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Originally Posted by weinhold  I find it interesting how our conversation on this board has revealed the different layers "reading" in Job. Job reads his own suffering. The Job author reads Job's suffering. Captive Israel reads Job. The New Testament authors read Job. Each reading is a discrete interpretation of the events. So here's a thought: What is the significance of Job's own interpretation of his suffering? I indicate in my earlier comments that I believe Job's perspective to be of utmost importance. It seems from other comments, however, that many take the opposite stance, that Job's reading of his own suffering is perhaps the least important because of later readings (i.e. Job author, OT Israel, NT Christians, etc). But is that a reliable hermeneutic for approaching a text? |
Well I think it it usually customary to try and understand what an author is saying because you are hearing the story from them and they aren't telling it to you for no reason. They are interpreting the events and their intention is that you understand something of what thy are trying to say. The author has a big picture interpretation of the minds/actions of the characters in the book. In this case the author begins by making the reader privy to information about God's mind and Satan's mind that the other characters in the book never find out about and so are ignorant throughout the entire book. The author is giving us an overhead view. Then the story tells us how those characters reasoned in their minds to make up for their ignorance and turned their own ignorance into self-deception. We see their ignorance through the story because through the introduction, the author made us less ignorant than those in the story.
In the intro, the author makes it clear to us that Job's sinning began after he was already suffering, and the suffering was not punishment for sin: In all of this Job did not sin with his lips..." which is preparing us for Job sinning with his lips afterward so that we will not think Job is suffering because he is charging God with wrong later (he isn't being punished for something before he did it). God says (certainly in the context of their theology) that Job was suffering "for no reason."
The author reveals what is going on in Job's mind: Job knows he did not commit a sin that deserved this (or no unforgiven sin that deserved this), so Job knows something his friends don't. He tries to reconcile this knowledge with his theology, and fill the ignorance in his mind with "truth." That "truth" ends up being "Since people suffer like this as judgment for sin, and since I did not sin to deserve this, God is being unjust."
Job justifies himself at God's expense.
The author also reveals what is going on in the minds of Job's friends. They are ignorant of Job's actions, whether he has unforgiven sin or not. So when they try to fit Job into their theology they come to the conclusion, "Job is suffering for sin that he committed."
They justify God at Job's expense. Both sides were wrong.
Their theology + a finite mind is a box too small to contain the God they think it is fully describing. Humans, no matter if they are as righteous as Job, should recognize that their own reasoning abilities are no match for their own ignorance.
God is more than we think.