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Originally Posted by weinhold  Yours is an interesting reading of Job that I had not considered. But doesn't your reading "replace" (a term contested earlier) Job's dead children with new ones, and make their purpose perpetuating his line? How would you deal with their loss from the perspective of their intrinsic value as human beings? |
Job's pain after their death is where the story deals with their loss as human beings, the beginning and the end of the story are considering the loss of the children from the perspective of being Job's seed. They are something about of Job that continues after Job dies. Job's seed continues after his death even though for a brief time it looked like his name would be forgotten forever. Looking at it from this perspective it does not matter who his children are. The book doesn't tell us what the children were each personally like, it isn't interested in telling their story but Job's.
If I were to say the following I would not speaking directly about all the intrinsic value of lost individual human beings:
"My city's population sharply decreased last year because of a mysterious illness to the point where there not enough people to fill all of the jobs that were needed to keep the whole city going. But now there has been an influx of brave souls who have come in from other cities and the city is prospering"
If one reads what I said above thinking I'm referring to someone's brother and mother and friend who died, they might think I'm saying their loved ones have replacements. But that simply isn't what is meant.
I don't know if that helps.