Session 1- Job- Phil Thomas- Summer25

Summer Bible School series- Wisdom Literature

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Summer Bible School. Gosh, there are a lot of you. This is great. This is really awesome. Fantastic. Thanks for being here with us. So we are super, super lucky today. We've got Phil speaking to us. I'll introduce him in a minute. But as I'm sure you're aware, we are doing wisdom books this summer, which is really exciting. We've got four weeks across August to do five wisdom books. So what I'm going to do is give a really quick intro overview. This is kind of where we're going to be going over the next few weeks, why we're doing it. But then basically I'm going to hand over to Phil, who's who's really an expert in this area. He's going to lead the session for tonight, and then we'll have a chance for some discussion. Any questions that you might have? Phil's probably one of the best people to answer those questions. So it's a really great chance to just study the book of Job and learn a little bit more about it. But basically, for those of you who haven't been to Bible school before, what we're about is just reading the Bible well, treating it seriously. What we want to do in these weeks is to do maybe what we can't do on a Sunday, what we don't have the space to do, is to sort of really dive in to an area, a topic, a genre, a book, and treat it in a way that is just a bit more in-depth than we have the chance to do on a Sunday when we've obviously got a limit of time. So what we're doing across the summer this year is wisdom. And looking a bit at what particularly the Old Testament wisdom is and what that means for us today. But first of all, like what is wisdom? Wisdom is actually, it's not just sort of stuff we know and applying it, it's a genre of writing. We know the Bible is a library, there's poetry, there's psalms, there's there's love songs, there's lore, there's narrative. Wisdom is just another genre in the Bible. And as we know, if you've been to Bible school before, or if you've you've listened to a sermon or anything, genre is really key to our understanding of what each book, each passage that we read is saying. If you read uh a legal code in the same way as you read a narrative or a poem, you'll misunderstand some things, some things will fall through the gaps, and you won't get what the original author was trying to say. So, genre is really key to understanding here. In the Bible, in the Old Testament, we've got these five wisdom books that you can classify as wisdom. Obviously, Psalms and Proverbs, Song of Songs, they've got, they fit into other genres as well. But when we talk about wisdom, these are the five books we're talking about, and this is where we're gonna go this summer. And essentially the way that we're gonna distill down what those books are trying to do is each book is trying to tell you how to do something well. The Bible is obviously incredibly detailed and broad, and we're gonna touch on you know some specific themes these times. We're not gonna do the entirety of the book of Psalms in one hour and a half, but we're gonna look at what the book of Psalms or the Book of Job says about the topic that it's really, really focusing on. And the key thing about wisdom in the Old Testament, the wisdom genre, is it's teaching you how to do a thing well. I'm sorry, it's uh the contrast on the screen is not as good as it is on my laptop. I'll read out what it says, don't worry. So the book of Job is about suffering well, the book of Psalms about worshiping well, the book of Proverbs is about living well, Song of Songs, loving well, and Ecclesiastes about enjoying life well. This is what those books are trying to do. And today we're gonna be looking at the book of Job, which uh is a particularly interesting book. It's there's lots of very sort of unusual things about it that we're gonna dig into today. But the book of Job is particularly concerned with suffering and what that kind of ancient perspective of suffering is. Um but one thing we like to do in Bible school, for those of you who've been here before, particularly in our sort of months-long series, is that we don't want to just talk about the Bible, we want to listen to it. We want to read it out loud, because the Bible, as it was written, was intended to be heard and spoken. And sometimes when we pick a passage up and we just read a verse, we can miss some of that context that it's in. So obviously the book of Job is very long, we're not gonna read the whole thing, but um we've selected a couple of representative passages that are gonna give us a sense of what the book is about. So um, my readers, just be aware, I'm coming to you, but um Shinali asked you to read the first chapter. So we're gonna read chapter one, and then chapter four, uh and then chapter 42, if that's alright. So, Shinali, would you like to come and stand up at the front? You can just stand where you are. Right. You can sit where you are if you want. Just um, everyone, if you've got a phone or a Bible, we're gonna read from Job chapter one. Shinali is gonna read out loud to us. So um, whether you want to read along um in the book in front of you, or just actually you know close your eyes and listen to the narrative. It's a different way than we normally interact with the Bible. Um, I'm aware there's a lot of us, it might it might be a little bit difficult to hear, so if we try and um be as quiet as we can, and we'll literally just go, Shanali, and then over to you, Faniki, straight away, and then yourself, Nathan. Uh, and then once they're done, Phil, if you'd like to come up and I can introduce you. Awesome. Thanks, Joe.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

There was once a man named Joe, who went to the land of the he was blameless and then being God and stayed away from people. He had seven sons and three daughters. He earned seven thousand sheep and three thousand dollars. He also had an intent. He wasn't like three sons celebration. When we celebrate sometimes on several days, you're like, you're gonna think about it. Yes, I think that's what you're saying. I think what you think one is the thing, and so I need to think why the thing is. I can make it on the mouth.

SPEAKER_11 8:09

Do not think that Then Elli First the terminant replied, If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can keep from speaking? Think how you have instructed many, how you have strengthened feeble hands, your words have supported those who stumbled, you have strengthened faltering knees, but now trouble comes to you and you are discouraged. It strikes you and you are dismayed. Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless weighs your hope? Consider now who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the uprights where were the uprights ever destroyed? As I have honored those who plough evil, and those who sow trouble reap it. At the breath of God they perish. At the blast of his anger, they are no more. The lions may roar and growl, yet their teeth of the great lions are broken. The lions perish for lack of prey, and the crop and the cups of the lioness are scattered. A word was secretly brought to me, my ears caught a whisper of it. Amid disquieting dreams in the night, when deep sleep falls on people, fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake. A spirit gilded past my face, and the hair of my body stood on end. It stopped, but I could not tell what it was. A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed voice. Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can even a strong man be more pure than his maker? If God places no trust in his servants, if he charges his angel with error, how many more those who live in the house of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed more readily than a moth? Between dawn and dust, they are broken to pieces. Unnoticed, they perish forever. Are not the cause of their tenth pull up? So why so that they die without wisdom?

SPEAKER_16 10:07

I know you can all purpose of yours anymore. You ask who is that, who is this, who is this here? I am angry with you.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

He also works uh for the Mullers um course. Some of you may uh have done that yourselves. But he's he's published two books and a PhD on Job. He really knows what he's talking about. Uh and those two things don't necessarily. He knows at least what was in his books. Um so, Phil, I'll just hand it over to you and enjoy everyone.

SPEAKER_10 12:54

Thank you. Thanks, Dan. Hi, everyone. I think the um the lesson for me is don't trust Tim Dobson. When he asked me to come and speak on this, I said, Yeah, you know, can you let me know what's good, you know, format and stuff. He said, I'll be about 25-30 people. A few thoughts about kind of how to read the book and structure and content. Oh, okay, thanks, Tim. Um, like Dan said, yeah, my name is Phil Thomas. Uh been in Bristol for 30-something years, came here as a student to study, studied zoology, then ended up working for Woody's back in the 90s, uh, and now I work for Muller's where I run a basic theology introduction course. Nice to see some of our past students here, some of the past students from our digital course as well. Um I'm married, got two kids, Will, who's 22, and Oliver, who's 19. We live in Brislington. Nice to see some of the St. Anne's Massive over there on the right. Uh little shout-out. Um and uh I think what one of the dangers about, you know, most of you don't know me from Adam. I've been introduced as an expert on the book of Job, which I suppose in one level I am. I have, you know, it was the subject of my PhD. I have been able to publish two books on it. But the danger is that you'll think, therefore, I know what I'm talking about, and I am right. And my one of my kind of fundamental convictions of Scripture is that the Word of God is living and active, and there is always more to get from it. Uh and I don't want you to sit there and think that just because I've said something, then it's right. It might be right, but it might not be. The fact that I've got a PhD doesn't mean that I have a greater access to the Spirit of God than any of you, Lot. In fact, it may mean that I'm blind to certain things that other people aren't. So I just want to kind of throw that out there as a caveat. Um I'd be interested maybe just in the kind of groups where you are at the moment, in twos or threes, just spend a couple of minutes talking together. And uh I want you to think about two things. How have you read or understood the book of Job? Have you heard it preached? And secondly, what is are there specific things you want to find out tonight? Are there specific things you want to get answered tonight? So is that okay just with the people around you? Have you read Job? Have you understood Job? Have you heard it preached? And is there anything that you want to get answered tonight? Okay? Go, you've got two minutes. Okay, if we can come back together then. So, does anyone want to take the plunge and just show, you know, have you heard or understood the book of Job? Have you heard it preached? How did you read it? Anyway, Ian. I haven't heard it preached, really.

SPEAKER_12 17:57

Okay. I how I read it, there's the first bit at the beginning there where you have the spiritual side of Satan and you.

SPEAKER_14 18:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_12 18:05

And then then there's this middle, massive middle bit where they give him bad advice. And it's almost like, how do I read that? Because all that they say is kind of like seems to be wrong. So I I almost like skip all that, and then then then you have to. How many ever after? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_10 18:24

Okay. Okay. So you've got a it's I suppose this is also a question, isn't it? The structure and how does it all hang together? Okay, great, thank you. Any other thoughts? Have you heard it preached or read, or how do you understand it?

SPEAKER_11 18:40

Um Job is not the guy that we kind of think he is, because like the the idea is like when you do the beginning and the end, it's like job like stuck to God, like um ride or die. But then like when you read the middle, it's kind of funny because they're insulting one another. But like what happens is that like Job is kind of wrestling with the idea of God. Sometimes like God's amazing, God's cruel, all this other stuff, so it's a lot more complex. Okay.

SPEAKER_10 19:07

Yeah? Yeah, there's definitely a lot of complexity, in it. Any other thoughts?

unknown 19:14

Yeah?

SPEAKER_08 19:36

Meaning less light, or like a less than draw themselves like too much light so it's probably why a lot of people die in a second.

SPEAKER_10 19:50

Yeah. Okay. So are you asking whether God's being irresponsible?

SPEAKER_08 19:55

I don't know.

SPEAKER_10 19:57

Uh I am, but I'm I'm trying to tease out.

SPEAKER_08 20:01

No, it's like a oscillation.

SPEAKER_10 20:05

Yeah. Anything else? From anyone? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Is he an actual person or is he a character? Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 20:21

Which ties in with this lady's question. If he's not, and it's a story, then perhaps all the killing is irrelevant. Perhaps it isn't.

SPEAKER_09 20:34

Yeah. Righteousness isn't rewarded, wickedness isn't punished, and faithful wrestling with God is encouraged.

SPEAKER_10 20:43

Yeah. Which are wrestle. Not in that sense, as we know. Any other uh thoughts on like how you've had it heard it preached or I think I've got a rather interesting beginning.

SPEAKER_04 21:02

I'm um I'm one of six girls, and my dad wrote a play for us when we were less than ten years old to act out within the family home on the story play. So it's an interesting introduction as a child. Yeah. Understands in the end and get to the main point of what suffering is.

SPEAKER_10 21:44

Yeah, and it's interesting to think what actually has Joe understood. What has been communicated? Because yeah. Okay, this is great stuff. So, I mean, there are some questions on there which I think people probably want to get touched. But are there any specific things that any of you have got where you think I really want to go away? No having asked this, even if I've not heard a proper answer.

SPEAKER_07 22:11

How much is it? I can't remember if it's a lot of questions, but it's really hard to tell the something easy to like see in the story of Job and like the other parts of the Old Testament and try to marry that up to a good bit of God that we uh we know and love. But then also see like you're not you know, yeah, you might get tempting the old people that we have.

SPEAKER_10 22:36

Okay, yeah, great question. Right. So it's all the relevance of contemporary shorter to write than contemporary. Yes, exactly. Well application is always good, isn't it? Okay, anything else? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Kind of how was Jane perfect in his integrity? And isn't it always convincing the prosperity gospel in that it's only the most he was the only person in the whole land who had perfect integrity and he was the wealthiest in the land. And that isn't really fit with my understanding. Okay. The Christian war.

SPEAKER_10 24:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_15 24:21

How the God would like us to come to that?

SPEAKER_10 24:24

Yeah, brilliant. Well, I'm down here. I've got room for probably two more, and I can't possibly get up and go down again. Uh so any two more. Anyone? Any takers? Going, going, right, I'm up. Too late. Okay, um, hopefully, what I'd thought we would cover, we will touch on most, if not all, of those, anyway. Like uh Dan said at the start, Job is, we think of it as a wisdom book. Now, in the Hebrew uh Old Testament, or in the Hebrew scriptures, our Old Testament, there is no separate category called wisdom, it's a category called the writings, and these are books which aren't the law and they're not the prophets. So you get Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Job, Song of Songs, but also things like Chronicles, Lamentations, and things. And the thing about ancient Near East wisdom, of which Job is very much a part, and the biblical wisdom books, although they're not a separate category, they do fall into this uh kind of ancient Near Eastern, which is the word people like me, or the terms that people terms people like me use to describe biblical times, in biblical places, ancient Near Eastern. There was this strong wisdom tradition in Babylon, in Assyria, and in Egypt. And wisdom in those cultures, and the scriptural wisdom is very much of a piece with this, holds that wisdom is definitely a practical thing, it's not a theoretical thing. Wisdom is very much about how to live, it's not just about acquiring knowledge. And I think straight away that puts the scriptural wisdom material in quite stark contrast to contemporary society. We live in a world, don't we? And my kids would laugh at me and say this is because I'm old that I'm saying this, uh, where we we want things instantly, we want the instant hit, we want the instant delivery. Uh and scriptural wisdom, ancient Near Eastern wisdom, does not deliver an instant hit. If you've come tonight thinking this speaker, whoever he is, is going to tell me what the book of Job is about and what its message is, you are going to be disappointed because I'm not going to do that because I don't think that's the way scriptural wisdom works. Scriptural wisdom is about chewing stuff, wrestling with it. It's about thinking and thinking and thinking, living with it for a long time, and realizing that perhaps this bit maybe sheds a light on this bit, and this bit perhaps as we chew it over, is kind of releasing some sense of uh meaning which is possibly connected to what it says over here. It doesn't kind of yield its uh its meaning easily. It's like again, the examples I use just show how out of touch with reality I am. Do any of you read Russian 19th century novels, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky? Yes, a few people do. I mean, those books do not yield an instant hit, do they? But they are incredibly good books, yeah? Or are they tedious? You know, and for most of us, we we're not used to having to wrestle and to think kind of deeply and chew stuff over in the way that scriptural wisdom encourages us to. So when we approach not just the book of Job, but Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Psalms, we need to not come thinking, right, I can take some sort of essential meaning, some sort of bolt-on thing which I can put onto my life and I can carry on in the same way as before, just having this wisdom. Wisdom is not something that you acquire as a discrete thing scripturally, it is something that you can always grow into and have more of. And the more wisdom you have, the more you can use that wisdom to uncover the wisdom that scripture has for us. So even when you've been studying the book of Job for a long time, you know that there is always more to get from it. And the same goes with Ecclesiastes and the other books. And therefore, as I said, we shouldn't look for an answer to the question of suffering. Job is not about why do righteous people suffer. Because Job, I think, is a unique character. He is unique in various different ways. First of all, he's unique in the fact that he was blameless and upright. And chapter one emphasizes again and again Job as blameless and upright. He is a sort of person who seems too good to be true. He's unusual. He's exaggerated in his uprightness and blamelessness. He's exaggerated in his wealth, the wealthiest, the greatest of all the people of the East, and then it enumerates all his livestock and things. Job is unique, I think, in the exaggerated nature of the scale of the tragedies that befall him. And the lady who was reading chapter one, you kind of get a sense of that. As this one was still speaking, another servant came and said, Oh, this happened, and as they were still speaking, someone else came and said, and as he was still speaking, a fourth servant came and said, There is this sort of domino effect, bang, bang, bang, bang. The suffering just compounds, piles on it in on itself. And that it's a sort of heightened thing. I think Job is also unusual in that we know the cause of his tragedies, in that there was a wager between God and Satan. Now, the observant of monks, you will notice that I put Satan in inverted commas there. As Christians, we read Satan and we think devil, personal embodiment of evil. I think generally. Now, it's the case that people who know biblical languages should never kind of flaw flount that knowledge because it makes other people feel like, well, I don't feel like they um you know kind of feel bad that they don't know this stuff. But sometimes knowing biblical languages unveils stuff and helps us to see things which our translations sometimes miss. So in the Hebrew, the word translated as Satan is this, hassatan. It's a double s. And this ha in Hebrew means the. So what we've got here is not Satan with a capital S, but the Satan. And this term hassatan appears several times in the Old Testament. Sometimes it's used of people, sometimes it's used of angels, sometimes it's used of animals, uh, sometimes it's used of spiritual beings. And basically it means adversary or prosecutor or tester. And so what we have in the book of Job, I think, is less God and Satan sitting down and having this wager, and more within uh, again, the lady who read it, you may have, uh if you were following along, uh, one day the sons of God came into the Lord's presence. The Bene Elohim came into the Lord's presence. The kind of spiritual court, the heavenly court. Do any of you listen to the work of Michael Eisner, podcast by Michael Eisner? No? Someone mentioned him to me and said they listened to him, so I thought other people might do. Doesn't matter. But he talks a little bit about this idea of the heavenly court. And in the Old Testament, there is this sense that there is this multitude of spiritual beings that come in and out of the Lord's presence. Psalm 82 uh references the same sort of thing. And so you have this figure, the Satan, who is part of this heavenly court. He is one of the sons of God. And perhaps he is this has this function of an adversary or a prosecutor, and it's it's it's less that the Satan is the person embodiment of evil, and more that they are playing a role, testing this guy Job, is he really, or he seems to be? And his the Satan's question is does j does Job fear God for nothing? You've hedged him in, you've given him all this wealth. Of course he's gonna be faithful. And this is where Tim's question, I think. Is it your question about the prosperity gospel kind of comes in? We seem to have this guy who's in it for what he can get out of it, and for as long as God gives him good stuff, of course he's gonna follow God. What's going on there? So it's a sort of the whole thing, therefore, is reframed, the whole story of Job. It's this probing of Job's integrity. Is Job the sort of person who will continue to hold fast and faithful to God even when everything is taken from him? It's an uncomfortable question, and it should be uncomfortable, because it's uncomfortable for us as well to think actually, it's easy for us to serve God and to follow him when things are going well. But when things look really bleak, do we still hang in there? So, Job is unusual in that we know that there is this kind of wager going on. Now, that doesn't mean that every time bad things happen to us or we experience suffering or tragedies happen in the world, that there is a similar thing going on. I don't think we can read the book of Job and say this that is true for this person is true for all people at all times. This is a kind of test case. And Job, lastly, is unique and unusual, I think, in that he receives a theophany at the end of the book. The Lord speaks to him out of the whirlwind and addresses him directly. And I suspect that for most of us who've experienced tragedy or suffering or calamity, and I'm sure many of us in this room have, we have not received a theophany in the same way that God addresses us directly and speaks to us. So I think Job is a kind of unique figure. He's presented not as an everyman, but this is there's something unusual about this person. And it's it's an exploration of um of how he responds to all this kind of stuff. I should have said at the start, do feel free to interject and ask questions, or ask me to repeat something if you don't understand what I'm saying. That's absolutely fine. Also, if I go too quick.

SPEAKER_12 34:42

Um if Job is an actual partner with the parable.

SPEAKER_10 34:47

That's the next thing I'm coming on to. Sometimes we can get, as evangelicals, I'm assuming making an assumption here that we're all evangelicals, which may or may not be the case, but um, we can sometimes get hung up on the kind of history thing. Was Job a real person? That is a very good question. And there is no evidence either way. Uh a scholar called John Walton said that we gain nothing by saying he wasn't, we lose nothing by saying that he was. And Ezekiel chapter 14 speaks about uh Noah, Daniel, and Job as examples of righteousness. So Ezekiel writing in the time of the exile, probably. Uh Job was well known then. Uh the language of the book of Job is interesting. So the book of Job starts uh once there was a man who lived in the land of us, his name was Job. And that start, once there was a dot dot dot. It's a little bit like if someone was to present you with a story and it began once upon a time. You know straight away that you're in the realm of at the very least an educational story, and the his the historicity, the factual truthfulness of the story that begins once upon a time is irrelevant. There's a message here for us. And in 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan says to David, once there were two men, and the Hebrew language is using the same sort of idioms, and that's a parable that Nathan tells David to point out David's sinfulness to him. So some people read Job and say, Oh, well, this indicates, therefore, that Job is designed more as a sort of parable type thing. Because of the exaggerated nature of his wealth and the suffering, this, that, and the other, uh, it's a sort of parable type thing. And that can sometimes make us uneasy. If it's a parable, it doesn't mean it's not true. But I think sometimes we can fall into a trap of thinking that only something that is true can contain truth. And I don't think that's the case. I think fiction books that I read, films that I watch, music that I listen to can convey and contain truth without being literally, historically, factually true. So I would say the book of Job contains truth. Whether or not it really happened, I don't know. And actually, how do we, you know, the narrator of the book of Job is telling us what went on in the divine court with these spiritual beings talking to one another? There is, you know, well, at the very least, the human person is not going to have access to that in a kind of direct sense. How does this person who wrote the book know what Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar and Elihu and Job were saying in their dialogues? I think, you know, it's it's it's a good question, but I think sometimes the question of Job's historical truthfulness or historical factuality can sometimes be a sort of cul de sac that takes us off somewhere and doesn't really get us very far. I would say the book of Job contains truth. Um I think it's, you know, I'll go a bit further. I think it's entirely likely that there is a kernel of truth in it somewhere that there was a very wealthy person and tragedy befell him. But I think that kind of kernel of historical truth has perhaps been picked up on and developed and turned into this incredible, truthful book for us. How should we go about reading it? Your experience of having to act out the play is really interesting because one great way of reading a book is in a group. Job is long, Job is repetitive, 42 chapters. It's very easy to get bogged down, as Ian said. You know, you start with the program, you get bogged down in the dialogues, and then you skip to the end. And actually, the book of Job, like lots of scripture, it doesn't lend itself to our kind of evangelical quiet time chunks because we get confused. Who's this person speaking? Uh are they going to be telling me something helpful or something unhelpful? Uh with nine people, you can read the book of Job. You need someone to be the narrator, Job, Job's wife, God, be humble doing that, the Satan, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu. Those are all the characters you need. And then you can read the book of Job together in a group. And that's really important to do and really interesting to do because you notice certain connections and themes between the different speakers. And it gives you a chance to kind of interrogate the speakers. When we read the book of Job, we tend to assume that what Job says must be right, because we know that in chapter 42, God says to Eliphaz, You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So we think, okay, so Job is right, and everyone else is wrong. Actually, it's a lot more complicated than that. Job is wrong a lot of the time as well, and his friends are right quite a lot of the time. They're just not right in the way they need to be right. And this kind of ties in with what I said about wisdom being something that we need to chew over. It's okay for us to interrogate the different speakers. It's okay for us to think, well, what's going on here? And it's really interesting that the middle section of Job, from chapter three to the end of chapter 41, is all poetry. The narrator kind of absents him or herself, and we are left with poetry. There is no no there is no narratival, narratorial. The narrator's voice is not there to guide us and say, this person is saying something good, and now this person said something bad, and this person who had said something good before is no longer good. We are just left in the realm of poetry, and we have to navigate through it ourselves. And we're left in the realm of poetry, and because poetry is the vehicle for communicating personal feelings and emotions in a way which is incredibly powerful. And as we read it, particularly if you read it in a growth in a group, you can kind of get into that kind of poetic element. And you can think, well, what do I like about this? What do I not like about it? And as you read it, you'll notice in the group, in a reading in a group, that Job uses an awful lot of metaphorical language. So it's um jumped ahead of myself, but that's fine. He used the simile like, or the word like, which starts as a simile, Job uses 51 times. By contrast, his comforters, Eliphaz uses it eight times, Zophar uses it four times, Bildad doesn't use it at all. Job's language is stretching and reaching, this use of metaphorical imagery. I'm like this, I'm like that, I'm like the other. He's he's reaching for something to try and describe how he's feeling. And his friends, his comforters, they kind of can't get it. And they keep trying to pull him back out of the realm of metaphor. When God speaks again, there is this kind of avalanche of metaphorical language, which I think is really interesting. So read Job in a group, get nine people, read it through, and you'll be amazed at what comes out. Or alternatively, try reading it yourself in one sitting, it should take about 45 minutes if you're lucky. Um you read Job, listen for the intertextual connections. Scripture is not just a bunch of things that have come together. Scripture is 66 books which are in conversation with one another. And the book of Job is in conversation with various other books. One writer, John Hartley, says that it has important connections with Proverbs, Psalms, Lamentations, and Isaiah. And in the Hebrew scriptures, it follows the book of Psalms, and on two places it picks up on the language of the Psalms in really interesting ways. So, what I'd like you to do is just put a few minutes in your groups, have a look at Psalm 8 and Job chapter 7. Uh, what verses? 17 to 21, or have a look at Psalm 139. You don't need to read the whole psalm, because both these Psalms are pretty well known. And have a look at Job chapter 10, 8 to 9. I think the book of Job is directly engaging with Psalms in these two places. Have a look at one or the other and think, well, what's what's Job, what's the writer of Job doing? Why are they engaging with the Psalms in this way? And how is how is Job engaging with the Psalms? Is there a different slant that he's putting on it or not? Does that make sense? No one says no, so that's good. Okay, I'll give you a few minutes to to do that. Um anyone got any reflections on either the Psalm eight and Job seven or the Psalm 139 and Job ten? Yeah, I'd say the emphasis is not slightly different, the emphasis is very different, isn't it? It's a very Job sees sort of God's superintending consideration of humanity as a sort of deeply disturbing thing. It's not the comforting thing that Psalm A suggests. You put your hand up as well.

SPEAKER_11 44:46

I was thinking more like, is it is Psalms more the response to Job? Because like the way you prayed the question was like Job was like, the way I see it is like the way Psalms was the Psalms were written was like as a response to Job's thing, not the other way around. Okay. So because like Job was the first book in the Bible, kind of thing. And like Psalms was written in David's time. But basically it was Psalms 139, um, it was just based like the verse that stood up was like you made me my mother's womb. Yeah. Then this short thing was um you created me, but then you've taken me to dust. So I saw like Psalms is more like um it's like a uh Job's kind of critiquing God's almighty power when it comes to creation, but then Psalms like kind of responding to that by saying, uh that's like this is the fear, like this is the fear of the Lord, he's he's God Almighty. That's kind of what I guess.

SPEAKER_10 45:35

Yeah. Yeah, interesting. Great, thank you. Any other reflections?

SPEAKER_07 45:45

It's very crazy. It does go on to a bit where it's like a bit like you know, a lot of people where it's a bit in general somebody wants to take the call and make that eight other people and it's like eight other people in the last year.

SPEAKER_10 46:12

Thank you. Any other reflections? I'm not gonna tell you what what you know what's going on here, because I've got no idea. I think it's really fascinating, yeah. Yeah, brilliant. Yeah, I mean, I think you know, when scripture engages with in conversation with itself, and I think these links are deliberate, and it's an interesting question whether Psalms predate Job, does Job predate the Psalms, who's riffing off who? But actually, the thing about intertextual intertextuality is that seeing the connection, it causes us to read both passages in a slightly different light. And Job is full of these intertextual connections with different books of the Bible, and your connection to Jeremiah is really fascinating, and then back to Genesis. What's going on here? Scripture is not, like I said, it's not just a load of things that have just been bunged together. There is this ongoing kind of interconnectedness between all of the books. And given that we believe that God is the ultimate author, capital A, behind it all, then we should expect that to be the case, shouldn't we? That God has given us these books as a whole, because these books together, in conversation, as this choir, are able to kind of lead us and guide us. So when you read Job, kind of look out, be alert for these intertextual connections. Don't think, oh, you know, this is just me reading something into it, because maybe actually you're seeing something really important. Right, let's have a think about the structure of Job. It's good to get people to move around. Can I have 14 people to come up and vol just hold a piece of paper for me? That's all you need to do. I shall not embarrass you in any further way. No? The danger is if people don't come up, I'm gonna pick on the people whose names I know. Right. I know two people's names. Right, I've got three. So, Andy, if you start right down the far end, Lara, right. I need another eleven.

SPEAKER_12 48:19

You go next one.

SPEAKER_10 48:22

Right. This is it.

SPEAKER_12 48:29

I do indeed, yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_10 48:38

It's two pieces, isn't it? I need two more. One more. One more. No? Oh yes, one more.

unknown 48:53

No. One more.

SPEAKER_10 49:02

Thank you. Okay. So Joe is a confusing book structurally, because it's so long, but actually there is this logic. And I even colour coded all this. The amount of effort. So, prologue and epilogue, pale blue, because they are prose. This is the narrator telling us what was going on at the start, how it all began, and what went on at the end. So those are the prose bits of the book. Everything else, from Job's curse in chapter 3 to um Job chapter 42, verse 6, is poetry. Interesting thing. And so we have the prologue, it sets the scene, tells us what's going on. Then chapter 3 kind of stands on its own. Job's curse. Job is cursing the day he was born, and saying, Be better off if I haven't been born. Why is God doing all this stuff? My life's terrible, why, why, why? And then we move into this interesting bit from chapter 4 to chapter 2. Yeah, to about here, chapter 27, just before the hymn to wisdom. And this is what's known as the dialogues. And you will notice that the dialogues have kind of three cycles. So Eliphaz starts. Chapters 4 and 5. Job responds to Eliphaz, Bildad has a go, Job responds to Bildad, Zophar has a go, Job responds to Zophar. Back we go to Eliphaz, who has another go, chapter 15. Job replies, Bildad, Job, Zophar, and back again for number three, our third cycle. Chapter 22, Eliphaz. Then Job, then Bildad goes, but we notice we get to chapter 25 in our Bible 3D. That Job 25 is only six verses. This is very short. Then Job has two chapters to respond to these six verses. That's a bit weird. What's going on? Then Zophar doesn't even get a third go. Job doesn't get a chance to respond to Zophar at all. So you have this interesting situation where we seem to be in this kind of neat cycle. First cycle, Ediphas Job, Buildard Job, Zophar Jobe. Second cycle, the same. Then the third cycle, it collapses. What's going on? Why does it collapse? Well, say some commentators, this is a clear sign that the text of Job we got is corrupt, and someone's made a mistake and mislabeled things. So we kind of play around and relabel it to make it say what we think it should say. And how many of us read the Bible like that? An or for one of us. I think the fact that it breaks down is profoundly important. For me, form and content are inextricable. Job is 42 chapters because it takes 42 chapters for God to communicate what he wants to communicate through Job. And so the structure of the book is going to be instrumental in conveying the book's meaning. If we've read the middle chapters and not given up on them, like Ian admitted to doing at the start, chapter confessed such a thing, then we will have realized that actually these dialogues are going nowhere. Because Eliphaz, BuildAd, and Zophar are saying the same sort of things. We don't really get three distinct voices making different arguments. Eliphaz is a little bit more circumspect and cautious. Buildad is a bit more direct. Zophar is a bit harsher. Sorry, I don't fight. But essentially they are saying the same thing, which is Joey, you cannot say you're innocent. You must have done something for God to be treating you like this. And they've reached an impasse. The argument is going nowhere. It is stuck. It is disintegrating. And the third cycle disintegrates. There is just nowhere more for this help to go. Then we get the hymn to wisdom, chapter 28. A weird part of the book. Who is speaking? Is it Job? Is it the narrator? Is it one of the comforters? We have absolutely no idea. Different people have different views on it. Then after that, we have Job's kind of final summary, three chapters. He reflects back on his previous life. He talks about how sinless he's been, emphasizing that uprightness and blamelessness again. And then chapter 31, verse 30, the words of Job are ended. Then we get this weird thing, Elihu, whose name literally means he is my God. Elihu comes in and says, ah, you know, I've got the spirit. And I think the spirit is emphasizing to me certain things. Because I'm a spiritual person and the spirit has led me. Elihu is our charismatic figure and believes that he has spiritual insight which is going to solve everything. He says, You know, I've waited my turn, and these oldies have had their go and they've got nowhere. Well, that maybe it's my chance. Then, after Elihu, to which Job doesn't respond to Elihu at all, we get chapter 38, verse 1. Who is this, says the Lord, darkens my knowledge without counsel? Does that mean Elihu? Does that mean Job? Does that mean Zophar, Bildad, and Eliphaz? Yes, probably. All the previous speakers are sort of caught under that judgment. And we have these two divine speeches where the Lord speaks out of the whirlwind. Not God, but the Lord, the covenant name for Yahweh is speaking, which is interesting. And after each of the divine speeches, Job says a little bit and essentially says the same thing, which is whoops, I've spoken slightly presumptuously, I've spoken without knowledge. And then in chapter 42, verse 6, Job says, I repent in dust and ashes. And it's that's the moment at which the poetry breaks off, the prose comes back in and says, Okay, this is how it all gets wrapped up. And that is essentially the structure of the book of Jones. Well done to my volunteers. You can go and sit down now. Or you can keep them as a nice souvenir if you like. Great. And so there is this kind of clear structure going on, but yeah. It is it is a you know a slightly tricky book, anyway. Time is pressing on. Okay. Possible avenues to explore when we think about the book of Job. Firstly, the comforters. Someone asked about the comforters. The general tendency of commentaries is to say comforters were a complete waste of space. If only they'd stayed silent with Job for seven, like they did at the start for seven days in, everything would have been okay. And actually, I'm not convinced that I that that is right. I think when we are faced with inarticulate suffering and calamity, to stay silent is to cede the last word to that calamity, isn't it? It's to allow the kind of nothingness, the deathliness of a situation that has impinged upon someone's life in an intolerable way, to go unchecked and unanswered. And I think, therefore, the comforters did a particularly brave thing in having a go. And when the readings were taking place at the start, you may have noticed the first thing, the first comforter Eliphaz says, chapter 4, verse 2, if someone ventures a word with you, will you be offended? But who can keep from speaking? He knows that he's treading on delicate ground, onto thin ice. He knows that he is likely to say something completely unhelpful and wrong, but he says, who can keep silent? In the face of this tragedy, I can't just do nothing, I can't say nothing. Even at the risk of saying the wrong thing, I am going to speak. And I think there is something profoundly brave and to be applauded in that. And uh there were certain things about him and about his life that kind of didn't make sense. But once that diagnosis came, uh it kind of made a lot of sense for my wife and me. And um, it was kind of very interesting the way people in the church community responded. And so a lot of people said the wrong thing, but actually that didn't hurt us because we knew that they were driven by a compassionate need to they knew that they wanted to try and say something that would comfort and reassure us, and that was more meaningful to us than if they'd stayed silent for fear of doing the wrong thing. Someone asked the question, how can we be comforters today? I think part of what we do by being comforters today is we take the risk of saying something, knowing that probably what we say is not going to be adequate, but it but knowing that actually we have to say something because we cannot let this tragedy of whatever it is kind of go unanswered. The comforters were particularly brave. Yes, they got cross with Job, but actually they were they were making a kind of brave step at the start, I think. And the comforters, um, as I said, in chapter 42, when Job's not Job, God says that Eliphaz and the Comforters have not spoken of me what is right. So we think, oh right, so they're wrong. Job is right and they are wrong. Actually, the comforters said a lot of things that were right. They talk about God's hidden knowledge. Chapter 5, verse 9, Eliphaz says, God performs wonders that cannot be fathomed. And chapter 38, the first divine speech, God is basically enumerating and describing these wonders that he performs that cannot be fathomed. So they were right that God does have a hidden knowledge. They are right about God's sovereignty. Zophar in chapter 11, verse 8 says that God's ways are deeper than the depths below. So what can you know? And again, the divine speeches, chapter 38 and 39, show that God's ways are deeper than the depths below. He knows about ostriches, he knows about wild oxes, he knows about hail and snow and watering a land where no person lives. God is sovereign in all these ways. He knows things that Job has no idea about. So they were right in that. They were right that God's wisdom is seen in creation. Eliphaz says in chapter 5, verse 10 that rain is one of the marvellous things that God does. And sure enough, chapter 38, verses 25 to 28 talks about God watering a land where no person lives, keeping the grassland alive. And again, they challenge Job's arrogance. Eliphaz says, Were you brought forth before the hills, Job? And this is very similar to God's question in chapter 38, verse 4. Where were you when I did this? Where were you when I did that? And I think they were not incorrect, so much as their perception and their understanding was incomplete. They thought that God had to operate in a certain way, and that's where their error lay. Job also thought that God had to operate in a certain way, and that's where his error lay. So why is it that they spoke wrongly, but Job spoke rightly? I think partly as well is that the comforters spoke to Job about God. They are not recorded as speaking to God about Job. So how do we comfort? Yes, we take a risk in saying things to people, but also we make sure that we talk to God about the Jobs that we're trying to comfort. We bring people to God in prayer. We don't just tell them what to do or tell them why things have happened or try and comfort them. Actually, we bring them to God. Another possible avenue to explore. Chapter 42, verse 6. Job repents. Now, Hebrew has few words, and each word can have many different meanings. English has lots of words, and most of our words have very specific meanings. The Hebrew word translated as repent, Hebrew word nicham, has at least five possible meanings in Hebrew, and those meanings can be shaded into various different options for us trying to work at what Job does in chapter 42, verse 6. Some people say Job repented. Okay, that's the translation most of us probably have. But what is Job repenting of? If Job is repenting, what is the sin that he's repenting of? Actually, all his speeches have been about he is blameless and upright, as the prologue says, that he has done nothing to deserve this. So what is he repenting of? Does repent seem to fit? Some people think so, some people don't. Some people say that actually this word should be translated changing a course of action. Job says, okay, right, I'm going to stop my lamenting. I'm going to change my approach here. Some people say that it should be translated recant. Job's saying, okay, I get it, I accept that I'm not innocent. Although I'm being described as blameless and upright by the prologue and by God in the prologue, actually there is sin in my life, and I am recanting my claims to innocence and taking it back. Some people say, fourthly, that Job is changing his mind. He's revising his opinion. Some people say he's accepting consolation, he's saying, I'm going to put the sad past behind me, I'm going to stop dwelling in sorrow. Other people say it's a more kind of resigned moving on. Job is realizing he's never going to get a straight answer out of God, so he might as well just shut up and get on with his life. God doesn't seem to care, so I just need to kind of move on. And some people, me as well, included, not just me, think that Job's repentance means, okay, I get it. Something has been communicated to me, and that is causing me to change my behaviour. And I find it really interesting that God speaks, and we have these divine speeches. First speech, Job's like, okay, I spoke without knowledge. Second speech, Job says, okay, I spoke without knowledge, and I'm going to repent. Something is communicated to Job in the divine speeches, something about creation, something about wonder, something about the majesty of God's presence and self. And people like me like to spend time thinking about questions like where do I put my pens? There. How do we know stuff? What's going on when we know something? And there are two words in English which I think are quite helpful. Comprehend and apprehend. And both of them, in a sense, mean we know something. We've comprehended something, we've apprehended something. If we comprehend something, this has connotations to me of a rational, uh reasoned argument, something objective, something that we can explain. It's knowledge from above. Okay, I understand the workings of the engine because I see that bit goes there, disconnects to that, that goes there. It's a sort of overview, kind of detailed understanding of the workings and the mechanisms. We can write out how it all works if we comprehend something. But also some things we apprehend. And I think when we apprehend stuff, it's much more to do with heart. It's subjective, it's hard to explain. I've been married 25 years. Do I comprehend why Liz loves me? No. Do I apprehend her love for me? Totally. I cannot explain it. I cannot take a position of superiority over her and her love for me and say, okay, well, this is why she loves me, because I do this and this and this and this and blah blah blah blah blah blah bang. It's all gone. Actually, it's this sort of affective, we we know it in our hearts, but we can't always explain it. Do you see the distinction I'm trying to draw? And I think this is partly what's going on in the divine speech. God reveals himself, the Lord unveils stuff to Job. Look at the eagle, where's the hell? Here's an ostrich, look, a hippo, a crocodile, blah! Amazing. And in Psalm 73, verses 16 to 17, the psalmist Asaph, in this case, has been talking about his confusion as to why the rich prosper and righteous people don't. And he says, When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply. Entered the sanctuary of God, then I understood their final destiny. The psalmist there is not talking about comprehending, I don't think, as much as apprehending. And I think a similar sort of thing is going on with Job. God has spoken to him and showed him things in his creation, and Job apprehends something about life. And I think it's interesting, kind of riffing on this, how many non-religious memoirs there are written by people who talk about how experiencing, in their terms, nature, in our terms, creation, helps them to deal with grief and trauma and things like that. If any of you have read H's for Hawk or The Wild Other or To Travel Hopefully, these are books which talk about how being out in creation, engaging with created beings, wild beings, brings healing and wholeness in a way that they apprehend, but they don't necessarily comprehend. So what's going on? I think Job is saying, okay, I get it, I've apprehended something, and I'm going to live differently in the light of this. How does Job live differently? Run out of paper, you'll never know. There is a Hebrew word that occurs quite a lot in the Job. And the word is Hinam, and it basically means for nothing, for naught, for no good reason. So in chapter 1, verse 9, the Satan says to God, Does Job fear the Lord? Hinam? Does he fear you for no reason? In chapter 2, verse 3, God says to the Satan, Because of your interfering, I've destroyed this chapter, Job, Henam, for no good reason. In chapter 9, verse 17, Job says to God, You've wounded me, Hinam, for no good reason. And then the term kind of drops out, but I think the sense of it kind of stays. Chapter 38, verses 25 to 27, and I don't, I've it's about the third time I've mentioned these verses, I find them absolutely fascinating. Talks about God watering a land where no human lives. Why is he doing that? He does it for no good reason humanly. He does it for his own reasons. God's reasons are hidden, but they are there. There is a sort of gratuity to God's reasons. If I were to send rain to this person to this place, to this area, even though humans benefit from it not at all, then I'm going to do that. Chapter 39, the ostrich. It's depicted in chapter 39 as this sort of ridiculous creature, which in many ways it is. I studied zoology, I should know. It appears dafter humans, it exists for no good reason. It exists Hinam. But actually, God has got a place for it in his creation. And then chapters 40 and 41, we have Bearmoth and Leviathan. Hippo-ish and crocodile ish, but somehow more so. They're terrifying creatures, useless to humans, dangerous. They appear to be alien invaders, other in creation. But God is their creator. God rules over them. Again, humanly speaking, they seem to exist for no good reason. They seem to exist Hinam. But God has a reason for their existence. And I think what part of what Job has apprehended is the importance of Hinam in God's kind of order. That God does things for no good reason that makes sense to us as humans that we can comprehend. And actually, if we say we have to understand how God and why God does things, then we have got it profoundly wrong. God does things because God is free and God can do whatever he wants. And I think Job gets something of that. And a chap who has read the chapter 42 struggled very well with Job's daughter's names, which are bizarre. Kezia, Keren Hapuk, and um that's it, not a particularly difficult name. Karen Hapuck is the one that doesn't seem to kind of feature much in top names for girls. But Job gives these daughters sort of ornate and extravagant names. And then he says, Job gives them an inheritance along with their brothers. This flies in the face of Torah. Job is doing something profoundly radical. Why is he doing it? Well, why the heck not? Why in the heck shouldn't I give these children amazing names? Why shouldn't I give them an inheritance along with their brothers? Why shouldn't I live differently in the world? And I think Job's encounter with God has revealed him the sheer gratuity, the recklessness of God's extravagance in creation. God delights in it all, in Bermouth, Leviathan, ostriches, the hail, the snow, and all of this kind of stuff. He's unconcerned with human usefulness or utility, or these things, usefulness or utility to humans. He does it because he enjoys it, he loves it. And I think Job gets something of that. Job is wildly, abundantly extravagant in response to his encounter with a God who is wildly and abundantly extravagant in his grace and his goodness. And you know, I'm very well aware that by the time we get to chapter 42, we have probably forgotten everything in chapter 1. But in chapter 1, there is this clear list of Job's wealth. Sheep, cattle, other stuff, servants. And then in chapter 42, you get this exact doubling of everything except one thing: no servants or slaves in the epilogue. I find that really interesting, and I think it's meaningful. In a book where everything else is so exactly doubled and exactly mirrored, you have this one incongruity. I make no claim to be right in this, but to me, that speaks of Job thinking, actually, I've got something. Why don't I buck the system and live differently compared to the wealthy men in my ear by not having slaves, by not having servants who lord it over me, or whom I lord over. And I think in chapter 1, verse 5, we see a slight picture of Job as a micromanager. He part of his behaviour was when the feast days had run their course after his sons had eaten one another's houses, Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, It may be that my children have sinned and curse God in their hearts. Is this what Job always did? To me, there's an element there of micromanaging. I'm a bit scared that perhaps they've done something wrong and everything's going to go to pot. And then at the end we have this picture of Job who is extravagant. And we shouldn't deny the importance of. You've got this man within the book, you know, regardless of whether it's a story or true, historically. You've got this person whose children have been wiped out. And then he takes the risk of fathering more children, knowing that he can't look after them and make sure that their lives are fine. He's tried that and it didn't work. He's not scared by the fact that God doesn't conform to his expectations. He's not scared by the fact that God does stuff Hinam. He thinks actually it's still worth the risk. Because, yeah, God's amazing. And then lastly, Job thinks that God owes him something and he doesn't get, and he doesn't deserve what he gets. The comforters think Job is getting what he deserves from God. And as I said earlier, I think both are wrong. And they're wrong in the same way. Their view of God is too small, it's too contractual, it's too transactional. Job is saying, I haven't sinned, God's punishing me as if I had sinned, therefore there's something wrong. The comforters are saying, God's punishing you as if you'd sinned, therefore you must have sinned. It's this transactional, contractual idea of a relationship with God that if I do the right things, God will bless me, and if I do the wrong things, God will smite me. Are any of you familiar with the Far Side cartoons by Gary Larson? Yeah? There's this really funny one of um a computer screen, and there's a man walking along, and there's a piano hanging on a rope above him, and then you've got God, and his fingers hovering over a button which says smite written on it. And the caption is God is computer. But I think lots of us we actually live in that kind of world. We think that God is just waiting for us to do something wrong, and then he's going to get us. And it's really frightening how deep this goes. Back in the autumn, I was in hospital to have an operation on my one of my eyes, it was a kind of transplant operation, not a whole eye transplant, obviously. Um they they took out the inner layer of cells of one of my corneas and they replaced it with another layer of cells, and they injected an air bubble which kind of pressed it up, and I had to lie flat on my back for a couple of hours while the graft took. So I went in on the Monday and had the operation on the Monday, and uh by Wednesday that graft had come off, and they tried again. Uh and I have been a Christian for 40-something years. I've been teaching theology for 20-something years, and what terrified me was how easily I slipped back into a contractual mode, thinking, right, is there something I've not confessed and repented of? That if I can just find it and get it right, then this operation will go okay. I had totally slipped into this comforters in Job way of thinking, that things aren't going right because God is punishing me for something, and I just need to find what it is. But God is gloriously free, God is unbeholden to human determinations in the way that he has to act or treat us. Everything is gift, and I think that's what Job gets. Job understands that the whole thing is gratuity, God is gracious, it is all gift. And God, and because it's gift, God can give it, God can choose not to give it, it doesn't matter. God is still good, and he gives us good things. And if he doesn't give us good things, he's still good. And this is what sticks with me. I started my PhD in about 2015. So I've been thinking about the book of Job for nine years, and what sticks with me from it is the amazing grace of God, so much bigger and more wonderful than my mind can compute. The grace of God is something for me to delight in, something for me to jump into. It's not something for me to be fearful of. And I think that's what Job speaks to me. How do we suffer well? Dan said, you know, that's part of what Job is doing. Actually, we suffer well by thinking God is not something to be scared of. We just need to accept that whatever comes our way, this is gift, and God is there with us, and God will help us through it. And I know that sounds trite, and partly me talking about will and partly me talking about my eyes is to kind of hold up my suffering credentials. I haven't suffered in the way that many people have suffered, but lots of people look at our lives and think, gosh, we've had a lot to deal with. And that may or may not be true, but actually, in it all, God has been great, and God has been wonderful and gloriously gracious in his wonderful extravagance. And I would encourage you to read, Job, to really kind of wrestle with it, to stick with it, to read it again and again and again, and kind of live in it and dwell in it, imbibe it, swim in it, and let that gloriously free, gracious, gratuitous God in his extravagance kind of roll over you so that it really carries you along. Because that's what it's all about, really, I think. Okay, I think we have some time for questions.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:10

We do have five minutes for some questions. I assume no one has any because explained everything. But if anyone's got any questions, yeah, should we start here? Um, do you have a thing in um yeah, we've got five minutes? We will try and finish by quarter past, but if you do need to leave, please feel free to do so.

SPEAKER_11 1:18:28

Yeah, uh, what's the narrative purpose of the hint of wisdom that pops up in the middle? And yeah, like does does it change the thing? Do people get wiser after it? Or yeah?

SPEAKER_10 1:18:40

No, I don't think people get wise after it. Um partly it foreshadows God's speeches in certain ways. And I think one of the key things it does. So where then can wisdom be found? Verse 20. And then verse 23, God understands the way to it, he knows its place, he looks to the ends of the earth, sees everything under the heaven. Um then again talks about wind and rain and weather and stuff. So I think what it's I think what it's doing is saying, we've had these dialogues and they've broken down. Actually, if we're looking for wisdom there, we're not gonna get it. God's uh perspective, God's interjection is what brings wisdom, is what's gonna lead people out of this kind of um this kind of circular argument that they're stuck in. So I think it's it's almost I'd you know, if you if I had to um say, then I'd say it's probably a narrator interjecting and saying, look, actually, only God knows what wisdom is. Uh, you know, it's my little tip. And then the narrator ducks out, we get Job again, 29 to 31, then we get Elihu, but we already know actually wisdom's not going to be here because we've already been told God's the one who's gonna give wisdom. So I think it's a hint to us as readers, don't give up on this and think we're not getting anywhere. We are going somewhere and God will reveal where we're going. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_12 1:20:18

Any other questions? Yes. What's that reference made about the Yahweh in there?

SPEAKER_10 1:20:25

Okay, yeah, so chapter 38, verse 1, the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind. And um in and yeah, so it's interesting there that it's um it's the the covenant name of God. So some people have debated about Job. Is he an Israelite, is he not an Israelite? He comes from the land of us, where's us? It's it's a sort of nowhere place, it's a made-up place, probably. Um, and there's no priests, there's no temples, there's no Torah, there's no kind of worship rituals. Um is this a story about a righteous Gentile? You know, what's going on here? But the fact I think that it's the Lord, the covenant God who speaks out of the whirlwind is important. This is not just a fatal or story or parable, or however we understand it, of something going on out there. This is actually the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the one who's bringing wisdom here. Um I think there's a whole kind of that kind of stuff going on.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:39

Classic follow-up. Yeah. When Jude offers sacrifices, and he says he offers sacrifice, maybe sin and curse God. I assume that's not Yahweh that he's using there then. Does he just use Elohim?

SPEAKER_10 1:21:52

Uh so I don't I don't know if it's El or Elohim or Eli Elim, but yeah, it's interesting that it is God and not the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:02

God with the lowercase G.

SPEAKER_10 1:22:04

Yeah. But then verse 6 one day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord. So the narrator is the narrator is, perhaps, the narrator is drawing a distinction. Job is doing something, perhaps slightly ritualistically to appease God, but unknown to him, there's a covenant God. Covenant Lord is doing other stuff, and it's that covenant lord who speaks to Job at the end, and to whom Job repents, recants, or what have you. Job answers, chapter 42, not God, he answers the Lord. There is the you know, possibly there is this movement from generic God to specific Lord.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:50

Any more questions? We do have a minute or two. Yes, mate, over there. Yeah, how does that Satan called God?

SPEAKER_10 1:22:59

How does that so I don't think it's Satan the devil, I think it's part of the heavenly court, and within the Old Testament framework uh there are spiritual beings, we can call them angels, we can call them messengers. Um they're sometimes referred to as the sons of God, and the heavenly realms in Old Testament worldview are a sort of busy place, and it's possible yeah, well, certain parts of the Old Testament suggest that different angelic or spiritual beings have different responsibilities over different geographical areas and they come and report to God from time to time. Uh, Psalm 82 kind of has that sort of overtone. So it's not that you've got pure evil and pure good coming together, so much as you've got someone who is performing this role as a sort of public prosecutor, someone who is testing Job, and he's coming and saying to God, okay, let's make sure you're being just. This blake Job. His life's going amazingly. Of course he loves you, of course he worships you. Let's put him to the test and make sure that this is genuine. So I think that's what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:14

You've mentioned obviously a lot of different sources, you've touched a lot of information. Is there anywhere that you would suggest people go if they want to find out more? Even you know, what possibly what you want like are there any resources that I did written some books potentially?

SPEAKER_10 1:24:30

So let's put those ones down, don't we? So if you are interested in Job, then there's various commentaries which might be good. So this book by Bill and Will Kines, a pastor and his theologian son wrestling with Job, this is very easily accessible. There's no Hebrew in there at all. That is a good kind of entry point. Um if you want a commentary, then the Two Horizons Old Testament commentary series on Job or the Baker commentary by Trempar Longman, those are both good, easy to intermediate. They won't have Hebrew in. If they talk about the Hebrew, they will transliterate it into English characters. They are very, yeah, very good, very helpful, very sort of sensible books on Job. If you want something a little more unusual, Ellen van Volder, Dutch lady, has written this interesting book called Mr. and Mrs. Job. We've all heard about Job's wife, but she gets written out the story, what's going on there. It's very fascinating. And interestingly, she and another female commentator called Joanne, no, Carol Newsom, they are the only people who've written commentaries that I've come across who are more sympathetic towards the comforters. All the men, all the men who write commentaries are really harsh on the comforters, whereas the women are a little more generous, which I find absolutely fascinating, and I have no idea why that might be, but there it is. Mark Larimore, the Book of Job biography, this traces how Job has been interpreted through history. Again, it's very accessible. Uh so there's that, and Gerald Janssen's book on the interpretation series. This is a really fascinating account of the book of Job, and it talks a lot about language and the way language works, which I found really interesting. Um then, I mean, you know, my publisher would love me for doing this, and it's very un-British, but I've written two books on Job, which you can get online. Um, Hope for a Tree is the one came out last year, and this looks at two films, two pieces of music, two pieces of literature, which exist in what I call the afterlife of Job. They are Joban in shape and feel, and they interact with Job in really interesting ways. None of them are written by Christians, but they yeah, they open our eyes to the book of Job in interesting ways. And if you are a fan of the American novelist Cormac McCarthy, who most people have never heard of, he wrote The Road and No Country for Old Men, which have been turned into films, then I wrote a book, which was my PhD thesis revised, all about how his literary world and the book of Job overlap in really fascinating ways. Um that one's more accessible of mine. That's for the hardcore people only. Um, but if you want to come and look at any of these books, I'm happy to stick around and you can have a flip through. Uh, if you are interested. There are loads of other commentaries out there. I only brought a few. Um, so I can give you more recommendations if you want.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:55

I would also add this my favorite thing, free Bible project resource online, online, podcast, etc. It has lots of very, very high-level IOD stuff on your visual learner and video and audio as well, which you only got five minutes. It might be a way to kind of get into talking about some of this stuff a little bit more depth.

SPEAKER_10 1:28:27

No, I don't. Um a lot of commentators have suggested that, but I think that would make God the holder to human standards in a way that I think the holder to Job is pushing against. Um and yeah, so some people have suggested I think in the law, uh, if a thief steals something, then a thief is required to pay restoration of double what was stolen. So people have kind of made something, you know, have kind of talked about that. Um, but yeah, for me, the key thing about the book is God's freedom and God not being bound by human kind of conceptions or constraints. And so I think God rest blesses Jake at the end. Not because he has to, but because he wants to, because again, he's free, and why not? Um I don't think it's a reward for Joe, but I don't think God owes him anything. I think again, God does it out of kind of gratuity and extravagance. Well, I might be wrong.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:37

That's probably all we've got time for.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:38

Why don't we give Philas Ramsey for says feel free to come and have a look at any books you've got about the formal end or in these?

SPEAKER_10 1:29:52

I'm happy to stick around if you've got any other questions.