy of mankind, but as a spirit compact of impudent skepticism, who can appreciate no motive beyond self-advantage."
This quote comes from a lengthy article in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. In most of the Bible, Satan is the Adversary, the enemy of God and of God's people. In the Book of Job, however, Satan is something different. Here Satan is a narrow-minded skeptic and a loose canon but he is not the Adversary as he is in many parts of the Bible.
The Book of Job is a story composed to make a point. It has survived because it is a powerful statement about human suffering. Why is there so much suffering? Why does a good man, or a good person, have to suffer? Satan in the book of Job is a literary construct used to make a point about our relationship to God in a world full of suffering. To take this version of Satan and his actions in this book as literal fact is to make a serious error.
Scholars are not certain that the Book of Job was composed by a Jew. Many scholars believe that it was written by an Edomite. Maybe it was composed by an Edomite who was knowledgeable about Judaism.
Is it possible to make a literal interpretation of Job that makes sense? Not really. One reason for this is the length of Job's life. At the end of the Book of Job we find:
After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so Job died, an old man and full of years.
Job 42: 16-17 NIV
Job appears to be forty or even fifty when the story opens. His children are adults with homes of their own. His parents aren't mentioned so it looks like they have passed away. If Job is forty or fifty at the beginning of the story, and he lives 140 years afterward, he must be 180 or 190 when he dies. This doesn't sound realistic. Creationists may say that Job is one of the patriarchs of the antediluvian era, before the Flood.
Job makes a burnt offering at his home for the safety of his sons but there is no mention of him going to the Temple or the Tabernacle. Some might see this as a sign that Job lived before the Flood, when there was no Temple or Tabernacle. It could also mean that the author is not a Jew, although he holds some ideas and customs in common with Judaism. In the end, the notion that the Book of Job is a pre-Flood story doesn't hold up.
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job...
Job 1:1 NIV
The "land of Uz" may not mean anything to the average reader today, but it is an actual place. It was a lightly populated area in the Israelite kingdom, far from Jerusalem and it bordered Edom. Again, scholars have always been puzzled over whether Job was written, or composed, by a Jew or an Edomite.
Job's possessions are attacked by Sabeans and Chaldeans in Job 1:14-17. These were actual peoples at the time of David and Solomon. Job could not be a long-lived antediluvian patriarch and be attacked by peoples that were around between 1000 BC and 500 BC.
The only interpretation that holds up is that the Book of Job is not literal, it is a story exploring human suffering in the light of an all-powerful God. Job's fall from health, respect and prosperity and its later restoration are too abrupt to be the life of a real man. The Book of Job can be read as an exhortation to carry on in times of great suffering. It is an exhortation to trust God and maintain hope that in the end God will reward the just. Just don't take it as a literal story about angels and demons.
Link to John Gill's commentary
Job 1:16 - Commentary & Verse Meaning - Exposition of the Bible
Link to International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Job, Book of in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
Under "Characters and Motive"
Job is the only book in the Bible where angels are called "sons of God." Many Christians today would consider that to be blasphemous. It is also the only book in the Bible that identifies angels with stars in the sky.
Angels are "sons of God" and Satan comes among them in Job 1:6, and again in Job 2:1. Again, in Job 38, when God is speaking from the whirlwind:
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?
Job 38:6-7 NIV
a Job 38:7 Hebrew the sons of God
Here angels and stars are one and the same, and they sing. The Book of Job gives human characteristics to stars.
Even more extraordinary is the picture of Satan in heaven advising God on how to deal with individual mortals. How does this fit with standard theology, where Lucifer was expelled from heaven, and became Satan, before the foundation of the world?
In Job 1:16, Satan rains down fire from heaven to destroy Job's sheep. In no other book of the Bible does Satan ever exercise such power. In all the prayers in the Bible not once does anyone pray to God to be protected from Satan's power to do physical harm.
16 While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
Job 1:16 NIV
What is meant by the fire of God? In John Gill's commentary, he acknowledges that this is a most extraordinary event and concludes that the "fire of God" is lightning.
"... this being such a fire as was never known, since the fire that came down from heaven and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities of the plain. I am inclined to think it was a prodigious flash or flashes of lightning; for as thunder is the voice of God, so lightning, which accompanies it, may be called the fire of God; and this agrees with the phraseology of the passage; it comes from heaven, or the air, and falls upon the earth, and strikes creatures and things in it ..."
In no other passage in the Bible does Satan have the power to unleash lightning, a God-like power. The only possible explanation for this is that God gave Satan permission to harm Job's possessions.
12 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Job 1: 12 NIV
Yet, even with God's permission, where does Satan get the power to control the elements? Where does he get power over nature and also over human events?
One answer:
"The Satan of the Prologue, who makes the wager with Yahweh, is masterfully individualized, not as the malignant tempter and enemy of mankind, but as a spirit compact of impudent skepticism, who can appreciate no motive beyond self-advantage."
This quote comes from a lengthy article in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. In most of the Bible, Satan is the Adversary, the enemy of God and of God's people. In the Book of Job, however, Satan is something different. Here Satan is a narrow-minded skeptic and a loose canon but he is not the Adversary as he is in many parts of the Bible.
The Book of Job is a story composed to make a point. It has survived because it is a powerful statement about human suffering. Why is there so much suffering? Why does a good man, or a good person, have to suffer? Satan in the book of Job is a literary construct used to make a point about our relationship to God in a world full of suffering. To take this version of Satan and his actions in this book as literal fact is to make a serious error.
Scholars are not certain that the Book of Job was composed by a Jew. Many scholars believe that it was written by an Edomite. Maybe it was composed by an Edomite who was knowledgeable about Judaism.
Is it possible to make a literal interpretation of Job that makes sense? Not really. One reason for this is the length of Job's life. At the end of the Book of Job we find:
After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so Job died, an old man and full of years.
Job 42: 16-17 NIV
Job appears to be forty or even fifty when the story opens. His children are adults with homes of their own. His parents aren't mentioned so it looks like they have passed away. If Job is forty or fifty at the beginning of the story, and he lives 140 years afterward, he must be 180 or 190 when he dies. This doesn't sound realistic. Creationists may say that Job is one of the patriarchs of the antediluvian era, before the Flood.
Job makes a burnt offering at his home for the safety of his sons but there is no mention of him going to the Temple or the Tabernacle. Some might see this as a sign that Job lived before the Flood, when there was no Temple or Tabernacle. It could also mean that the author is not a Jew, although he holds some ideas and customs in common with Judaism. In the end, the notion that the Book of Job is a pre-Flood story doesn't hold up.
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job...
Job 1:1 NIV
The "land of Uz" may not mean anything to the average reader today, but it is an actual place. It was a lightly populated area in the Israelite kingdom, far from Jerusalem and it bordered Edom. Again, scholars have always been puzzled over whether Job was written, or composed, by a Jew or an Edomite.
Job's possessions are attacked by Sabeans and Chaldeans in Job 1:14-17. These were actual peoples at the time of David and Solomon. Job could not be a long-lived antediluvian patriarch and be attacked by peoples that were around between 1000 BC and 500 BC.
The only interpretation that holds up is that the Book of Job is not literal, it is a story exploring human suffering in the light of an all-powerful God. Job's fall from health, respect and prosperity and its later restoration are too abrupt to be the life of a real man. The Book of Job can be read as an exhortation to carry on in times of great suffering. It is an exhortation to trust God and maintain hope that in the end God will reward the just. Just don't take it as a literal story about angels and demons.
Link to John Gill's commentary
Job 1:16 - Commentary & Verse Meaning - Exposition of the Bible
Link to International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Job, Book of in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
Under "Characters and Motive"
