Job

Because Christianity permeates the USA, I need to head into it and read. My grandparents were religious, my grandfather was a Baptist minister, and my other grandfather was lay support in the Episcopal church, and I'd spend 2 months with them every summer in the south, growing up. The other 10 months I lived with atheist parents in a Wisconsin suburb. 

I absorbed many Christian attitudes unknowingly. I never formally studied Christianity. I pick up the New Testament every now and then, and I've read some books. 

My son is taking a philosophy of religion class in his first semester of college. His professor Abi Doukhan was taught at the Sorbonne, and seems quite dynamic. I watched a video about Simone Weil. So my son said I could borrow his book on Job, a translation of the book by Stephen Mitchell.

A Buddhist can unpack myths and parables to understand in depth the dominant religion in the society they exists in.

(I'm not seeing the boils)

(I can't read that name Job without thinking of Gob from Arrested Development. It looks like it's pronounced /job/ but it's pronounced /joebe/)

The story of Job is that of a victim. He had everything and god decided to test him. What all knowing, all good god would do such a thing? God wouldn't, but you have to know Christianity was born off a spirituality that thought if you make the right sacrifices to the right gods, then you will be favored. Most people want to worship the most powerful god to be prosperous. Each tribe has different gods. That's how you know it's all malarkey and wishful thinking. And yet somehow psychologically being in touch with your most deepest wishes and hopes can sometimes be of benefit. Religion might be a module that unlocks some of the brain's potential. 

The creation of monotheism is a development in society, but it's not a clean development. We want to worship a god that does it for us. Even with monotheism you have the Jewish version, the Christian version and the Muslim version, and within each of those traditions, there is almost an infinite variety of versions, and within each sect there are different personalities that take everything in different ways. In a way I think trends in spirituality are balderdash. Maybe I'm a nominalist when it comes to spirituality. There is just instances of one thing. Generalizations are just reductions of instances.

What I found when I meditated a lot was that I came to be able to imagine I can partially understand the spiritual instinct common to all religion. When I read Wild, she says you pray to god for the grace to handle what is going on, not to change things. Religion is psychology and culture, not something that changes the world outsides, but your insides. I liked psychoanalysis for a while, and that's about changing what's inside but not so much the world. Meditation doesn't stop bombs in the air, but it does cut into the desire to launch bombs.

So what is this story all about. I'm tempted to related it to the Dark Night of the Soul by John of the Cross. In all the complex theology is the idea other spirituality can use, that sometimes spirituality doesn't pay off. So what's the point then? Again, it's to help you cope, your psychology. But what if you adopt a religion and you don't cope better? What then? Usually the story is you have to be patient for it to take hold of in a real way and also that living closer to reality will be more painful.

Spirituality can help make sense of suffering. In Christianity it's about Eve giving Adam the apple. We became conscious, and consciousness has some drawbacks, and is a complicated legacy. 

In Buddhism it's because we always want. If you've ever gotten what you want, you might notice, if you're not still intoxicated with a rare getting of what you want, that your mind quickly goes onto the next thing. We're never satisfied. Even the sex addict Mick Jagger knew that. Prince knew that in When Doves Cry. His mother was never satisfied. People go onto r/Buddhism on Reddit and ask how to stop wanting, they tried and it's not so easy. 

"You cannot practice non-attachment. You can only show your mind the suffering that attachment creates. When it sees this clearly, it will let go." writes Cory Muscara.

Job is about random bad shit happening to you, that maybe you don't deserve and doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense for a random person to tell god to punish Job for no reason. But god does. It's random, senseless. Kind of like the ancient Greek gods. Humans just are cannon fodder, they get trampled under the larger feet.

In America we know the gun violence follows the pattern of gun availability and access. When Clinton outlawed automatic weapons violence went down, when the law was allowed to lapse, it went up. America is an outlier in gun murder and violence. We understand the causes and conditions. What is random to me is why we allow this. I know we have the bit that is misinterpreted in the constitution and greedy manufacturers buying politicians. But to me it all seems random and senseless because we could just change the causes and conditions. And we don't. Random senseless humans trampled under the feet of the gods of profit and confusion.

Summary:

His children are partying too much and Job wonders if he should sacrifice an animal to counter displeasing god. Doukhan thinks he represents a kind of pagan view about gods, that the preface is setting him up to be robotic, submissive and simple. 

The accuser points out it's easy to be in favor of god, when god smiles on you with good fortune. God takes everything away and gives Job boils. He's physically disfigured. 

Job has three friends. They rend their clothes and shave their heads to join him. They spent 7 days in silence together. When Job starts speaking again he starts:

God damn the day I was born
and the night that forced me from the womb.
On that day let there be darkness;
let it never have been created;
let it sink back into the void.
Let chaos overpower it;
let black clouds overwhelm it;
let the sun be plucked from its sky.
Let oblivion overshadow it;
let the other days disown it;
let the aeons swallow it up.
On that night--let no child be born,
no mother cry out with joy.
Let sorcerers wake the Serpent
to blast it with eternal blight.
Let its last stars be extinguished;
let it wait in terror for daylight;
let its dawn never arrive.
For it did not shut the womb's doors
to shelter me from this sorrow.

Why couldn't I have died
as they pulled me out of the dark?
Why were there knees to hold me,
breasts to keep me alive?
If only I had strangled or drowned
on my way to the bitter light.
Now I would be at rest,
I would be sound asleep,
with kings and lords of the earth
who lived in echoing halls,
with princes who hoarded silver
and filled their cellars with gold.
There the troubled are calm;
there the exhausted rest.
Rich and poor are alike there,
and the slave lies next to his master.


Why is there light for the wretched,
life for the bitter-hearted,
who long for death, who seek it
as if it were buried treasure,
who smile when they reach the graveyard
and laugh as their pit is dug.
For God has hidden my way
and put hedges across my path.
I sit and gnaw on my grief;
my groans pour out like water.
My worst fears have happened;
my nightmares have come to life.
Silence and peace have abandoned me,
and anguish camps in my heart.

It’s really quite an expression about existence and disappointment written in 6th century BCE. (The Buddha live 563 to 483 BCE, which is around the same time.) The language of Job stands out for its conservative spelling and for its exceptionally large number of words and forms not found elsewhere in the Bible. I've stumbled on perhaps a best part.

He would prefer not to be born based on what's happened to him. He suggests that everyone suffers this way, rich, poor and slave. "I sit and gnaw on my grief." There are many amazing lines of existential intensity. As Doukhan points out, he's emotional, messy, confused, rebellious. 

Doukhan suggests that the prologue is ironic, the author is setting up a caricature of someone who is superficial, and that god actually prefers the rebellious honest follower, who actually struggles and isn't just performing piety to please her. I ask myself how does she know that. I don't think that's an answerable question, but I do think that view really enlivens the text. Then I begin to wonder if the emphasis on authenticity isn't a secular Christian/Jewish agenda. Anyway, it makes the text come alive to me.

Eliphaz says to keep playing the game. He repeats the idea that you will get good things by being devout and submissive to god. Feels like the party line, status quo, what Job used to think.

Job's response is that life has become like eating gruel without salt. He has no hunger for life any more with the god that doesn't grant him favors, not even his wish to not exist. Life is a prison, he suffers, and he knows he will be dead soon enough. He will cry out in despair. Why would you pay attention to my faults and punish me? The punishing god doesn't make sense to him.

Bildad says come on, toe the line and you will be fine. Job starts off about how awesome and massive god is supposed to be, and then shifts into why? 

It got me thinking about a major problem I have with the idea of god. On the one hand "he" is so powerful and awesome, and yet on the other hand if he actually does things, then why not actually prevent evil. I think an all knowing, all powerful god who doesn't intervene is the only idea that makes sense, he just pressed the start button, and is not there afterwards. I don't see how you get around all the problems if she is doing things. It's not for us to know and all that, yea, but come on, some things are obviously horrible, and they keep being horrible: Racism, sexism, classism, and all the othering that people do. People can be very horrible to each other. 

Job's articulation of the problem of evil is unique in it's poetry, but underneath is the problem of evil. I'm going to have to look into Doukhan's lecture on that. He comes back to it as he settles down articulating what he is trying to get at. Why do evil people seem to get away with things? Why pray to a god that can't punish sin? And punishes people who play by the rules? Job insists that attempts at solving this problem are hollow lies.

Not a problem for Buddhists who don't see a creator god necessary. Conditionality explains how the world works. And the secular Buddhists just drop off the metaphysical stuff that accumulated, like mould on the spiritual texts.

Zophar takes a run at him. You think you're innocent and can't be punished? You have hidden motives and you're guilty. You dare to question god? "a stupid man will be wise when a crow gives birth to a zebra." Confess your sins and you will be pure. It's like he's saying the punishment proves you have sins to confess. The original blame the victim.

Job seems to say for all his great creation, god takes it all away. Answer what sins or crimes did I commit to deserve this punishment? Why not leave off the punishment? The body gets old and falls apart. Life is short and painful. You only have your experience, you can't know what happens to your progeny. Human are limited when it comes taking longer views sometimes.

There's a second and third round of this. I like Elephaz's second rebuke. But Job says he doesn't want consolation. 

This is the old contradiction or dialectic in the spiritual life: is it consolation or confrontation? I think it's both and we can get into different moods. Is one the antidote to the other, is it a dialectic?

"...my pain keeps raging

...disaster has worn me out,

and suffering has made me wither."

He's lost his equanimity.

When I compare myself to Job, I think I created the problems and hole I'm stuck in. I haven't lost everyone I love. My daughter still loves me. My sons are busy and teenagers, but they still love me. My parents love me. I still have a few old friends and many friendly acquaintances.

His 3 friends who sit with him for 7 days while he's silent, are still his friends, even if in the end god tells him to forget those friends. Job is describing his subjective reality, that is what Job is all about. Ogden talks about the Schizoid position, where we lose touch with reality.

Finally a wind makes it's appearance and says his friends aren't great, and that he's so awesome he really should tremble thinking about all he created. It reminds me of the time a monk came to the Buddha and a monk was thinking about disrobing. The Buddha whisked him off to the 33 gods realm and he was so awestruck that he didn't disrobe. For me, this is a mythological answer that isn't hugely satisfying. What I get out of it, is when you're stuck, you're kind of forgetting the awesomeness of it all and you need some kind of reminder. But that just kicks the can down the road, the problem is you're not being inspired. What do you do with that? The book seems to argue holding that paradox is spirituality.

Job gets back all his stuff and god says, "I was just kidding." Job gets more sons whom he names Dove, Cinnamon and Eye-shadow. Kind of weird names.

I feel so lucky my son took this class and lent me his book. That I watched Doukhan's lectures, that she shares her lectures. This is great literature, and great spiritual exploration.

Please comment and share your understanding of Job, or this post.

Links: 

Abi Doukhan lecture 2021: (She's wearing a mask, it's during Covid) Skip ahead to get past housekeeping and groups. She feels the dialogue is poetry and the essence of Job. Epilogue and prologue isn't important. When we find out he's virtuous, we get not a list of virtue, but of possessions. This is the prosperity gospel. Words: Tam=innocent, naive, yesha=righteous, follows rules, walks the line, straight. Job is faithful in an immature way. Mimonedies says he was good but he wasn't a wise man, in a sheltered kind of way, sheltered, entered life. You have to go through the darkness to be wise. Job shifts: robotic to emotional, submissive to rebellious, clear to confused. In the end, God comes and tells Job to save his friends. How does God prefer psychotic Job to articulate friends. God likes Job's authenticity. Even when it's dark, negative, angry, confused and blasphemous. God of the Hebrew Bible enjoys a good challenge. Hebrew text is always inviting growth, no comfort. Job is human. Don't be a perfect robot, be messy, confused, authentic. She makes me really like this book. Do you like the ending she asks?

Lecture 2022: Preface is a caricature of believers. The idea that god controls destiny, but he's moving away from that. God loves authenticity, prefers your honest rebellion.

Lecture 2022 part 2: 2 people in the class liked god's response to Job. 

Last edited 12/8/22