Job 23-24 and Nietzsche

This is a very exciting place for me because I believe that God has revealed the meaning of a book of the Bible to me. Let me unwrap that statement.

I do not mean that there is some magical, secret meaning of Job which has been revealed to some special servant of God (me). That is silliness; Job is an open book, literally. Every book in the Bible is open, written plainly... yes even Revelation and Daniel. Sure there is some research that helps in the understanding (genre, context, maturity and so forth) but on the whole the Bible is translated well enough into the English language and anyone who can read can understand it.

What I mean is that I believe that I have reached enough understanding of Job to actually teach it to other people. I already knew the main theme: God allowing suffering and needing an answer to this. But I knew all of that from the introduction written by editors, not by my own reading of the book. I knew from reading the last (very readable) chapters of Job that he would be reconciled with God and what not but now I can see the movement within the long winded speeches of Job, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar how Job came to understand his own faith and the unrighteousness of the counsel of E, B and Z.

Certainly my new understanding is sophomoric just as it is in Revelation, Galatians, John and the other books I think I know well enough to teach but here I am... a sophomore for God!

These two chapters are a big step in revealing Job's progress. He rightly describes God and has a surprising (divinely inspired) knowledge of his own destiny with God. It is Davidic in its faith that God will acquit him and that he will be answered (rather than rejected) by God. But this acquittal is still fearful because he sees God as mightier than him. God is not a benign, slightly senile grandfather who would never ever say anything bad about his delightful chubby grandchildren... but He is a righteous judge who for reasons unrevealed and inexplicable does not reject Job.

The second chapter in the speech might appear as a digression where Job questions God's judgment in allowing the wicked to proceed in relative peace and harmony but this does not show a lack of faith in god but a true knowledge of His character. Much later in Revelation (9:6) the saints who sit before the alter after being slain for the Word of God ask the same thing "How long, oh Lord? How long?" This questioning is not an accusation of injustice but a hunger for the justice believed to be coming. Job asking and wanting and caring for the kind of justice which is the character of God means that Job understands what God is really like.

...

I have started the task of wrestling the philosopher Nietzsche (now referred to as N) . Philosophy club has started "The Genealogy of Morals." N is describing the trend of his past writing up to this point and in some ways will be summarizing it. It starts with his task to describe the history of how Western society has come with its current ideas of good and bad.

He describes that long ago (maybe he would say originally) the idea of good and bad were associated with the ability to return good for good and bad for bad. A good person was someone who could pay people back for what they did. So Achilles was a good man because if you hurt him he had the capacity to hurt you back. If you blessed him, he had the means to pay you back. But a bad person (despicable, disgusting, common) was someone that even if you did good to could not or would not repay you. And if you harmed that bad person he could or would not repay you. That was what the ancient people (according to N) thought of as good and bad. And by this understanding goodness was much more associated with strength (of various kinds) than intention.

I'd like to write further but have a dentist appointment.