The book of Job starts like some kind of ancient world folktale. If someone had written it within the last 600 years or so, it wouldn’t be out of place for it to begin, Once upon a time.
There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz.
— Job 1:1 NLT
Compare the book of Job to the beginning of 1 Samuel, and you'll notice the differences straightaway.
There was a man named Elkanah who lived in Ramah in the region of Zuph in the hill country of Ephraim. He was the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, of Ephraim.
— 1 Samuel 1:1 NLT
By the end of 1 Samuel’s first verse, we’ve received an info dump. We know how Elkanah fits into history and who his ancestors were all the way back to his great-great-grandfather, Zuph. Who, incidentally, has an entire region of hill country named after him in the Promised Land.
Whereas, Job is not the son of anyone. We’re not told about his father or his grandfather or his great-grandfather or his... you get it. Only eight characters in the book get named (three in the final chapter); nine if you include Satan. Job is strangely unlinked with history.
This feeling of a character outside of time persists when we search for the land of Uz. It’s only mentioned once elsewhere in Scripture—maybe twice depending on translation (compare Jer. 25:20 in the NIV and NLT).
Rejoice and be glad, Daughter Edom,
you who live in the land of Uz.
— Lamentations 4:21a NIV
Quite why Daughter Edom lives somewhere other than the land of Edom (Edom has fourteen mentions in the OT) doesn’t help with the historical veracity of the land of Uz. We simply cannot be sure where it was located or even if it’s an actual place.
In Hebrew, the verb uz means “consider.” So, Job lives in a place called the land of Consideration.
Hmmmm.
There was a man named Elkanah (1 Sam. 1:1).
There once was a man named Job (Job 1:1).
Job is a character from someone’s imagination who lives in a made-up place or in a real place with a really cool name. Like how most superheroes seem to live in New York.
Either way, the first verse of Job tells us this is a fictional story dramatising theological debate.
It’s entertainment rather than history.
The narrative [of Job] unfolds in highly stylised fashion with sparse detail and repeated patterns typical of a folktale.
— Kathleen M. O’Connor, Job: New Collegeville Bible Commentary, p.9
But Ezekiel 14:20 mentions Job alongside Noah and Daniel. And James 5:11 talks about Job too. Doesn’t that prove he was a historical person?
No, all it proves is that Job was a well-known character from Scripture. He doesn’t need to be a historical character for Ezekiel and James to reference him.
I know that saying Job is fiction may screw with your beliefs about the Bible. However, Jesus’ parables are also fictional stories that he created to help people understand his teachings. It’s therefore not too much of a stretch to imagine an entire book being used similarly to talk about the relationship between God and suffering.
The power of Job’s story has never come from a place of historical accuracy, but from the Holy Spirit connecting it with our own experiences. When tragedy strikes and our world collapses in on itself, we find our own questions, fears, and complaints mirrored in the dialogue of these friends. We discover a kind of solace in their brutal honesty as they deal with the unthinkable.
Like Job, we too seek answers from God about why innocent people suffer.
A throne room like no other
We discover why it’s vital to establish whether this story is imagination or historical fact ahead of time, when the author somewhat casually describes the Accuser, Satan, sauntering into God’s heavenly throne room six verses into Job.
Did this happen?
Does this happen?
One day the members of the heavenly court came to present themselves before the LORD, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them.
— Job 1:6 NLT
When Isaiah sees God “sitting on a lofty throne,” he describes him being attended by “mighty seraphim, each having six wings” (Isa. 6:1-2 NLT). Ezekiel says God’s throne is “made of blue lapis lazuli” with “a figure whose appearance resembled a man” sitting upon it (Eze. 1:26). While John in Revelation sees someone in heaven “as brilliant as gemstones” sitting on a throne with “the glow of an emerald” circling it “like a rainbow” (Rev. 4:3).
And in Job, we get nothing.
No seraphim.
No gemstones.
No rainbows.
All we get is a whimsical story whose tone is completely at odds with the serious poetic debate that follows in Job 3 to 42:6. The two scenes between God and Satan (1:6-12 and 2:1-7) have more in common with a joke about St. Peter standing at the gates of heaven than any other biblical account of the heavenly throne room of God. Especially as their conversation begins identically both times.
“Where have you come from?” the LORD asked Satan.
Satan answered the LORD, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that's going on.”
Then the LORD asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.”
— Job 1:7-8 and 2:2-3 NLT
Setting up Job's innocence
The rest of Job would make sense without these opening two chapters because the book never mentions God’s two conversations with Satan again. Even God doesn’t say anything about his little chats with Satan in his response to Job at the end of the book.
It’s like they never took place.
We could have inferred everything we needed from Job and his friends’ comments in Job 3 onwards—we often work with less when interpreting the Bible—but there is one thing we could never infer without the prologue: Job’s innocence.
The whole of the prologue is a narrative setup for Job’s innocence, with the same phrase repeated three times. Once when Job is first introduced, and twice by God himself boasting about him to Satan.
“He was/is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He feared/fears God and stays away from evil.”
— God in Job 1:1 & 8, 2:3 NLT
It’s clear we’re meant to take away from this prologue that Job has not sinned. He is innocent. What happens to him and his family next is not a consequence of his actions or punishment for his sins.
Without this introductory satire, we would probably end up being just be as unconvinced and unsympathetic as Job’s friends are at Job’s insistence of his innocence. And in the following debate, it’s essential we remember that Job does not deserve the suffering he experiences.
Because that’s the thing about the book of Job. It’s not simply mimicking a debate among friends before giving us God’s response to a tragedy. What it’s seeking to do is expose the toxic beliefs we can hold about God when trying to make sense of indiscriminate death and suffering.
Toxic belief #1
Suffering is a test from God
The first toxic belief that’s exposed in the book of Job is that God causes or allows suffering in order to test the faith of his people. It’s extremely persuasive because it comes from the mouth of God.
The conversation between God and Satan continues in the heavenly court with Satan highlighting the flaw in God’s boasting about Job’s integrity and fear of God: Job’s rich. Insanely rich. Verse four informs us that Job is “the richest man in that entire area.”
It’s easy to fear God when you have everything, declares Satan.
Satan replied to the LORD, “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God. You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!”
— Job 1:9-11 NLT
God responds to Satan by giving him permission to test Job’s faith.
“All right, you may test him,” the LORD said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don't harm him physically.” So Satan left the LORD's presence.
— Job 1:12 NLT
When this testing does not go as Satan planned, we go again. This time when God brags about Job, Satan points out how a fully healthy man has no reason to reject God.
Satan replied to the LORD, “Skin for skin! A man will give up everything he has to save his life. But reach out and take away his health, and he will surely curse you to your face!”
— Job 2:4-5 NLT
Again, God is confident that Job will pass this test and allows Satan to make him physically suffer.
“All right, do with him as you please,“ the LORD said to Satan. “But spare his life.”
— Job 2:6 NLT
As we continue reading through Job, we think we know why Job suffers. The issue is, God gives an entirely different reason for Job’s suffering in his speech at the end of the book. We also never return to Satan or this conversation, and God never tells Job it was a test of his faith. So is Job actually being tested?
Is Job actually being tested?
If the test is real, and God’s conversation with Satan actually happened, it leaves us with some alarming possibilities regarding God’s character.
It forces us to conclude that:
(a) God has a gambling problem;
(b) Satan can manipulate God;
(c) natural disasters are used to test our devotion to God;
(d) God arbitrarily punishes people without reason.
Do any of these options present us with a god we want to worship?
Do any of them sound anything like Jesus?
This is the problem with not recognising the fictional nature of this book. When we read Job as history, we are confronted with a version of God we’d rather not know. But when we read Job as fiction, we can tell this scene doesn’t reflect any kind of earthly or heavenly reality. Instead, we quickly realise this opening exchange is meant to entertain and make known without any doubt that Job has not brought his suffering upon himself.
Let us reject the belief that God is testing us when we suffer. It’s not true.
Testing each viewpoint
Instead of taking the story at face value as we used to, viewing Job’s story as a folktale or a piece of theatre causes us to examine what each character says more rigorously than we would otherwise do. As they express their opinions about God, we need to test them to see if they align with the New Testament revelation that God is exactly like Jesus.
Altogether, I’ve identified seven toxic beliefs that I’ll expose one at a time in the first six chapters of this book about Job.
- Suffering is a test from God. [See Chapter 1]
- Nature manifests God’s power. [See Chapter 2]
- God punishes sinners. [See Chapter 3]
- Victims must repent. [See Chapter 3]
- Human beings are depraved. [See Chapter 4]
- God takes away. [See Chapter 5]
- God is a judge. [See Chapter 6]
What unites each one, is an eighth toxic belief that God is violent. This remains prevalent within the Church despite Jesus’ disclosure otherwise.
If you’re anything like me, then you’ll have believed all these toxic beliefs at some point during your life. Depending on where you are on your journey towards a nonviolent God, you may still hold some or all of them. This is not something to be embarrassed about. Let’s reject them as what we used to believe and move on to embrace more Christlike beliefs about who our God is and what he is like.
Chapter 2, A Soliloquy of Despair, is also free to read.