For the last week or so, I’ve been reading through the beginnings of the Book of Psalms, and interesting, if cryptic, part of the Bible. I had been aware of the Book of Psalms as one of the most widely quoted sections of the book, still oft used for any pithy inspirational statements needed for any given religious situation. I am given to understand that these mostly short pieces represent hymns originally sung. How much of their impact is lost due to the lack of music all of these centuries later I am not sure. In some areas, they seem almost like formula or charms sung by people hoping to change or avoid various situations. In particular, defense from undefined enemies seem to be a major theme throughout many of the early psalms. Why this emphasis on enemies? However, this quite a long book, and I believe I will have more to say after I’ve read more of them.
In the meantime, one thing that I’ve noticed during my reading so far has been the occasional mention of the term “Sheol.” A typical mention of the term occurs in Psalm 6 (Prayer for Mercy in Time of Trouble), which begs God to protect the speaker “for there is no mention of Thee in death; In Sheol who will give Thee thanks?” (Psalms 6:) It was also mentioned in Job, “when a cloud vanishes, it is gone, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come back up.” (Job 7:9). Or how about Psalm 30, “O Lord, Thou has brought up my soul from Sheol; Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down into the pit.” (Psalms 30:3). Sheol
I first encountered the term Sheol while researching for a project on the various interpretations of the afterlife as seen in world cultures and mythologies my freshman year of college, with Sheol being described in ancient Hebrew mythology, as a dark, depressing, misty netherworld where people went after they died. It reminded me of Hades or the Asphodel Fields in Greek mythology, an “egalitarian” land of the dead where people simply went to, a gray, cold place where spirits wandered eternally. I did not realize at the time that the term was included in the Bible, thinking it came from more obscure sources in ancient religion and mythology, so it was interesting to see it being used in various books. Psalms in particular seems to mention it a lot. “The pit,” as it is described in Psalm 30, does not seem to be the most pleasant place to end up after death, but, from what I’ve seen so far, the afterlife has not been a matter of much discussion in the Old Testament. Instead, they focus on the actions of the living, death itself often being meted out as a punishment. Why do older religions have so little interest in life after death, with any afterlife described being so lackluster?
At least in modern Christianity, the afterlife seems to be a primary belief of the religion; perhaps it’s most important aspect. Heaven, and to a lesser extant, Hell still remain at the forefront of Christian teachings as well as popular culture, with even the most lax Christian professing a belief in the afterlife. Did this focus arise with the advent of Christianity? What in the culture changed that mandated elaborate afterlife worlds of reward and punishment to be discussed? How have fears and curiosity of death evolve or the centuries? Could a little bit of this shift be included in Psalms 18, “The Lord Praised for Giving Deliverance,” when the speaker sings, “the cords of Sheol surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me” (Psalms 18: 5) and calls on God for help, who later “rewarded me according to my righteousness” (Psalm 18:20). It seems to imply a reward after death for a life well led, something that had not been mentioned before. It will be interesting to watch how concepts of the afterlife and its relationship to life will change in religions. Finally, I wonder how this transition from a misty, insubstantial Sheol to modern Christian ideas of Heaven and Hell are looked at in modern religions. Is Sheol simply equated to Hell? This, the mystery of life after death, will be another category for my study as I continue to study the religious texts of world religions.
I really thought that this, the Book of Job, was one of the most interesting and though provoking stories I had encountered yet in the Bible. It has been one of the Books so far, I feel, that deals most in theological questions and philosophies that are still very relevant in religious discussion today. Rather than discussing the activities and conflicts of various ancient peoples and their personal alliances with a God who seemed to be more interested in “results” than “discussion,” the Book of Job discusses philosophical questions regarding God’s nature. In the Books of Exodus and Leviticus, for instance, when God spent much time explaining to Moses all of the precise laws, commandments, and ceremonies that He wanted of his followers, neither Moses nor God seemed to spend much time in ruminations about the reasons “why.” Job and his acquaintances, however, question and debate, focusing in particular on one of the biggest questions religion tries to answer; why do bad things happen to good people? Or, more specifically, “the problem of evil.”
Job tells the tale of the eponymous Job, a prosperous, happy, and god-fearing man who had everything that a Bronze Age shepherd could want. However, Satan, “the adversary” was curious if his piousness would suffer under “adversity” and convinced God to test Job, Satan predicting Job will “curse thee to thy face” as soon as things started to go bad. (Job 1:11) God agrees to this wager and before the first chapter is completed, Job loses his entire fortune and all of his children to a series of tragedies. Apparently, this not being enough, the next chapter has God, again at the instigation of Satan, allowing “My servant Job … a blameless and upright man” (Job 2:3) to be smote by Satan with boils completely covering his body. Incidentally, this Satan, or adversary, character and its relationship to God is never explained here. Interestingly, Satan appears with a group called the “Sons of God,” whose appearance I didn’t catch at first. Besides sounding like some sort of sect or metal band, these beings are, according to exhaustive research on Wikipedia, a “divine council” of minor gods, apparently a remnant of earlier Ugaritic religions. Interesting, but these guys are a bit outside of my discussion today.
So poor Job is in a pretty sorry state, “he took a potsherd to scrape himself while he was sitting among the ashes.” That’s a pretty bleak scene, and his wife exhorts him to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9) but Job, not being a “foolish woman” refuses to complain. It remains unsaid here whether he knows or not that God was personally responsible for allowing all of these bad things to happen by allowing Satan to have its way. This brings up many questions. Why did God allow “the adversary” (is Satan simply a personification of all the bad things in the world?) to torture Job so horribly when he was, by His own admission one of his most faithful followers? Does this make God, directly or indirectly, responsible for every bad event? Questions like these are discussed in the following chapters as Job’s friends hear of his unfortunate circumstances and arrive to talk to him. They find Job in such pain, that they simply watch him silently for a week (apparently it being bad form to offer help).
Finally, Job begins to question the injustice of his current situation, cursing his birth and asking “why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?” (Job 3:23). His friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar attempt to convince him that all of this is in some way Job’s fault, for being a sinner, Eliphaz claiming “who ever punished being innocent?” (4:7), though Job continues to refute that he had sinned, saying “I have not denied the words of the Holy One. We are given no reason to doubt this, as God himself praised Job’s “god-fearingness.” These three have to believe that evil does not happen for no reason, goodness is only rewarded and evil is only punished. Therefore, Job must have committed some evil somewhere along the line. Bildad in fact asserts “how then can a man be just with God? Or how can he be clean who is born of woman,” (Job 25:4), apparently putting it down to original sin that all humans are simply born with, as if this gives bad things full reign. Job does not accept this interpretation. Another friend of Job’s, Elihu, attempts (beginning in Chapter 32) to answer these questions by maintaining that whatever God does is righteous and, basically, it is not up to humanity to question his motives or look for a reason. Elihu asks, “If you are righteous, what do you give to HIM? Or what does He receive from your hand?” (35:7) This seems to argue that nothing humanity does effects God, who, as he argues later, “is exalted, and we do not know Him.” (36:26). Therefore, it is not for humanity to say and fruitless to look for an explanation (except that, to the readers of the text, an explanation is provided in the first chapter; God was goaded by Satan to test Job’s faith.)
Finally, God himself comes down from on high and personally gives His side of the story, thundering from the heavens complete with lightenings and whirlwinds, making for quite the impressive display. God snaps at Job to “gird up your loins like a man” (38:3) as he asks Job “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth!” or “Have you ever in your life commanded the morning and caused the dawn to know its place” (38:12). Basically, if you didn’t create the universe, don’t complain. In the end, though, after this Divine chewing out, God does reward the always faithful Job by restoring his wealth and prestige (one set of children is as good as another, right?). No matter that this infallible God basically screws with Job for no other reason than a bet with some undefined adversary. However, the arguments and discussions of Job and his friends about God’s nature and how to reconcile this with the existence of evil and suffering in the world are quite fascinating even if I find much of their arguments unconvincing. This makes the Book one of the most theologically and philosophically interesting parts of the Bible
However, as an agnostic reader of the Bible, I find much of the arguments put forward to be rather unconvincing, to say the least. The rest of the essay may be a bit, er, ranty. The arguments put forward here may illustrate one of the deep disagreements I seem to have with the religion. The relationship between the creator and his subjects seems rather abusive, when looked at through modern eyes. God tortures Job, one of his most loyal subjects terribly on a whim, but Job still loves Him in spite of the pain he suffered. Finally, Job breaks down and questions why so many bad things happen to him, debating the matter with his friends. Was it because Job was secretly sinful? They can’t say. Finally, God explains himself that the reason for all this pain suffered by Job was beyond their ken, as they did not create the Universe. So God created the Universe, that gives Him the right to treat His subjects in whatever fashion He likes? Of course, God would have knowledge and power humans could never understand, causing his actions to be, theoretically, inscrutable. Then why did God’s reason seem to amount to little more than a test? Job seemed to pass the test, but millions of other people still suffer. Have they not passed the test yet? This is a vision of God that I simply cannot come to terms with. I will have to study this in more detail to come to a more comprehensive philosophical argument against the arguments put forward in Job. How do others understand this Book? I can definitely see how this might be among the most important works in the Old Testament and I’m curious to look at some modern interpretations of this text. I’ll definitely return to the Book of Job as I explore how other religions come to answer the “problem of evil.”
