The Disturbing Views of God and Suffering in the Book of Job

Episode Outline:
0:00 Why the Book of Job feels so unsettling and why most people misunderstand it
1:16 Bart and Megan on teaching Hebrew Bible, field specialization, and Assyriology
4:12 Why Bart thinks Job matters even for someone mainly focused on the New Testament
5:16 A full summary of Job’s narrative: righteousness, catastrophe, debate, and restoration
11:01 Why scholars think Job is actually two different writings spliced together
12:57 Why the beginning/end of Job and the poetic middle are so hard to reconcile
15:08 The two very different messages about suffering in the prose and poetry sections
19:51 How the poetic section challenges the usual prophetic explanation of suffering
20:00 God’s speech from the whirlwind and the disturbing answer it gives Job
24:02 Why the deaths of Job’s children make the prose ending especially troubling
25:57 Why the Satan figure in Job is not yet the later Christian devil
29:59 What takeaway each section of Job may have intended for its readers
32:57 Why many modern readers take Job as a lesson in patient faith under testing
33:37 Course promo: Jesus, the Secret Messiah on the Gospel of Mark
35:08 Weekly Update: Bart’s new book on Jesus and the origins of altruism
39:40 Listener Q&A: Jezebel in Revelation, prophecy and apocalypticism, Matthew’s Jesus, and why the Middle East birthed the major monotheisms
48:28 Final summary: Job preserves two different and deeply unsettling explanations of suffering

Episode Description
Many people have a rough idea about the story of Job, the incredibly wealthy and righteous man whom God allows "the Satan" (who is not the Devil, btw) to deprive of all he has (including killing his ten children) and plague with horrible pain, in order to see if he will stay righteous. Most readers don't realize, however, that the vast majority of the book comes from a different author who has a completely different view of why people suffer. In this episode we talk about what both authors have to say and discuss honestly and forthrightly whether either view of suffering is at all convincing; in addition, we talk about why the views of God in this book can be so disturbing.

Also watch these episodes:
If There Is a God, Why Do We Suffer?
If There Is a God, Why Do We Suffer?

The Omnipresent Fear of Death
The Omnipresent Fear of Death

Do We Have a Soul?
Do We Have a Soul?

Megan asks Bart:

- Did you ever teach the Hebrew Bible?

- We usually stick with the NT and early Christian writings…why is it important to discuss this particular book of the OT?

- What is the book of Job about?

- You suggested the title for the episode: could you answer it for us? Why does no one understand it?

- If people do understand that these are two different sources, how do they try to reconcile the differences?

- Why do you think people take the much longer, poetic section as secondary to the beginning and end verses?

- Do the two sources have the same message?

- How does the poetic source explain suffering?

- What does that end section give us?

- Are there any similar unsettling points in the narrative?

- Thinking about the deaths of the children, do people argue that this is the fault of the Satan figure?

- Where then did the Christian understanding of Satan come from?

- What do you think the take away message is of the book.

- How do most modern Christians understand the book of Job?