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Forsaken by God

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The Protests of Job

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Abstract

The author surveys Christian interpretations of the book of Job and the nature of suffering in general before turning to a comparison of the lamentations of Jesus and Job with special attention to the question whether complaints against God can be expressions of faith.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Job’s case has been compared to the idealized cases of pure justice and injustice described by Glaucon in Plato’s Republic (Oesterley and T. H. Robinson 1969, p. 215; see also Kaufmann 1969, pp. 240–1 and MacLeish 1969, p. 183).

  2. 2.

    Terrence Tilley argues that taken as a whole, the book can only be understood as a directive (an illocutionary act), and provides no explanation of suffering that makes any sense (Tilley 1991, pp. 105–6); many others have noted the tensions between different parts of the book (e.g., Kaufmann 1969, p. 66; Buber 1969, pp. 56–65, etc.).

  3. 3.

    This short section is not designed to convey adequately the history or diversity of Christian interpretations of Job through the ages; for a helpful start, see the introductions to Pope (1965) and Glatzer (1969).

  4. 4.

    Pope (1965, xliv–xlv).

  5. 5.

    These translations also apparently cast the explanations of the complex workings of nature in God’s speech from the whirlwind in more scientific and less mysterious terms: see Daniélou 1969, pp. 107–8, and Renan (1969, pp. 115–6), e.g.

  6. 6.

    Pope (1965, p. XV).

  7. 7.

    For more on the relationship between the folk tale and the book of Job, including the quotation from Theodore, see Glatzer (1969, p. 15); the folk tales were popular among early Christians and remain popular among Muslims.

  8. 8.

    See Glatzer (1969, pp. 25–6); in his defense, John relied upon Greek translations that softened Job’s complaints.

  9. 9.

    Glatzer (1969, p. 27).

  10. 10.

    Daniélou (1969, pp. 104–8), cf. also Renan (1969, p. 120).

  11. 11.

    Glatzer (1969, pp. 27–31).

  12. 12.

    For a recent translation, see Thomas Aquinas (2016).

  13. 13.

    Glatzer (1969, pp. 32–4); see also the discussion of Johann Baptist Metz’s conjecture concerning the importance of Augustine’s free will reply to the problem of evil in Leaman (1995).

  14. 14.

    Glatzer (1969, p. 34); see also the discussion in Baskin (1983, pp. 32–43).

  15. 15.

    Stump (2010, p. 224); Rowley notes also that if Job had been told the story about Satan and what led to his suffering, then the story would lose its meaning for most who suffer, since most never discover the causes of their suffering (Rowley 1969, p. 123).

  16. 16.

    I will not discuss here the question of the identity of Satan/the accuser in the text of the book of Job; where I quote others who mention this figure, I will simply reproduce their way of referring to him without comment.

  17. 17.

    Stump (2010, p. 222).

  18. 18.

    See also the critical discussion of Stump in Morriston (2017).

  19. 19.

    Rea (2018, p. 151); see also pp. 146–151. Rea’s view here is similar to the position of Leonhard Ragaz, who argues that in the book of Job, “man is allowed to appear as the accuser of God, and in such a way that God Himself not only permits but favors it and severely censures those who take Job to task and condemn him for it” (Ragaz 1969, p. 129).

  20. 20.

    Rea (2018, p. 149).

  21. 21.

    For an approach to the problem of evil that focuses on the intrinsic value of the universe and does not presuppose human freedom, survival, or divine intervention, see Davison (2019).

  22. 22.

    Murray (1969, pp. 194–6).

  23. 23.

    Weiss (1969, p. 182).

  24. 24.

    Weiss (1969, p. 183).

  25. 25.

    Weiss (1969, p. 183).

  26. 26.

    Weiss (1969, p. 183).

  27. 27.

    Weiss (1969, p. 192); see also the discussion of the case of Job in light of some current philosophical work on the problem of evil in Morriston (1996).

  28. 28.

    “What Job has heard in the divine speeches, however, is a devastating undermining of his understanding of the unproblematic moral continuity between himself, the world, and God. It is a profound loss of unity, a recognition of the deeply fractured nature of reality” (Newsom 2003, p. 255).

  29. 29.

    Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the New International Version.

  30. 30.

    Not all Christians take this approach, of course; see the discussions of lamentation and protest in Roth (1981), Wolterstorff (1987, 2002) and Rea (2018) (especially p. 152), for example; see also the insightful discussion of some differences between Judaism and Christianity with respect to suffering, complaint, and the interpretation of the book of Job in Leaman (1995).

  31. 31.

    As Rebekah Eklund has recently shown in Eklund (2016).

  32. 32.

    See the classic discussion in Schweitzer (1910), along with Meier (1991), Borg and Wright (1999), Ehrman (2008), and the summaries in Powell (1998).

  33. 33.

    For a sample of two very different approaches to understanding these episodes, see Borg and Wright (1999, parts III–V).

  34. 34.

    E.g., Mark 5:30.

  35. 35.

    I can’t resist quoting from the book of Hebrews to point out some of the Christological issues at stake here: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

  36. 36.

    For example, see MacArthur (1989).

  37. 37.

    Eklund (2016, p. 45).

  38. 38.

    Eklund (2016, p. 40).

  39. 39.

    Eklund (2016, pp. 40–3).

  40. 40.

    Eklund (2016, p. 43).

  41. 41.

    Eklund (2016, pp. 44).

  42. 42.

    Eklund (2016, p. 49).

  43. 43.

    See Page (2017).

  44. 44.

    Roth (1969, p. 73); see also Rowley (1969, pp. 123–4).

  45. 45.

    Susman (1969, p. 91); for more on what is revealed about the created world in God’s speeches, see Oesterley and Robinson (1969, p. 216), Otto (1969, pp. 227–8), and Kaufmann (1969, p. 241).

  46. 46.

    Susman interprets Job 14:4 (“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?”) as a kind of confession (Susman 1969, p. 88); see also the discussions of flaws in Job in Rowley (1969, p. 125), Oesterley and Robinson pp. 216–7, and Pollock p. 271. But none of this suggests that the suffering of Job was deserved as a penalty. It is interesting to note, as Martin Buber observes, that the author of Job uses the same word in the accuser’s claim that Job serves God “gratuitously” (1:9) and in God’s description of the first wave of Job’s afflictions (“You incited me against [Job] to ruin [Job] gratuitously” (2:3)): see Buber (1969, pp. 58–60).

  47. 47.

    This would be a common ingredient in any Christian account of the atonement; see Murray and Rea (2016).

  48. 48.

    Glatzer (1969, pp. 4–5).

  49. 49.

    Glatzer (1969, p. 5).

  50. 50.

    Westermann (1998, p. 233).

  51. 51.

    Westermann (1998, p. 237).

  52. 52.

    Westermann (1998, p. 238).

  53. 53.

    Westermann (1998, p. 239).

  54. 54.

    Westermann (1998, p. 240).

  55. 55.

    Buber (1969, pp. 64–5).

  56. 56.

    Buber (1969, p. 65).

  57. 57.

    Chesterton (1969, p. 232).

  58. 58.

    For Christians who already feel guilt over the crucifixion of Jesus, trying to take on the perspective of the real human being suffering in this situation can be practically unbearable, especially if they accept common views of the atonement.

  59. 59.

    Pollock (1969, p. 270).

  60. 60.

    Rowley (1969, p. 124).

  61. 61.

    Eklund (2016, p. 50).

  62. 62.

    Kraeling (1969, p. 208), e.g.

  63. 63.

    MacLeish (1969, pp. 284–6); for a philosophical defense of the claim that it is better for love to be free, see Rasmussen (2013, pp. 424–8).

  64. 64.

    Thanks to Michael Rea, Josef Stern, Meghan Page, Emil Salim, Rebekah Eklund, Jeff Koperski, Wes Morriston, Shira Weiss, Sajjad Rizvi, and John J. Collins for providing valuable feedback concerning earlier drafts of this essay and vital suggestions concerning helpful resources.

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  1. Morehead State University, Morehead, KY, USA

    Scott A. Davison

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Davison, S.A. (2022). Forsaken by God. In: The Protests of Job. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95373-7_3

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