Tag Archives: Book of Job

Now That’s Ironic!

Back in the day when I was teaching a course in the Humanities I was discussing The Book of Job with my class. I suggested that the God of the Old Testament was quite different from the God of the New Testament. After all, He made a wager with the devil that Job would not lose his faith no matter what might happen to him. During the test that the devil contrived Job’s “comforters” insisted that the must have done something wrong because God would not allow him to suffer for no reason. But the lesson, apparently, was that humans suffer for no good reason all the time and they ought to maintain their faith in God despite all.

Further, the God of the Old Testament asked Abraham to take his infant son to a mountain top and slit his throat, testing Abraham’s faith. The Old Testament is full of examples of a God who tests His believers, who seems to all outward appearances to be vindictive and all-powerful, not given to forgive and forget, much less to love. In fact some of the true believers are able to find in the Old Testament the seeds of their own racial prejudice.  I suggested that the New Testament God was a God of love and He was clearly quite different.

One of the students in my class, whom I knew to proudly consider herself among the spiritually certain, insisted that “it is the same God.” And, indeed, to those who claim to know their Bible this may be the case. But I suggested that from a theological, a philosophical, or even a literary point of view the two Gods were quite different.

After all, the New Testament is supposed to be the NEW Testament, to supplant the Old Testament; the God depicted in the New Testament (whether one believes in Him or not) is a God of love, not a God who plays favorites, inspires fear, and is given to testing his followers. In fact, in the New Testament God sacrificed his son in order to save humankind — whether or not one believes that humankind is worth saving (and at times I do wonder). He admonishes His followers to eschew wealth, reminding them that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven. He demands that they turn the other cheek, forgive one another, never judge another lest they also be judged by the same high standards. In a word, the two Gods are different in practically every respect.

The irony, however, is that so many of those who pride themselves to be among the spiritually certain seem to have failed to read the New Testament carefully and seem to be filled with hatred toward their fellow humans, not love. So many of them feel themselves to be superior to those who do not believe and are therefore not among the elect. They are quick to judge others, despite the admonition not to do so. And the love they are supposed to feel for one another is often very selective and the majority of their neighbors, whom they are asked to love like themselves,  are targets of their ire — especially if they look different, happen to have a different life-style, or practice a different religion. Many of the true believers pursue mammon with astonishing determination, seeing no problem with their love of wealth and personal possessions (even including private planes among some of their leaders), despite the admonitions in the New Testament not to do so.

In fact, it is difficult to say if the great majority of those who claim to Have The Truth and to be among the spiritually certain have any idea what is contained in the New Testament. The gospel of love, for so many of them, is simply a license to feel superior to others and to pursue their personal pleasures rather than to seek ways to become better human beings. Now that’s ironic, is it not?

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Two Gods

Some years ago, when I was teaching a required course in great books that we called “Humanities,” I was discussing with the class the assigned reading, the Book of Job. The discussion was going  well, I thought, but my repeated reference to the “God of the Old Testament” apparently riled one of the students who spoke out: “it’s the same God as in the New Testament, you know.” Well, I didn’t know. The student was a Born Again Christian and I had only been born once. From my apparently stunted perspective the two Gods seemed miles apart, the Old Testament God a vengeful and even vindictive God who would throw Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden for disobedience and punish Job for bragging rights. He’s the God who said to Eve: “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow shall thou bring forth children; and thy desire shall be thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” The God of the New Testament struck me as a forgiving God, a god of love and compassion. He is the God who said “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you.” The two seemed, as I say, miles apart. But clearly I did not know what I was talking about.

In any event, in reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, a novel recommended by a good friend, I came across the same concern I had expressed, to wit, the reflection by one of the main characters in the novel that the two Gods were very different. The novel raises a number of interesting questions and, while disturbing in many ways, is a good read, focusing on a very twisted Baptist preacher who decides to do a year of missionary work and hauls his wife and four girls to the Congo to drag the natives out of the utter darkness (where they appear to be quite happy, thank you very much) and into the light that apparently only he can see. Needless to say, he botches the job, alienating the natives entirely while abusing and doing untold damage to his children and making life a living hell for his poor wife. But such is the enthusiasm of the “true believer” who is convinced that he (or she) has the truth and everyone else should shut up and pay attention. Our hero is a hellfire and brimstone preacher who hopes to save souls by scaring the shit out of them. His mania can be found just this side of insanity. He bases his world view on a reading of the Old Testament having, apparently, never gotten as far as the New Testament — except for the Book of Revelation. Yet he insists that he is a devout Christian.

All of which raises the deeper question of the untold damage “Christians” have done over the centuries in direct defiance of the teachings of their Founder. How on earth the message of peace and love got translated into a message of intolerance and hate defies reason, though it would appear folks are simply more comfortable with the Old Testament God. But, then, many things we humans do defy reason. The sad thing in this case is that so much good has turned rotten and so many lives have been ruined by well-meaning zealots who think they know all that needs to be known. Just like my student who knew that the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the God of the New Testament, a conviction I knew better than to tamper with by trying to get her to think.

Lost Wisdom

Many years ago, when I was working my way through J.D. Salinger’s novels, I recall that Franny (of Franny and Zooey)  dropped out of college because she hadn’t heard anyone speak about wisdom. That impressed me at the time and I heard it later echoed in T.S. Eliot’s provocative question, “where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?” Indeed. Our schools teach information and knowledge, but they do not teach about wisdom. Where, then can it be found? One would think the philosophers would have a firm grasp of the elusive creature, because they are, presumably, “lovers of wisdom.” But aside from Socrates, and perhaps Kant and maybe Albert Camus, I can think of few philosophers whom I would regard as truly wise. In fact, the wisest person I have encountered in my intellectual journey is a woman who called herself George Eliot — because she wanted to be taken seriously by those who read her works. Indeed, Eliot was so wise that readers sent her scores of letters asking her advice about everything from soup to nuts. And, apparently, she always attempted to answer the queries.

The “Book of Job” tells us that the price of wisdom is above rubies, yet as Franny says, no one seems to want to talk about it. There are books that contain a great deal of wisdom, including but not limited to the Bible and George Eliot’s novels. Cervantes was a supremely wise man, as was Jonathan Swift, in his way. The writers are out there as are the books from which we can learn a great deal about our world and the folks who people it. But we waste so much time reading whatever is the latest fashion on the supposition that what is newer is better, or what confirms my predispositions is what is worth reading. To which I say “bollocks!” What is older is better, whether we like what it says or not, since it has withstood the test of time. We know, or can soon find out, who the wise writers were. They are the ones who have been read by the wise persons who have followed them, like Winston Churchill, who learned at the feet of Shakespeare.

I have said some demeaning things in past blogs about the military mind, questioning whether the phrase “military intelligence” might be an oxymoron, for example. It is a concern I share with many. But there have been a few wise military men, including George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower. And I would hasten to add to the list Omar Bradley who had this to say about wisdom: “If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom and prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.” Now that’s worth pondering. And it is precisely those insights and profound observations that comprise wisdom. They disturb us and force us to think, whether we want to or not.  They go well beyond mere information or knowledge  — which is what we teach in our schools to Franny’s chagrin. Perhaps it is time to return to those who have looked long and hard at the human condition and returned to us on the pages of their books with words that will enable us to stand on their heads as we seek to look further.

We hear at every turn that there are so many books and so little time. This is true, but the important question is how many of those books are worth reading? I suggest there is plenty of time to read good books because most of what is out there is not worth reading. Not even if Oprah makes the recommendation!