Quote:
|
Weinhold said: "As just a quick example, consider Job's children, who die as part of God's wager with Satan. At the end of the book, God "replaces" them with additional children as a part of Job's restoration. Such an understanding of one's children as essentially expendable seems problematic, even more so if one reads Job as a historical account."
|
I think the answer to this maybe cultural differences between us and Job. The greatest blessing of children to them may have been that their name continued on "forever" since they themselves were dying off (no knowledge of the afterlife)... so the book's focus on that main blessing instead of on the individual children. The book ends this way: Job sees 4 generations of descendants, then dies. His name continues past death. This makes way more sense if one reads the whole book thinking that Job doesn't know about life after death. But since he (in my opinion) doesn't, we hear about his children living on after death. They are the Job's afterlife. And what is said about his children sounds disturbing because... well... we have more info and recognize there is an afterlife. Here is another example. Perhaps Isaiah knows about an afterlife, but the common people don't seem to all know this. Look at how God speaks to the eunuchs through Isaiah:
"let not the eunuch say,
'Behold, I am a dry tree.'
For thus says the LORD:
'To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
I will give in my house and within my walls
a monument and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that shall not be cut off.'" (Is 56:3-5)
Notice that sons and daughters are equated with their name continuing past death, and that a monument with their name on it is far greater than children!!?! If God were talking to eunuchs in our day he would have probably said that they would continue forever among God's people with him in heaven and on a renewed earth. But these eunuchs don't appear to know about an afterlife, so God says a tomb or monument will be erected in their honor within the city after their death so that they may continue forever among his people even though they are dry trees and don't have any children to be their "afterlife."
Quote:
ginney said: "I think Job 19:25-27 is clear about what Job understood in regard to the resurrection"
Wannabee said: "Ginny's referent to Job's confidence in the resurrection was right on, and showed a clear example of the hermeneutical principle of letting God's Word speak."
|
I'm curious at how you would show my earlier post regarding my reading of this passage to be wrong. I admit it may be wrong, but I'm just not sure of what the problem with it is. It seems to make more sense in light of the whole book, but I realize that doesn't necessarily make it right.
Quote:
|
Armourbearer said: "There must be literal markers within the text which indicate figures and metaphors are being used. Else the intepreter has no warrant to argue for a figurative meaning to the words."
|
Without right now taking into account the way Job is referred to in other places in scripture, it would seem that the nature of the book in of itself is not clear (to me). You mentioned looking for literal markers and figures at the beginning of the story. Well what does it say? It says this:
There was a man names Job who had:
10 children (7+3)
10,000 sheep & camels (7,000 + 3,000)
1,000 yoke of oxen and donkeys (500+500)
then afterward he has twice as many:
20,000 sheep & camels (2x 7000 sheep & 2x 3000 camels)
2,000 oxen and donkeys (2x500 + 2x500)
In between these two bookends is a story told in poetry. And the different characters usually speak in the same style. This would seem to make the book, considered in of itself, unclear as to its exact historicity. But then the book ends with his grandchildren who's aunt was actually "aunt Jemimah." Even as a child I never thought she was a literal person as I was eating my pancakes, but maybe she was.