Job: A Comedy of Justice

Or, perhaps, I should call this "Job: Revisited".

This book is a retelling of the story of Job from the Bible. For those of you not familiar with the story, Job is an upright man of God, and God decides to put him to the test, to determine if he will keep his faith, under distress. God proceeds to cause, or allow to be caused, many calamaties to befall our poor hero, Job.

The author is Robert Heinlein, who is a master science fiction storyteller who has written many great works, with religion being a theme of many of his books, although not generally the primary theme.

Along the way, Robert often debunks popular myths, such as the popular interpretation of the commandment against lying. In this particular case, the popular understanding of the commandment is "Thou Shalt Not Lie". The protagonist is struggling with the dishonesty his struggles are putting him through - namely that if he admitted that he believes God is persecuting him, he would probably be labeled a crazy person and confined to an institution. So, he comforts himself by reminding himself that the commandment is actually "Thou Shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." (Exodus 20:16.)

When I say he debunks popular myths, I am referring to a strict interpretation of the ninth commandment, in the sense that no lie is ever acceptable. When I look around at the world, I see something quite different - it seems almost as if people lie all of the time, and it is merely a matter of degree - whether it is pretending you like someone just to be polite, or whether it is stating an opinion about a matter for which you have no knowledge, or simple white lies like "you look fine".

Heinlein's books often make me think, by scattering nuggets like the above throughout the text, often prompting me to do research later on what the Bible text says, and what other thinkers have to say about it.

In the Biblical story, along the way we discover many attitudes that are uncomfortable today, such as the concept that Job is finally rewarded for his faith by being given new wives and properties, and particularly that he is happy with these. In other words, wives and children are generic and interchangeable. He is not given his original wives back, but new ones, and he is well pleased by the quantity and quality of these new wives.

In the Heinlein story of Job, we find other ways to be uncomfortable. The hero in this story is one Alexander Hergensheimer, who has long been the successful fund raiser for an ecumenical brotherhood of Christians. Unfortunately, the works of this brotherhood are not the praiseworthy (in my mind) comforting of the sick, feeding of the hungry, and housing of the poor. This brotherhood works for political change and counts a long list of accomplishments, among them the outlawing of abortion, banning of birth control, censoring of books, and so forth. Future plans include the ghetto for black people, bans on Catholic churches, and similar ideas which would not currently be regarded as examples of Christian love.

However, Alexander proves that he is faithful to God, and refuses to curse Him, no matter how many trials he is put through. He continues to work for the salvation of others, and is in a perfect state of grace, kneeling penitent in prayer when the Trump and Shout occur, and he is taken bodily up to Heaven.

The book is excellent, thought provoking, and a great read. I recommend it highly. I'd love it if others would read it and post their comments.

God's Problem - Bart D. Ehrman

In a certain way, I purchased this book in an attempt to solve "Kurt's problem", my problem, which is why I fell away from the Catholic faith of my childhood. My life parallels Mr. Ehrman's - strong in my faith as a young man, active in my church, and then eventually as I learned more about the Bible and my faith, becoming more and more disaffected, until finally I dropped away entirely.

In the book, God's problem is the problem of suffering - namely how the world can be filled with suffering if God is who he is said to be - omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent. The Bible speaks about this topic at length in many contradictory ways. Mr. Ehrman's book is thorough, easy to understand, and easy to read. He walks you through his arguments, and analysis, without truly taxing your thinking skills. However, he does tax your faith.

My way of dealing with the obvious contradictions throughout the Bible was to conclude that the primitive men who wrote the stories in the Bible were just trying to understand God in their own way, and that I could choose not to believe in a God who would willingly drown thousands of Egyptian soldiers just so slaves could escape. I would instead believe that the Israelites wrote the story that way because they were so angry at the Egyptians, and would tell the story of their utter defeat at the hands of the enslaved Israelites. I preferred to think of a God who could push the Egyptians back gently and irresistibly, but without catastrophic bloodshed. I preferred to think of a God who could produce great results without small interventions, that is, who could work with God-like efficiency.

I probably spent five or six hours reading the book, and more thinking about it. Mr. Ehrman recounts and analyzes several key stories, such as the book of Daniel, the book of Revelation, the book of Ecclesiastes, the writings of Paul, and finally, significantly for me, the book of Job.

As a young man preparing for confirmation, I was stung by the criticism of a fellow student at the public school I attended, who stated that Catholics did not study the Bible like Protestants did. As a result, I picked up a Bible and began reading. After reading the book of Job, I sought out this student to ask what the story meant, since it seemed like gibberish to me. As it turned out, this student had not read it, and was simply echoing a piece of prejudice about Catholics, no doubt learned from his parents' mouth.

So, I remember studying the book of Job, and not making sense out of it. In "God's Problem", Mr. Ehrman analyzes the book of Job, and points out that the current version of the book of Job is actually assembled from the work of two different authors, who have different styles, and who wrote in different dialects. The two parts of the story actually contradict each other, which no doubt explains why an inexperienced Biblical scholar like myself couldn't understand it.

You will have to read the book to find the explanation Mr. Ehrman provides for this story.

The book also includes relations of the central discussion about suffering to other literary work, both religious, like the apocryphal books of the Bible, and not, such as "The Brothers Karamazov".

I am drawn to the same conclusion that Mr. Ehrman reaches, and for the same reason. He feels most comfortable with the theology of Ecclesiastes, as do I:

"This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is our lot. (Ecclesiastes 5:18-19)"

I can not recommend this book more strongly. It is an excellent book.