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update from sparkleup

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Madison Scott-Clary 2022-04-27 22:35:16 -07:00
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writing/3/unknown-things/iyov/1-framing-devices.html
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<p>This centers God&rsquo;s response as the sticking point. He spends four chapters responding to Job the conversations that have taken place between him and his friends. While these conversations make up the majority of the book,<sup id="fnref:1conversations"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1conversations">7</a></sup> His response solely in the context of this framing device (which, we must remember, is an older folktale which has been re-cast as a framing device for the rest of the book) gives us a particular flavor of &lsquo;God works in mysterious ways&rsquo; with more nuance than one commonly finds when that phrase is employed.</p>
<p>God appears to Job and his friends and expounds on the fact that none of them do &mdash; nor indeed can &mdash; possibly understand the ways in which he works. They&rsquo;re not just mysterious, they&rsquo;re vast and incomprehensible. This makes the most sense in a panentheistic view. If He is outside time, then, from our point of view, those ways stretch both forwards and back. If they envelop and pervade all things tangible and intangible, then they are beyond even our causal domain.</p>
<p>Even in a grounded, Jahwist, immediate and physical view of God (He is, after all, there in the form of a whirlwind), his entrance comes off as bizarre and unnerving. He passes through the physical plane as the Sphere does through the Square&rsquo;s planar existence. Even in so physical a form, He proves His very incomprehensibility.</p>
<p>And if He does not exist? The folktale and the book as a whole do not depend on the existence of God in their interpretation. They still work to repudiate the idea that, if bad things happen to you, it is because you&rsquo;re a bad person.</p>
<p>These interpretations are doing a lot of work, however. They accept at face value Job&rsquo;s capitulation in chapter 40, where, after being thoroughly excoriated by no less than God Himself, he says, &ldquo;Look, I am worthless. What can I say back to You?&rdquo; (Job 40:4, Alter) and &ldquo;I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but will proceed no further.&rdquo; (Job 40:5, NRSV)<sup id="fnref:1versions"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1versions">8</a></sup></p>
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<p>Which will no doubt take up the majority of this essay.&#160;<a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1conversations" title="Jump back to footnote 7 in the text">&#8617;</a></p>
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<p>Alter has, &ldquo;My hand I put over my mouth. Once have I spoken and I will not answer, twice, and will not go on.&rdquo; This captures the poetic nature of the rest of the book in a delightfully austere way, but the NRSV provides a simpler, if less poetic version, included for the sake of clarity on this point in particular.&#160;<a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1versions" title="Jump back to footnote 8 in the text">&#8617;</a></p>
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