The book begins with the tale of Job, a good man with all the trappings of a wealthy and successful Bedouin Sheik, who loses family, wealth and health as a result of an experiment by God to prove to Satan the genuineness of Job’s faith.

I believe that our current understanding of human development can add further insight to this ancient text, and that it stands as a metaphor of human growth into wisdom.  However, attempts to assign modern rational thought and secular social morality to an ancient work of philosophical poetry are anachronistic and should be approached with caution.

Job spends a week in silence before he brings himself to speak. His first words are of despair, fear and fury, which then moderate into the inevitable why me? This is a typical reaction after loss. His world-view has been badly shaken, the precepts by which he has lived have let him down, and his life is a mess. Here is a man with a successful career and family, living an upright life, who as a result of a major disaster has entered upon what today is often called a mid-life crisis.

Friends come to console him, and they counsel him to accept the orthodox view of his fate as something he deserves. Job knows he is innocent and questions the justice of God’s dealings with him. The three contrasting friends, the mystic, the conservative and the rationalist represent three major aspects of the orthodox standpoint.

The first is Eliphaz, the mystic, probably the eldest of the three. He has summoned the evidence of his experience (4:7), his inner conviction (4:12), and careful study (4:27) to challenge Job’s protestations of innocence, He begins with courtesy (4:1) but this soon degenerates into innuendo (4:7). This resembles the retributive argument of serves you right, you get what you deserve. Eliphaz has failed to empathise with Job’s feelings, and Job is stung by these rebukes and platitudes into challenging the depth of his friends’ concern for him (6:28).

However, Job does begin to realise that he is not the only one to suffer in this way, that others share his lot (7:1) and then begins to question what sort of a God torments human beings like this (7:17-18). This is an indication that Job’s understanding is not adequate, that cognitive dissonance is creeping in, and that a major shift in viewpoint is necessary.

The second friend, Bildad, the conservative, rebukes Job for speaking ill of God’s justice, and reminds him that if he will not believe the three of them then he should consider the whole body of tradition of the forefathers behind them (15:17-18). In his simple theology, everything can be explained in terms of good and bad – the blameless prosper and the wicked are destroyed. Bildad acknowledges that both righteous and wicked suffer, but those that endure and continue to grow are the righteous. What Job needs to do is to repent and turn to God, and he will be rewarded.

If Eliphaz was the voice of revelation validated by careful contemplation of human experience, then Bildad is the voice of tradition and accumulated wisdom. He is analytical and objective, but a superficial moralist who uses a kind of retrospective reasoning – if Job is suffering, his children must have sinned. (4:7).
The third friend, Zophar, is a rationalist.  He sees divine wisdom expressed in practical ways as underlying all human experience. By searching for the secrets of wisdom humanity will be set right with God. He also exaggerates and proceeds to lecture Job mercilessly. He even suggests Job is getting off lightly and deserves more punishment (11:6). This seems to have been triggered off by Job’s eloquence about his unjust treatment, which Zophar sees as blasphemy. If he follows Job’s line of argument he would be forced into a paradox of an unjust God, which would offend his rationality.

The argument goes back and forth between the three friends and Job. They are urging conformity towards the accepted social norm (and religious – the two are inseparable here) but Job is in the process of rejecting their standpoints. Positions become more entrenched as the argument progresses, the friends are allies and Job is not one of us. The motivation behind this for the three friends is that there must be something seriously wrong (sinful) with Job otherwise they might fall into the same kind of condition. They don’t want to believe they are sinful, therefore Job must be. They have stereotyped Job and are becoming prejudiced against him (Freud).

Job in turn becomes more and more convinced that only God can answer his charges, and his friends are being unhelpful by their dogmatic approach. They take it for granted that God is inherently just and therefore apparently innocent suffering must have a logical explanation. Job disagrees (13:12).
It is apparent that each of the speeches of Job contain some significant moments of insight, and by chapter 16 he has begun to see his former friends as enemies. He points to their attitude and accusations, remarking that if the tables were turned they would receive from him affirmation and empathy (16:4-5).  Job is convinced that he must take things to a higher authority, that is God, maybe signifying a paradigm shift to higher level of personal development.

Chapter 28 deserves particular mention here, a poem about the search for wisdom. The Biblical meaning of wisdom encompasses all the finer things of life, not just intellectual but also aesthetic and religious. This search is expressed in terms of mining the depths in darkness, and this reminds me very much of the subconscious mind, brought to our attention through the work of Freud and Jung. The ways to it cannot be understood and its value is immeasurable. It is like the pearl of great price, or the treasure found buried in a field. (see Matthew 13:44-46)

In chapter 31 we see Job undergoing a kind of self-examination against a list of sins. A new character, Elihu, now enters the scene, arguably a foreigner and a younger man, possibly representing new ideas. He had kept quiet until this stage, but could contain himself no longer; again we hear echoes of the subconscious. He believes he can succeed where the others have failed. He wants Job to understand that the question he should be asking is not where did suffering come from, but what is the use of it, or in other words how can it be sublimated into a creative force? (Freud).

Elihu presents a view that suffering is one of the ways by which God teaches and reveals himself. He takes the arguments already rehearsed by the three orthodox friends, uses and expands them with this new slant – the use of suffering and the hope of deliverance – and most of all he wants Job to change his attitude (36:15).  He believes in the power of dreams as carrying hidden meaning and insight (33:15-16).  Again this has resonance with the work of Jung.

The speeches of God at first sight seem to be no more than assertions of the power of God in the form of rhetorical questions. There is no rational argument employed, simply manifestations of the power, skill and mystery of the Almighty. There is no hint of direct replies to Job’s complaints of unfair treatment, no rationalisation or justification of his plight, and no dénouement of the wager with Satan. Job’s conversation with God re-establishes the relationship between them, and leads Job to see the inter-relatedness of everything in the world.

Here is an invitation to authenticity and to achieving full potential as a human being (Maslow’s self-actualisation). People like this have the ability to co-operate voluntarily rather than by indoctrinated control.  Such change often happens gradually over time. In the language of theology it is a metanoia, in feminist language a move from separation to mutuality and relationship.

Diane Coleman is a Local Preacher in the Otley & Aireborough Circuit and warden of Norwood Methodist Retreat Centre.