@dubmdell:

"Obi, I am not interested in getting into this debate, but I did want to clarify a point where you're in error:

"it's almost like Job has Battered Wife Syndrome, or is in an abusive relationship with God--suffers tremendously AND manages to convince himself it must have been HIS fault and keeps coming back to the relationship for more"

"Job actually never says "I /must/ have done something wrong." Those were his friends who said he did something wrong. Job maintained his righteousness throughout."

Well, I'd assume that entails keeping a relationship with God, yes?

If so, I maintain my point, that he's maintianing a relationship with someone who's clearly abusing him and abusing him wrongly (and folks may say "He didn't know he was being abused wrongly" or "He wasn't being abused, he was being tested," but 1. Doesn't count as a test of your faith when it's foreknown you'll pass ahead of time by God and 2. This is God--and I want to stress this--MAKING A BET WITH THE DEVIL...isn't that usually what the BAD guys do, or what figures we're supposed to be shown have been in error, like Doctor Faustus, do, they make a deal or bet with the Devil? And this is GOD doing it? ...How awful is that?)

@ Draug of course you are creationist, just not one of the mad young Earth variety. Your position is perfectly defensible and one with which I agree. We must reclaim words like creation and evolution from those who would seek to monopolise them for their own purposes.
As to Dawkins, does anyone recall the last peer-reviewed paper he published? Something in the now defunct Journal of Memetics no doubt.

@fulhamish:

Well..."The Selfish Gene," "The God Delusion" and countless documentaries...and discussion halls...and lectures...

He HAS been busy.

I'm not sure if he does research any more--he is getting up there, after all, sad to say--but he surely did so when he was younger...



We don't fault John Elway for not having thrown a pass in a decade since his retirement...I don't know if Dawkins still does lab/field work, but even if he doesn't, what harm is there in retiring in your golden years and enjoying the lecture circuit?

Seems reasonable to me...especially given the fact he is still speaking out for science and atheism as causes and against such nonsense as teaching creationism in schools.

Obi

You're wandering out of your own specified guidlines. Are we looking at this as a work of literature with merit or the lack thereof, or are we looking at it as a book that you agree with.

That making a bet with the devil, shows that nature of the devil. He'll even attempt to tempt God. God turn around knowing what will happen and says OK, I'll withdraw my protection from him (protection that was there all along) and we'll let you test him.

It's a test of Job, not a test of God. It's immaterial whether God knew what would happen. It's more important that Job knows what will happen. It also flies in the face of the promise of prosperity if you only follow God. The whole story is there to forewarn you that merely following God will not mean that you won't encounter trouble. Whether you agree with the theme or not it's a story about the importance of living a righteous life even in the face of adversity. Is there no merit to the statement "Hey you're going to encounter problems in this life and you're going to feel like everyone is against you at times, but don't give up on your principles." I think it certainly is.

Why is it important within the context of a literary debate if you think God is being a good guy or not? That's a religious question. The story has to do with a human theme of perseverence in the face of adversity.

Wow hastily written post, lots of typos sorry.

@ obi. on Dawkins what you mention has a modicum of populist/derivative science in it, I agree. It is, however, much more in the nature of a biased anti-theist polemic. His espousal of memes as quantifiable replicators in the Selfish Gene is a case in point. Does even he support this any more?
Incidentally I disagree that science and atheism in some kind of mutually supportive unbreakable alliance. See my previous post in this thread about naturalism for an example.
There are some excellent scientists who happen to be theists, just as there are some who happen to be atheists, but maybe someone has already made this obvious point.

"tell me you're kidding, Eden!"

Sadly, what I said seems to be a perfectly reasonable summary of our good friend's post.

Oh, phew, for a moment I thought you'd done a 180 and were saying that those ideas were YOURS...that you agreed with the ID lunacy. :)

Well, can you help explain why ID doesn't work, in that terminology that I said I probably am not adept with?

ID isn't a theory because it's essentially "evolution, but God made the processes of evolution occur the way they did." IOW, it's evolution + "Goddidit," which means it's not a theory, because you cannot falsify "Goddidit."

Just a question evolution + "Goddidit" = ID which isn't a theory because there is not way to gather evidence for or against God's direct intervention in the observable process. I'm with you there.

What about evolution + "Goddidn'tdo it"? That's Naturalism, right?

@Crazy Anglican:

"Are we looking at this as a work of literature with merit or the lack thereof, or are we looking at it as a book that you agree with."

I take it that by that last part you mean agree with morally?

If so--

In a NORMAL case...yes, just as a work of merit or lack thereof...you can argue (and with a good deal of success) that works by authors like D.H. Lawrence aren't made good by moralistic tales, but then, again, they're not TRYING to be moralistic tales...

And that's where we run into a snag in evaluating the Bible as literature--

IT DOES want to be a moralistic tale, these are clearly written as tales wherein the morals are not only highly important but, in many cases, the clear focus--and so, since it sets itself up as a moralistic tale, evaluating the validity of those morals becomes part of the process of evaluating the structure, plot, theme, character, and overall value of the work.

In a regular, secular book, by any author from Anne Bronte to Zora Neal Hurston, you can take the book on secular, and purely (or at least far more purely) literary terms; even an ancient work like those belonging to Homer or Sophocles, where there are clearly ties to a religion and clearly morals expressed, are again secularly told and, in most cases, the moralistic message isn't the overwhelming focus, just one component of the overall story, so even if it fails in modern critical analysis, the whole work isn't lost.

The same can't be said of the Bible (and to be fair, of the Torah and Koran) BECAUSE of the sheer amount of emphasis placed on the moralizing...

If the morals in Genesis or Exodus are sunk, then those books sink with them to a great degree; even if we granted lovely language and imagery (which would depend on the Chapter and verse and, let's face it, translation, I'd actually be far more inclined to credit translators for the lovely verses in the Bible than the original material, just because of how much it's been translated and changed over the years, in translating, the alliteration and meter and rhythm really should be credited more in some cases to translators than the original material, but I digress) the story, if it sets itself up to be about Moral X, and fails in convincing us of its moral message, or if there are gaping flaws in the story's execution of Moral X, suffers.

SO.

My answer is thus twofold:

If it's a secular work, almost ANY secular work...then no, morals alone don't sink it.
If it's a religious book/book of parables for moralistic purposes...then yes, the morals must work, or the text as a whole suffers greatly on analysis.

"That making a bet with the devil, shows that nature of the devil."

Actually...I tend to disagree--I think the bet shows more about the nature of GOD than the Devil.

I mean, we--and presumably the audience of the original stories--could probably already have guessed the Devil would be an immoral creature, and being a swindler and dealer and betting on human suffering is certainly not a shock, that's well within the scope of his character...

But GOD?

The All-Loving God, the paragon of virtue...will sink to the Devil's level and bet on a man's life, KNOWING he'll win the bet and KNOWING that it'll just cause the man tremendous pain and cost lives...

That tells me something more about God, actually, than the Devil, as a character--

Either God is so insecure he must make bets with his inferiors, even when he knows he'll not only win the bet anyway nut that his bet will cause immense suffering and thus he's a selfish personality on top of being somewhat insecure...or else, he's just trivializing life and potentially malevolent in using mortal men to solve a bet--

When the GREEKS did that, with Paris judging who was fairer, Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite, and the winner got The Golden Apple...when THAT story is told, of gods trying to win a bet and using mortals to do it, first with this contest and then later with the Trojan War and different gods and goddesses taking different sides...

It certainly isn't played as a sign of virtuousness...on the contrary, there's almost a manipulative chess-master feel to it all at times, like the humans are just pawns in a petty disagreement, and it speaks VOLUMES to the value system of the Greeks that, in the resolution, after Hera offers Greece and Asia as a prize in return for the Apple, and Athena offers wisdom enough to be a king amongst men and rule the world as a great king if so Paris chooses, he doesn't choose THAT...

But Aphrodite's offer--the loveliest woman on Earth, abducted for his convenience...

Because the decision is NOT glamorized, but almost condemned--Paris makes a human decision, a very impulsive and poor decision...AND IT COSTS HIM AND MANY THOUSANDS OF OTHERS, WE SEE THE CONSEQUENCES OF A BAD DECISION.

With Job...consequences go out the window, it seems, it's all just a means to God's end of winning a bet he knows he'll already win--who cares if Job's family is murdered, just so long as God wins the bet he already knows he'll win!

That said, you can also take the moral lesson from the Trojan War's Beginnings--that impulsiveness and rash decisions can be a slippery slope, as first we see the goddesses act impulsively over the Apple, then Paris, and then Agamemnon takes all the Greeks to war over one abducted girl--and chuck it out the window if you want...and the story still stands up, it's still a compelling story, it still has punch to it, as a story of ideas and of sex and power and all that fun stuff, even if you don't try and find some moral guidance from it.

You can't do that with Job--remove the supposed moral of continued faith in God...

And you're left with the mess of a work that I've here publicly deplored--a horribly sadistic tale of a creature so egotistical and so selfish and so callous and cruel that he's not only willing to make a bet with a lesser being, and not only willing to make a bet with the incarnation of all that is Evil at that...

But willing to do all that AND make an innocent man suffer for it while murdering his family and causing him great suffering, sickness, and scorn...

All to boost HIS ungodly ego.

That's all that's left to Job without the ham-fisted, overwrought moral.

Take away the moral, and Job collapses.

So, too, does Genesis, and Exodus, and many Bible books, for exactly the same reason--when you build your story on a moral foundation, if that moral foundation can be severely challenged or, worse, broken, then your whole story collapses; by contrast, if morals and ideals are just one aspect of your story, and your story (even better) doesn't claim to be absolutely true morally and historically, than you have a bit of leeway.

I don't pick on Milton's "Paradise Lost" and rather laud it because:

1. Well...it's GOOD...
2. Milton claims divine inspiration, but he repeatedly says his story is NOT on divine authority, he knows he's playing a dangerous game writing a fictional retelling of Genesis, so he makes it clear to all his Christian readers that he's NOT pretending to be absolutely morally or historically or theologically true, he DOES have some morals and ideas to get through, but
3. They're rather complex and multi-layered, so even if one aspect of it falls, another may succeed; I can find God unsympathetic and still feel some sympathy for Satan as an anti-hero, or feel some sympathy for Adam when the first thing Eve says to him after eating the Apple and damning them both is essentially, "Well, actually, as you're in charge here, it's actually YOUR fault I just ate this Apple just now",
4. The story does NOT need you to connect morally if you choose not to; you can enjoy the great Battles of the Angels or the wonderful prose (and prose in it's original language and written by Milton, NOT by some translator), and, again, most importantly,
5. The work does NOT claim to be perfect, and in fact goes out of it's way to say repeatedly that it's not trying to be a Biblically-perfect account of what happened, just a divinely "inspired" retelling.

Job doesn't have those outs--it's all or nothing, moral or bust.

And I should probably now address your view of the book, so...

"God turn[s] around knowing what will happen and says OK, I'll withdraw my protection from him (protection that was there all along) and we'll let you test him."

In "Paradise Lost" (and it's the worst part, for this reason) Jesus and Co. in Heaven essentially tell God, "Hey, you know, that Satan fellow, he's probably going to poison Paradise" to which God gives the divine equivalent of a "Shit happens" shrug and just allows it to occur...

And here, again, God's allowing Satan to work evil on man...

If you watched a mugging and rape--TWICE!--and could have stopped it from occurring, didn't, and then told the person you couldn't have interfered because then they wouldn't have learned anything, and--even worse--that they wouldn't have appreciated YOU as much...

Wouldn't you have to think, "Wow, I'm appalling, that was just morally awful, allowing all that suffering and rape to occur when I could've and by all rights should have stopped it, I'm almost as culpable as that rapist for not stopping what I clearly could have, should have, and chose not to stop?"

Just before the righteously-furious lady kicked our hypothetical Crazy Anglican in the groin for not helping...wouldn't you maybe think that? (Not accusing the real "you" of any of that, just saying, God comes off HORRIBLY as a character in this.) ;)

"It's a test of Job, not a test of God."

1. Never said it was a test of God, and
2. It's a RIGGED test...and again, if I set up a torture scenario rigged against you for you and call it a "test"...which is it, a test, or straight-up sadism and torture? I'd have to think most would chose the latter.

"It's immaterial whether God knew what would happen."

I think I've made it clear that I couldn't possibly disagree more strongly or indignantly if I tried, so we'll call that one "already commented on" on my part and move on...

"It's more important that Job knows what will happen."

1. If God already knows...why does it matter if...never mind, my above arguments already.
2. Why? This is the part where those who defend this story as beautiful laud some sort of brilliance and beauty...and I'm sorry, but I just don't see it--where's the beauty in Job knowing who's boss, presuming that he already did know who was boss, as he was a pious person already? To make extra-sure? To really hammer the message of obedience home? Now, MOST will say, essentially:
3. "To make sure Job knows to love God under both the best and worst conditions," and that seems to be a position you back, so I'll treat that position with a response of--why? Treating this as JUST literature, for a moment, and NOT religion or religious truth...to me, at least, it seems that what Job and God have might be deemed a "relationship;" a purely Platonic relationship (lest any Bible Belters begin to beat me silly for daring to suggest a bromance in the Bible) but a relationship nonetheless. NOW--if YOU were in a relationship, Crazy Anglican, romantic or Platonic, and the other party killed your family, destroyed your possessions and purposefully made you horribly sick...would you still view this person as a friend? Would you recommend a friend go back to a husband/wife who acted that abusively, and took advantage of their relationship for the purpose of a bet? Job is a TERRIBLY depressing book, not because bad things happen to Job--come on, I like Poe and Milton and Shakespeare here, I'm not exactly queasy or nervous when it comes to fictional violence--but because of how he reacts and how we (as this is a moralistic story) are told to react...Job reacts by taking it as some fault of his own that this has happened to him! That it's HIS fault that his wife and children died, that he has come to torment and sickness! How awful was it, each time Napoleon and the Pigs in "Animal Farm" had staged executions of false betrayals, and Boxer the Horse said "It must be some fault of our own...I will work harder...Napoleon is always right" when NAPOLEON caused all that suffering--and later had Boxer mercilessly murdered as well! Job is no less whipped into line or done in by blind obedience than poor Boxer...his wife and kids die ON A BET...and he blames himself, because it "must" be his fault, and this is the moral we are to learn--be obedient, no matter the cost, even if God has your wife and children murdered or--to borrow another little tale--turns your wife to salt?

I'm sorry...but where's the beauty there?

" It also flies in the face of the promise of prosperity if you only follow God. The whole story is there to forewarn you that merely following God will not mean that you won't encounter trouble."

...But the only reason Job runs into trouble is because, essentially...God and Satan felt like screwing him over, and bad?

So...???

Your moral interpretation vs. Mine:

Yours: "Just following God won't save you from trouble"...except that it's God who causes the trouble, so I guess that's technically right, but only because God might decide to screw with you horribly at any given moment, even if you are faithful...

Mine: Stay faithful no matter what, even if your supposedly-loving God, whom you have been faithful to this whole time, decides to turn on you, even if God starts to abuse you, and abuse you horribly, still, remain faithful, because, CLEARLY, it's YOUR fault god just decided out of the blue to punish you, not his, so suck it up and ask for another!

"Whether you agree with the theme or not it's a story about the importance of living a righteous life even in the face of adversity."

I'll buy the "adversity" part of that, but living righteously?

...

There's righteous, and then there's smart--I'm sorry, I still see God/Job as an example of Battered Wife Syndrome...and for as "righteous" or "good" as he feels, if Job were alive today and this sort of relationship were played out in a secular level, Job would be in a psychiatrist's office with Dr. Not-Freud saying "Yeah...I can't officially tell you to break up with him and seek out a shelter and group to talk to...but break up and seek out a shelter and find Battered Wives Anonymous online and set up a meeting, this has GOT to stop."

""Is there no merit to the statement "Hey you're going to encounter problems in this life and you're going to feel like everyone is against you at times, but don't give up on your principles.""

There certainly is merit to that line of thought, Crazy Anglican...

But when the story has it so your principles--ie, God--are the direct source of your problems and have led to death, destruction, and pestilence...

There's a time for principles, and a time to realize that principles are not always right and sometimes, finding new principles to live by, or at least questioning yourself and what you believe in the face of everything telling you 2+2 =/= 5, isn't such a bad thing.

"Why is it important within the context of a literary debate if you think God is being a good guy or not? That's a religious question."

Because, to be purely literary here--

The plot, themes, logical structure, and moral dilemma posed by the text DEPEND on God being good...if he's bad, none of that works, logically or otherwise.

That's a bit like asking "If it's just a piece of literature, why does it matter if Hamlet is a good guy or not?"

Because Hamlet does some pretty awful things in the play (almost everyone does, except poor Ophelia) and in order to sympathize with him as a character and view the themes, plot, and other such elements of the story through Hamlet's eyes--and objectively--in the way Shakespeare wants it to work, Hamlet has to be a good guy.

If he's a bad guy and we can't relate to him, then we despise him for 5 acts as he kills Polonius by mistake, struggles with whether or not to kill Claudius, shouts at his mother, breaks up with his girlfriend, has two of his friends executed (though in fairness they were carrying a letter for HIM to be executed) and, finally, kill Laertes in a fencing duel.

We can't relate to his "What a piece of work is a man" speech, or "To be or not to be," or "Alas! poor Yorick!" and all of that...

If he's a bad guy, the ethical compass of the play has gone whack.

But...he's not a bad guy (not the cleanest good guy, either, but that's why he's such a great character, he's good but somewhat ambiguous.)

Even STILL, however, even STILL, as whacked and as poor as a vicious and unsympathetic Hamlet would make a version of "Hamlet" (arguably the Mel Gibson version is a partial example of this sort of failure)...even THEN, the play isn't a purely moralistic piece, so at the VERY LEAST we could say that maybe other aspects of the play might work.

You can't really have a successful "Hamlet" with a Hamlet that tanks, but still, at the very least, you could maybe, say, commend the actress playing Ophelia for bringing life to her character and the theme of shattered innocence she brings...or maybe, even if all the dramatic scenes were colossal failures, the comedic moments in the play might have been good--and there are plenty-so while the adaptation would likely get not make the grade, we could AT LEAST call it a D-minus, maybe, rather than an all-out F, as at least there is SOMETHING that would have still been able to work, hypothetically, even if all the Hamlet-centered action and lines and plot points and moments were utter flops.

WITH THE BOOK OF JOB, HOWEVER...

It's all or nothing, and not by my choice, but by it's choice to be a moralistic tale--

If, for whatever reason, you decided The Three Little Pigs did NOT teach a good lesson, then you'd be quite inclined to say the story was basically a flop, because what defines a moralistic fable?

The fable's morals and the morality of its characters.

If they work, the story works, or is at least in position to work.
If it doesn't work...the foundation, then, of the text is shattered, and it doesn't have a leg to stand on.

The Book of Job, like Genesis and Exodus and many Biblical books, fails for that reason--it's written and told as a religious story in order to convince people that this is the truth, and that these ideas are right, and that these things did happen.

If that's not the case, then the book's objective fails...and thus, the book fails.

@obi - Holy Fuck! tl;dr;

Obi, you're distorting the story.

"he's maintianing a relationship with someone who's clearly abusing him and abusing him wrongly"

The book is Job loses everything, says "why," the Tetragrammaton shows up and says "you wouldn't understand," then He reimburses the loss Job incurred.

Job maintained the relationship throughout the book much the same way that you or I may maintain a relationship with a girlfriend who cheated on us, until we get our answers. Once the answers are there, we may or may not stay. This isn't a "battered wife" story. No respected scholarly opinion will support that reading.

What is easier: To dismiss your old Bible as lacking in every kind of respect or write your own?

Both are a matter of course for anyone who has passed his obligatory private/public high school grade with a satisfied grin on his face.

I never did. So I feel I am a pariah here.

When we will have 7,000,000,000 bibles in the world, my contribution will be missing.
I'll be the poor bastard who'll have to read all of them - and believe in them too...

@Draugner: Clearly you're not actually reading what I write, so I'm going to simplify it, and if you won't answer appropriately, then I see no reason to continue the discussion.

You claim to be doing science. If you are, then you should be able to state what you believe, and state a test that could be performed which, if you get an outcome you do not expect, will convince you that you are wrong. State your beliefs and such a test, and I'll discuss it as a scientist. Otherwise, what you are you doing is not science.

Now I know what happened to Karl Popper. He got into the same situation as Steinhardt. Perhaps he met with Draugnar.

He read the preface to Kants "Critique of Pure Reason"... Let's just pick out a line from the text... "...accidental observations, made according to no previously designed plan, can never connect up into a necessary law..." and he thought "This is cool. Difficult. Difficult is cool, but I'm going to simplify it, so I stand a chance of becoming a glamorous philosopher-on-tour and get knighted by the Draugnar."

And Lo! Popperian falsificationism was conceived.

@dubmdell:

"The book is Job loses everything, says "why," the Tetragrammaton shows up and says "you wouldn't understand," then He reimburses the loss Job incurred."

"He reimburses" Job for the losses.

Reimburses?

See, THAT'S the attitude of the story, it sure treats it like reimbursing...

Would you call it "reimbursing" if you had--and I have to stress this again--YOUR WIFE AND CHILDREN MURDERED AND YOUR HEALTH SEVERELY IMPAIRED FOR A BET?

More to the point--would you call that "moral," if I murdered your wife and children, but gave you a great sack of money in return for your continued faith?

"Job maintained the relationship throughout the book much the same way that you or I may maintain a relationship with a girlfriend who cheated on us, until we get our answers. Once the answers are there, we may or may not stay. This isn't a "battered wife" story. No respected scholarly opinion will support that reading."

Except Job does "stay with God."

What's more, he keeps going to God and asking forgiveness over and over again for things that were NOT his fault, only to meet with another punishment for nothing.



Go to a clinic, and they'll tell you, that's at least on the track of Battered Wife Syndrome, blaming yourself for things clearly not your fault (and before someone says "But he thought he'd sinned and it was his fault," I'm sorry, I don't care how ignorant your audience is or what the millennium is, you're NOT going to believe it's your fault when your wife and children suddenly die of a mysterious illness, you may blame yourself, but then, of course, we'd all tell you NOT to blame yourself, precisely because there IS nothing to blame, and doing so, as is the case with Job and in BWS, is a sign of psychological trauma) and asking forgiveness when you've done nothing wrong and going back to the source of your abuse, in this case, God.

It may not be an "accepted" reading, and I'm not saying Job does have BWS...

I'm just saying, the way it reads today...that's awful. I'm sorry, but that's just awful.

It's a "stay in line and be obedient to God no matter what or else" story, and in the 21st Century here in the West, as we now see blind obedience no matter the consequences to yourself or others as something to be refrained from and despised, the Book of Job, as with many books of the Bible that depend on this masochistic, sadistic, totalitarian style of blind obedience no matter the consequences, have become morally outdated and may now be seen for what they are--

Morality tales in which the moral that the authors are attempting to teach is repugnant.

And, as I've put forth, in my view, as far as a moralistic tale like this goes, where the moral is the focus and really the whole story rests on it...

When the moral message fails, or is shown to fail, the story fails.

And thus I view Job as literary failure for that reason.

Job is an amazing book, with a difficult hurdle to overcome, as Obi points out in great detail, and that hurdle occurs again and again throughout the Bible, namely, "How can a loving God allow such pain to occur?" The answer is also there in the Bible, but it's so hard to understand: Romans 8:28 reads, And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Rom&c=8&v=1&t=NLTP

And now I must step back from this delightful discussion and resume grading papers--its own kind of suffering!

Are we having a literary discussion about the Bible as a collection of literary works, or are we indulging in another religious debate about the character of God? It seems to me that you've invited me to participate in a literary discussion, but you're using a rather flimsy excuse (any work that includes moral or immoral decisions can be said to be set up to address morality) to focus so entirely on one character that you aren't willing. You've ignored my examples of poetry and jumped in on a triade that wouldn't be possible if Job wasn't a challenging and provocative piece of literature. Are we speaking of literary merit or are we taking pot shots at favorite targets? You started the thread with an eye toward scholarly debate, are we going to begin having it now?

"What about evolution + "Goddidn'tdo it"? That's Naturalism, right?"

Evolution doesn't say "God didn't do it." Evolution doesn't touch the concept of God. Evolution simply says "These natural processes happened, which is why life as it is today exists in the manner it does." Whether God is involved or not is beyond the scope of evolution, as "God didn't do it" is also not falsifiable.

I guess I'd need a working definition of naturalism to say much more, tbh. I consider myself a naturalistic ignostic, which basically means I believe the current scientific explanations for how the world came to be are correct*, and that I don't touch the concept of God because the word "God" in and of itself is meaningless.

@ Obi

Okay, let's try to give you a chance to develope a different paradigm. Beowulf, for example, is editorialized and contains themes that are religious and moral in nature. I've never heard anyone propose taking it out of the canon. It's the oldest example of Anglo-Saxon Lyric poetry in existence and it provides a look into an ancient civilization and their values. Most of us would not agree with the actions of Beowulf at every juncture. By the same token, and more easily seen, we have Theseus. The guy is a hero in a moral tale. He's courageous and kills the minotaur, but then drops the same girl who helped him on literally the first island he comes to. Then for a lark he goes with Hercules to steal the Amazon queen's belt. When she takes a liking to them and gives them the belt, the jerk kidnaps her. Yet still the stories themselves are part of the canon or at least retold because they tell us what it is to be human in the eyes of ancient people.

Job never says he is at fault to my knowledge, as was said earlier quite the opposite he maintains his innocence throughout. His friends insist that he's done something wrong and tell him to repent. He tells them no I haven't done anything wrong. If this is a story about blind obedience then where are the commands that Job has to follow blindly? If it's the law, then he followed it and was punished in spite of following it perfectly. A story about blind obedience would have a protagonist justly punished for his crimes. Job is not only a little off from what you claim, he's quite the opposite. This is a story that says "Sometimes bad things will happen to you regardless of your righteousness, but stick to your principles and you'll be okay."

To be more accurate here is where you are wrong.

It's a "stay in line and be obedient to God no matter what or else" story.

or else what? You're going to kill my family and make me sick and kill off all of my crops? Remember if we read this as God's fault then God is telling Job explicitly not to follow the law. God's not cursing Eli the second most righteous man in the Middle East. No sir it's Job that get's it in the neck. If there is a threat of divine punishment for wrongdoing I would like you to cite it for me. The very thing that makes Job a good story is that it isn't a story that promises Job the good life for being such a good lottle follower. It addresses the concept of moral development that moves from "If I do this I'll get that" to "I'll do this because I think that it's the right thing to do". If I do reexamine and change my principles every time something bad happens to me. Then first I don't have strongly held principles, and second I'm going to be changing principles at times just because of bad luck.

Think of the Spartans in the battle of Thermopylae. They're heroes because they stood by their principles in a time when it would be easy to re-examine them. They placed their duty and the lives of the Athenians over their own. Job is another story that applaudes a hero who sticks to what he thinks is right through adversity that isn't his own.

And don't tell me "What about his poor wife and family" It's a theistic story so they're in Heaven beat-boxing with Abraham :-)

**his own doing**

This is my favorite review of the book of Job, though mainly just because it's so well written itself.

http://www.chesterton.org/wordpress/2011/07/introduction-to-the-book-of-job/

"Are we having a literary discussion about the Bible as a collection of literary works, or are we indulging in another religious debate about the character of God? It seems to me that you've invited me to participate in a literary discussion, but you're using a rather flimsy excuse (any work that includes moral or immoral decisions can be said to be set up to address morality) to focus so entirely on one character that you aren't willing."

On than contrary, I'm more than willing...

And I've talked about the chief players, God, Satan, and Job--what's this about me only treating of God in my response?

I criticize God most harshly in my critique...but then, that's because I find him the most blameworthy in the story, for reasons I'm sure I don't need to state again.

I don't blame Satan for his actions, he's acting in character, after all, and he's supposed to be the evil one, he's consistent in that...and I state that I find Job a nice guy who really, REALLY has some issues when it comes to handling blame and relations if this is his response.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, I HAVE treated all three characters in my response--I just see one as being far more malicious than the other two is all.

And I've stated why I view the books of the Bible as standing or failing on their morals, though I'll possibly admit and exception to that--

"You've ignored my examples of poetry"

I DID unfortunately skip over your comparison of a Psalm to Sonnet 130, got lost in the shuffle (I assure you, *I*, of all people, didn't intentionally skip out on a chance to compare and contrast something with Shakespeare!) so let me go and copy and paste and take a look at that now...you've written some more, and I'll get to that--Beowulf, I see? I wonder where you're going with that, though Beowulf is really up and down in it's own right, it's a very enjoyable story, but probably the silliest epic I've ever read...I mean, these people can't figure out to just go and drink in another pub, maybe leave and go somewhere else, and they won't get eaten by the monster? Even if it didn't work, it's at least worth a shot, I mean, if nothing else, why stay in the ONE PLACE YOU KNOW he's gonna come after you! XD But I digress--but first, let's take a look ath this poetry comparison.

OK, having read the poems...well, I already knew Sonnet 130 (one I like of his quite a bit, though not nearly as much as my favorite...Sonnet 30 needs more attention and love, that's my favorite, such a great use of tone and what great mastery of the language, and the ending message is powerful, and something everyone can take to heart.)

So, I won't waste time on delving into the ins and outs of Shakespeare's Sonnet--

You know it, I know it, everyone knows it, and anyway, we're focusing on the Psalm.

So, to the Psalm!

I WILL say as a preface that...well, I don't have as much context for Psalms as other parts of the Bible, that is, if there are continuity errors in the theology or whatever else, I'm less likely or well equipped to pick them up there, this isn't like Job where I know the story and backstory pretty well.

That being said, looking at it as, for lack of a better term, a poem:

"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever"

You're right when you say that, on the surface, this poem seems simplistic--it does.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially given what and who I'd compare this Psalm to, just from my own experience reading:

I get a very Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass" feeling from the Psalm, again, JUST detaching myself from all the theology and not being aware of the context; for all I know the context may make me as outraged and turn this poem's message as morally and literarily repugnant as I feel was the case with Job, but for now, ignorance will be bliss, I suppose, if that's the case...

But anyway--the same way Whitman's poems have very much the feeling of a song being sung in free verse (he even titles many of them "Song of ____" or "I Sing ____") and that's the structural feeling I get here.

That being said--I get a feeling of the Deathbed, 1892 edition of "Leaves of Grass" here FAR more than the Original 1855 version, and I'd argue that, for several key poems, the original is superior, as it feels more natural and befitting the "song" motif of Whitman's poetry, whereas the 1982 version is far more structured..."Song of Myself" is maybe the best example of what I mean--the original version has such a natural rhythm and feel to it, and it ends so beautifully and, structurally speaking, ingeniously, whereas the 1982 version is a lot more conventional, and there, I think, it loses something.

And that's partially the case here, I think--perhaps something is lost in translation (I don't know, I don't speak Greek, but as something almost always is, I imagine that'd be the case) but the structure of these verses, just as poems, feel far more forced and structured and clean-cut then I think is befitting them, especially given their naturalistic and even pastoral tone that they create...

It's obviously not fair to penalize the NT for not using free verse when it hadn't been invented yet, though I will say that, given that this IS a translation anyway, I'd think a translation with a bit more loose feel structurally--not altering the words, mind you, just the structure--would be beneficial to the poem, just as a poem.

Now, I know this is the Bible and, well, things are categorized by Chapter and verse very carefully, so I know you likely can't just go in and change the amount of words per line or structure for the sake of artistic licence...heck, you can't do that with Shakespeare, everything is measured carefully by Acts and Scenes and Line Numbers with him, too.

Even so, that's what I'd say, structurally, about the poem--

Good feel, but like the 1892 version of Leaves of Grass, it's too structured to fully embrace and take advantage of what it is in the way the 1855 version did.

Onto other points regarding the Psalm:

--I obviously don't like the image/connection to someone being someone else's shepherd, I'm naturally opposed to that, for reasons I've made clear, I think, even in a way meant benevolently, I don't find the idea of one person shepherding or taking mastery over another person (as that's what a shepherd does, for all the romanticizing, he takes mastery over the herd of sheep that he leads) a good one, and especially post-Orwell and Huxley, I'd think the reasons there are obvious...

That being said, this is obviously not MEANT in that sense, the Psalm isn't meant to imply shepherd/mastery in an Orwellian sense, and the sense they mean it in is admittedly benign and can even be nice-sounding, I just think it's a dangerous and slippery slope, but for what it is, again, JUST taking the poem by itself...again, not bad, though I think there are flaws in that department.

"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies"

I don't particularly like that line in a Biblical context...even if I take that away, though, the Biblical context...I don't particularly like the mention of "enemies" here, I think it's an example of either poor word choice or else somewhat more barbaric than the nice poem of adulation and mutual love between the two..."hardships" would've been OK, or another like word, but "enemies" gives the line an unpleasant feeling, as if to say "My friend loves me enough to set the table for me, and take out enemies, too!" and I KNOW that's not what it's saying, literally, I'm just saying "enemies" there comes across as an example of poor word choice to me. Whether that's the translator's fault or the original, I din't know...it sounds like something from the Bible's original pages, so to speak, rather than merely a translation, because so much of the Bible--and a reason I don't like it, one amongst many--is rather tribe vs. tribe, person vs. person, people vs. people...for a book in which one of the ultimate messages is allegedly "Love," especially in the NT, it seems awfully mean-spirited in that regard, and thus, especially for a poem dealing with mutual love, it's a bit bothersome to see a bigoted and hateful thought crop up right in the middle of it.

Much Ado About Next-To-Nothing, One Word?

Maybe, but then, I'm treating it as I would any other poem--and for me, to connect poetry to song for a moment again, that word and that line smack of a sour note.

That being said...the poem as a whole?

By itself--It's a nice enough poem...not one I'd probably teach again and again, or quote again and again and cite as a masterpiece...I love Shakespeare and Eliot and Byron as poets, and the Brownings and Whitman have their moments as well, and others--I'd take any of their poetry over this, but that's not being wholly fair or true to the poem just to say that...there ARE good things about it.

Would I teach it?
No...probably not--if I were doing a class strictly on Ancient Literature MAYBE, but if it's a poetry course or runs past the Ancient world...there are far more worthy texts to be read for students (for all I know, there may be more worthy Psalms, again, not my forte, that book, so I don't know.)

Now, in context, as part of the Bible, with all those strings attached?

I find the poem worse then, naturally, for reasons I've given ad naseum regarding God and the sentiments expressed there and so forth...in short, I'd fnd it aesthetically nice, meaningfully, less so, I think it'd suffer by making the shepherd God outright.



"The point is simply that the works of literature in the Holy Bible constitute a complex set of historical and literary texts that have had such an impact upon so many societies within the past three thousand years that there is no way to legitimately say they aren’t worthy of study as works of literature. Within these stories are connections to earlier works such as “Gilgamesh” and they have had influence upon writers up to and surpassing the works of Milton, Tolkein, and O’Conner right up until the present internet forum in which it seems to be such a topic of controversy and debate. If longevity, influence, and controversy are in any way a measure of importance and worthiness of study within literary circles then the Holy Bible in not only admissible but an absolute necessity."

I agree.

I never said differently, never said "No one should ever study the Bible for *insert Anglican's reasons*" or even "No one should study the Bible as literature."

I simply said I think it's an example of BAD literature, overall...

That being said, the book is enormous, so even if I were to say--and I do--that many if not most of the stories are repugnant in context and illogical even without context...

In a canon that large, you're BOUND to get some nice passages...I'm just saying, on the WHOLE, I see the Bible as an example of poor, primitive literature, typical of it's time and era, but even then, the Greeks--and in my opinion the Sumerians with "Gilgamesh" and Egyptians with some of their poetry, for starters--did a better job on the whole in terms of viewing literature from that era.

Should one read the Bible?
Absolutely--I am even now.
Do I read it for pleasure, the reason I'm reading "The Portrait of a Lady" as well?
In my view...well, pleasure's subjective, but I LOATHE the Bible's style, for me, it's a chore.
Is the Bible good literature?
Again, in my view--no, it's a chore to slog through, the stories are awful, the pace atrocious...heck, my Henry James novel seems practically break-neck and brisk after I read a bit of the Bible and go back to it--and this is a novel where it takes over 100 pages just to get most of the main players in the same damn house! ;)

SO.

I'm NOT saying reading the Bible is useless, on the contrary, it's ESSENTIAL--

But then, so are prostate exams, I'd assume...and who enjoys THOSE?

;)