On Apr 20, 2005, at 3:58 PM, Nick Arnett wrote:
On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:01:19 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote
Possibly harking to Job and God's reply out of the whirlwind? That's one of the more enigmatic monologues in the entire Abrahamic tradition. I've seen really hard-line realist type interpretations that insist God is entirely unknowable; I've seen Zennish renderings that suggest something remarkably similar; years ago my own take on it was that it was a non-answer, equivalent to an arbitrary, "Because I'm God and I can, that's why."
I used to think Job was impenetrable until I realized that at one level, at
least, it is a simple lesson. When bad stuff happens to you, there's a great
temptation to insist that I didn't deserve it. Job was resisting that urge,
choosing to trust that God is just, until his friends goaded him into trying
to negotiate with God... who responded with all the "did you create the
universe?" stuff. I'm always a bit surprised when I read some of the words
attributed to God in Job that seem nothing other than sarcastic.
To my mind Job was written in two sections, actually; IIRC there's even some indication that the text was written by two different authors. There was the long-suffering man who, despite his strife, did not blame God. Then there was this other, radically different take from the perspective of a God defending itself with some really unexpected (from Job's, hence our, POV) statements.
And one can read Job in another way -- as being a lesson in not finding blame. That is, when the whirlwind says what it says, in essence it's saying "there is no reason at all for you to have suffered." That's not saying it was pointless -- rather, it might just mean that trying to find a reason (in the human sense of "why did this happen") for boils or livestock pestilence might be as useful as trying to find a reason (again, in a deep, symbolic sense) for a cumulus cloud.
IOW some things just *happen*. They're not volitional; they're not cosmic retribution; they're not messages from a netherworld. They're just events. Any significance attached to them is therefore subjective and wholly manufactured.
(Huh. Did I just dismiss astrology? ;)
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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