Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Sunday Sermonette: Frenemies

The character of Satan as a partial solution to the problem of evil creates many problems. It means, first of all, that Judaism and Christianity are not in fact monotheistic. Christianity isn't anyway, because of the Trinity, the goddess Mary, and innumerable demigod saints. But Satan clearly has the full status of a rival God. His existence implies that Yahweh is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. Satan knows things that Yahweh does not, and exercises powers of his own. You can't have it both ways.


The relationship between the two seems rivalrous, but also cordial if not rather chummy. What we see here is much like the relationship that Bob Dylan presents in All Along the Watchtower, in which God complains that he doesn't get enough respect and Satan counsels equanimity, invoking their long relationship in the process. I'm guessing Dylan was inspired by in his conception by Job. 

 

Note the literary device here of repetition from Chapter 1. Having lost the first bet, Satan makes another, but the setup is the same. It's like a musical theme and variation. Oddly, in the footnotes, the translators admit that they have mistranslated two words. I'm not sure what that's all about. Presumably you should substitute the words in the footnotes for the words in the text.


On another day the angels[a] came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.”

“Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.

His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”

10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish[b] woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

11 When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

Footnotes

  1. Job 2:1 Hebrew the sons of God
  2. Job 2:10 The Hebrew word rendered foolish denotes moral deficiency.

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