Several years ago I posted a long series on the book of Job (See here for the posts) using the commentaries written by John Walton (Job (The NIV Application Commentary)) and Tremper Longman III (Job (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms)) both published in August 2012.   The book of Job is an often misunderstood and misused or overlooked book, but it is a powerful book and one we would do well to study. The book of Job is a profound exploration of wisdom and suffering, of the nature of God, the nature of Creation, the nature of man, and the interaction of God with his creation and his creatures. The series on Job and the detailed reading of both of these excellent commentaries along with a handful of other sources was one of the most satisfying series of posts I’ve done. This is a book that we should study more often as Christians.

Of course, two 400+ page commentaries are rather daunting and hard to plow through. Fortunately Longman and Walton have teamed up to put out a short study of the book of Job designed especially for bible studies in small groups or adult classes. How to Read Job (IVP 2015) draws on their combined insights to bring the interested readers through the book. A mere 200 pages, with discussion question, the book is an excellent resource.

The structure of the book gives some insight into its strengths.

Part One: Reading Job as Literature
1. What Is the Book of Job About?
2. What Is the Rhetorical Strategy of the Book of Job?
3. Job in the Context of the Ancient Near East
4. Is Job a Real Person?

Both Walton and Longman see the book of Job as a literary work designed as a thought experiment to explore some very important questions concerning God and his governance of the world. It is not a historical book.

We therefore adopt the position that , though job himself may have been a real person who actually lived, the rest of the book is a literary work of art providing a wisdom discussion that is framed by extremes. … This is important for some readers because it is easy to get distracted by this picture of a God who is “making wagers with the devil” or has no knowledge of what Satan is doing or of what motivates Job’s righteousness. Instead we should take this scenario as a hypothetical one: what if we imagine …? In this view, the truth of the message of Job is preserved while potential concerns about the nature of God are avoided. … Whether we label it a thought experiment or simply a hypothetical scenario built around extremes, we can encounter the God-given message of the text undistracted from incidental curiosities and without the angst that comes with wondering why God killed Job’s children. (p. 39)

This is a very important point. Too many times Christians get hung up on the problems with Job as history and simply cannot see the book for its intended message and effect.

Each chapter of the book ends with further reflections – questions that will make good discussion starters in any bible study class.

After chapter 4 Longman and Walton pose questions including:

Why is it important to determine the genre of the book of Job?

How would you describe its genre?

How does thinking of the book as a thought experiment affect the way we interpret the book?

I’d add another to the mix:

Is Job as thought experiment consistent with our understanding of the nature and purpose of scripture?

Walton and Longman deal with this issue in the chapter, making reference to the parable of the Good Samaritan. Certainly it is possible to convey important theological messages in the form of stories using places and situations. All truth is not bald fact. But this is a question that gets to the core of the problem that many Christians face when considering the genre of Job.

Part Two: Getting to Know the Characters of the Book of Job
5. What Do We Learn About God from the Book of Job?
6. Who Is “Satan” in Job?
7. What Is the Role of Job in the Book of Job?
8. How to Assess Job’s Human Advisers
9. Who Is Job’s Advocate?
10. Behemoth and Leviathan, the Most Powerful Creatures Imaginable

The challenger (transliterated and capitalized as a proper name in most English translations of Job 1 and 2) should not be confused with Satan of the New Testament. Walton and Longman conclude chapter 6:

The challenger comes among the sons of God, who are the members of the heavenly council (not mere angels, who are messengers for the council). This standing him a legitimate status and identifies him as one whom God has delegated to perform certain tasks. The challenge that he brings concerns a potential unintended consequence in the way God acts in the world. He is right about the potential that anticipated reward has for undermining human righteousness. God does not rebuke him; instead, he actively addresses the challenge by giving the challenger freedom to test the system. In that way, Job, unknowingly, becomes the star witness for the defense of that system. (p. 55-56)

When I first read the commentaries by Longman and Walton, I also listened to the NIV dramatization of Job provided on Bible Gateway. In this dramatization the man speaking the role of  the challenger had a sinister voice intended to convey the image of Satan to the hearer. With the new 2011 update and a new dramatization, this has changed. Satan is simply portrayed as a challenger. This is actually an important part of understanding the genre and purpose of the book. In no way does Job portray God as “making wagers with the devil” because the devil, the New Testament Satan, has no part in the book.

Part Three: The Theological Message of the Book of Job
11. The Retribution Principle and Theodicy in Job
12. The Retribution Principle in Wisdom Literature
13. Does Job Believe in the Afterlife?
14. Learning About the Cosmos from the Book of Job
15. The Theology of Suffering in the Book of Job
16. Job’s View of God

Chapter 13 raises another excellent point for discussion. Often we read our New Testament understanding of life, death, and the age to come into the Old Testament. But the Old Testament understanding was often quite different. There are hints that the Israelites hoped for something better than death and Sheol, but no clear theology of the afterlife until Daniel 12.

Once we recognize that the Israelites had no hope of heaven and begin to read the contexts of the Old Testament in light of their limited understanding, we gain valuable insight into important theological issues. First we learn that a relationship with God need not be construed around a hope of heaven. This is important for Christians to understand because it is common for people to think that the work of Christ is primarily intended to offer us the benefits of going to heaven and living forever rather than going to hell. Such an understanding is a distortion. The work of Christ makes it possible for us to be in relationship with God now and forever. … We learn from the book of Job and from Israelite theology that we should focus more on our present relationship with God than on our future benefits. We should be focused on God rather than on ourselves.

Second, when we come to understand the limited revelation that Israel had about the afterlife, we gain a greater appreciation of the emphasis on the retribution principle. With no hope of enjoying the benefits of God’s justice in eternity, the Israelites believed that if God was indeed just, that justice would have to come into play in this life. (p. 118)

We have a hope for ultimate justice, even when it fails in this world. Would the absence of such a hope change your passion for God?

Part Four: Reading Job as a Christian
17. Job and Jesus
18. The Message of the Book of Job for Today
19. Does the Book of Job Provide Comfort?
20. Applying the Book of Job

This is an excellent little book that should provide important understanding and foster productive discussion of the purpose and message of the book of Job. It makes me eager to lead a class on Job. With How to Read Job available to all, and augmented by the full commentaries by Longman and Walton, any such class will be an enriching experience.  Perhaps I’ll get the chance some day.

What is the message and purpose of the book of Job?

What does it teach us today?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Stay in touch! Like Jesus Creed on Facebook:

I’m an Apple guy. My first computer was a Macintosh Classic. That beige little box of magic allowed me to get on the World Wide Web for the first time, open an AOL account and send my first email. All of which happened circa 1991 for about $1000.  I had no idea what I was doing, even less about what I was getting into. However, I learned an invaluable lesson. Apple provided me a safe and stylish means through which I could cautiously enter the scary unknown wilderness that was (and still is) the “new world” of technology. Apple let me earn my “merit badge” in personal computing and I’ve been loyal customer ever since. (There was that short experiment with Windows in college, but let’s not go there.)

Trailer and Image

For me and countless others, Steve Jobs was the technological prophet that led us into the freedoms this new world offered. Over time, despite the hiccups here and there, the Newton being one, he kept pulling back the curtain on the possibilities of this promised land. I didn’t have to know anything about computers to use my Mac. I still don’t. That’s why I’ve now got more Apple devices in my home than any other product brand….save Hanes underwear.  Jobs and Woz made great products. And they left a trail of great ideas for their progenitors to follow. All of this to say….I’m an Apple guy.

So, it has been with great lament that since Jobs’ death my naiveté about the man behind these great products is dying a hard and difficulty death. Jobs, it turns out, lived a life much more comparable to Machiavelli than Michelangelo. As a longtime fan of Aaron Sorkin’s work I eagerly anticipated how this gifted writer would portray the complexity and brilliance of one of my generations most iconic characters. I wasn’t disappointed with Steve Jobs. In anticipation of the movie I also picked up a copy of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs and recently watched Alex Gibney’s well researched documentary The Man in the Machine. I’m not surprised that what Sorkin, Isaacsson and Gibney each focus on in their own unique ways is the extreme juxtaposition between the public persona and the private reality of Jobs personal character. What we learn in gritty detail is that there wasn’t a very good man standing behind a slew of great products.

Sorkin highlights this reality with a script that is equal parts profundity and poignancy matched only by Michael Fassbender’s unblinking portrayal of Jobs’ narcissistic intensity. As we have come to expect, Sorkin places his characters in a plethora of moral dilemmas that reveal their conflicted, duplicitous, and yet wounded humanity. These agonizing human histories come to the audience at a sometimes-dizzying pace as the camera follows the actor’s “walking and talking” around the set. You know when some weighty interaction is about to occur because  everything comes to a stand still while we watch a blazing toe to toe delivery of rhetoric that would tongue tie an auctioneer.  Sorkin is at his best when his characters discover and un-muzzle their subconscious drives and fears. These are thoughts and feelings most of us experience, but few will ever articulate them as accurately or courageously as Sorkin’s pen.

This is especially true of Sorkin’s portrayal of Jobs. We should think deeply about Jobs’ choices and worldview.  If, like Jobs, I had to choose one dialog that might make a significant dent in the universe, I would select the confrontation with Jobs and Wozniak (Seth Rogen) in the third act. Jobs and Woz stand together not so much as enemies but as two halves of the American conscience as they air their very old and long suffering laundry in front of a sparse crowd of not so shocked postmodern, pre- millennial on-lookers. It’s the highlight of the movie in part because of the hauntingly crucial question they bring to the fore, and which is currently floating across our national consciousness. “Can a great person also be a good person?” Is this still possible in America? In the world? Do we even care?  The importance of answering this question well is as crystal clear as my new MacBook Air Retina screen. This is certainly not a new question. Moral philosophers such as Aristotle and Xenophon would likely cock their olive wreathed heads to the side and wonder out loud if we’d lost the entire plot of life. Ancient Jewish writers and rabbis would suggest not knowing the answer to such a question reveals one is perilously close to losing one’s soul. New Testament Gospel writers pointed to the example of Jesus as one who answered that question, with a flourish, once and for all. Yet here we are, in the most technologically advanced, educated, prosperous, and liberated societies in the world, with no clear consensus on this most basic of human issues.

What Jobs’ life and legacy reveal is that we don’t have much of an idea of what a higher good is, or the common good. We do however, have a very good grasp of what consumer goods are along with what is “good” for me. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has, for a while now, been increasingly translated to pertain to only “my” life, “my” liberties, and “my” happiness. Jobs is the poster boy for the “me” life. He made amazing, life changing products. But it is also true that his legacy suggests he did not live a heroic life, one that we would want our children to model. Jobs seems to have lost the idea of what human greatness requires. Perhaps he was too busy trying to change humanity and human existence with great inventions. It seems he forgot what it was to love and be loved in the process. That’s not good. It’s a tragedy. Just ask his daughter. The ends do not justify, validate or forgive the means.  The journey matters. Alice in Wonderland taught us that how we travel is often where we will arrive.

When we watch and discuss the recent presidential debates, it seems we are now as willing as ever to turn a blind eye to the means our leaders will employ as long as the end is to our liking. With the rising popularity of certain candidates that lack even the most rudimentary levels of respect and civil decorum , it may be that as a people we are now choosing to live in a political reality where image⎯not moral character and substance⎯ is all that matters. Isaacson calls this a Machiavellian-esque “reality distortion field” that caused Jobs used to distort the truth and which caused himself and others enormous degrees of suffering and pain.  Reality simply doesn’t bend that easy. Even for Steve Jobs.

There is no doubt that under Jobs tenure Apple made a beneficial impact on a large portion of our world and nudged us closer to the common good. But somewhere he became unmoored, untethered from the simple but profound truth that making goods, selling services and accumulating money is not the same as possessing virtue, moral knowledge, goodness, truth and love. Somehow he was, and perhaps we are becoming a people more and more willing to trade the idea of accumulating “goods” for that ancients thought of as the eternal concept of “the Greater Good.”

Sorkin and his team have written a wonderful postmodern morality play. Our ancient Greek forbearers, along with the gospel writers and Shakespeare would be pleased at this effort. Jobs life, triumphs and tragedies present us an opportunity to inspect our own moral choices. His life provides us with the gift of a window to consider what it might be like to attain the whole world, and yet lose everything that deeply matters. He gives us the opportunity to stop for a little while and think about more than the price of Apple’s stock, or how we can upgrade as soon as possible to the new iPhone but instead contemplate the value of our soul, what we gives our lives to, what is important to us and why.

Many will say Job’s legacy is found in his unparalled aesthetic genius. Others will say it was his ruthless devotion to push the boundaries of conformity. I wonder if his greatest contribution may be the institutionalization of the slogan “think different” which remains the sustaining mantra that not only drives Apple’s product development but maintains the ethos of Apple’s sizable customer base. Others will honor his audacious confidence that one person can still change the world. All of these are sizable contributions, but would any of these traits alone make one a hero? A person to he emulated and exemplified to future generations?  Can a great leader be a good person? Is there any other way?

Under Jobs’ creative mastery Apple has helped untold millions navigate the stormy waters of the technological revolution. But he won’t be helping me look to the future in order to traverse the larger existential journey of seeking true meaning and significance for my life. In fact he did just the opposite. He sent me back to the oldest, and most enduring truths of human knowledge. There is no substitute for a virtuous character.  Virtue starts and ends with the human heart radically devoted to the highest good. That is something no technological revolution will ever change.  In the end, the movie both literally and figuratively leaves it a bit fuzzy how Jobs’ life ended. I think Sorkin and director Daniel Boyle seems to lean toward with the sage wisdom of the likes of Jesus and Aristotle. Humanity’s greatest potential is realized in the courage to face the truth, the hope of redemption, and the unspeakable joy that comes from loving others as oneself. This is the stuff of which heroes are made.

There’s still no app for that.

-Gary Black, Jr. PhD.

Asst. Professor of Theology and Contemporary Culture, Azusa Pacific University

From Forbes:

Source

Good graph of jobs and race:

From Forbes:

1.  Clergy:  The least worldly are reported to be the happiest of all

2. Firefighters: Eighty percent of firefighters are “very satisfied” with their jobs, which involve helping people.

3. Physical therapists: Social interaction and helping people apparently make this job one of the happiest.

4. Authors: For most authors, the pay is ridiculously low or non-existent, but the autonomy of writing down the contents of your own mind apparently leads to happiness.

5.  Special education teachers: If you don’t care about money, a job as special education teacher might be a happy profession. The annual salary averages just under $50,000.

6. Teachers: Teachers in general report being happy with their jobs, despite the current issues with education funding and classroom conditions. The profession continues to attract young idealists, although fifty percent of new teachers are gone within five years.

7. Artists: Sculptors and painters report high job satisfaction, despite the great difficulty in making a living from it.

8. Psychologists: Psychologists may or may not be able to solve other people’s problems, but it seems that they have managed to solve their own.

9. Financial services sales agents: Sixty-five percent of financial services sales agents are reported to be happy with their jobs. That could be because some of them are clearing more than $90,000 dollars a year on average for a 40-hour work week in a comfortable office environment.

10. Operating engineers: Playing with giant toys like bulldozers, front-end loaders, backhoes, scrapers, motor graders, shovels, derricks, large pumps, and air compressors can be fun.  With more jobs for operating engineers than qualified applicants, operating engineers report being happy.