Job
Introduction

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11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42

Absurdities
Injustice
Science and History
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Cruelty and Violence
Women
Good Stuff
Family Values
Language
Interpretation

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Job for Skeptics

The Book of Job gets way too much credit from both believers and skeptics. Everyone, it seems, thinks it inspiring and profound, especially those who have never read it. But Job is, in fact, as silly as it is evil. Let me summarize it for you.

God and Satan play a game with the lives of Job and his family. Satan bets that Job will curse God to his face if Job's life is made unpleasant enough. So God (or Satan, it's hard to tell them apart) kills Job's family and sends various torments upon him. Although Job curses the day he was born and says some nasty (and true) things about God, he doesn't curse God (as he should have), so he is rewarded with a new, even better, family. Another happy ending!

Here are a few interesting passages in Job:

• God asks Satan where he's been. Satan answers, "From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up an down in it." 1:7, 2:2

• God gives Job to Satan, saying: "Behold, all that he hath is in thy power." 1:12, 2:6

• God (or Satan) kills Job's children in a windstorm. 1:19

• Satan (or God) smites Job with boils from the "sole of his foot unto his crown." 2:7

• Job's wife says that to retain his integrity he should "curse God and die." 2:9

• Job curses the day he was born. 3:1-2, 3:11

• Job rightly accuses God of multiplying his wounds without cause. 9:17

• Job says that God "will laugh at the trial of the innocent." 9:23