Book of Job 6-25

There are references to Greek constellations as the Book of Job continues.  It's a fine acknowledgement of the wider world around the Jewish faith, which more ordinarily exists in allusion and nods to historical figures.

"There I say he destroys both the blameless and the wicked."  The whole point of this book is a reckoning with the theology that God only punishes those who deserve it, or in other words that God exists in relation to man to affect his life for the better or worse.  It's a direct contradiction to every other book in the Bible previous to it, or in other words a further evolution of the faith, one that is commonly misinterpreted or outright overlooked.

There is the term "umpire" referenced.  It's the first time I even considered it outside the context of baseball.  It only figures.

"If I lift myself up, thou dost hunt me like a lion."  This would mean that making a name for yourself only makes you a target.

"If a man dies shall he live again?"  It's a suggestion that the idea of resurrection very much exists.  It's just one suggestion that Job may after all be a Jesus figure.  Chapter 16 in particular sounds a lot like Isaiah's portrait of the suffering servant, which is commonly ascribed to Jesus.  The term "Redeemer" is used.  It's enough to paint this book in an entirely new light.  It is very much, as much a work of philosophy, as one of prophecy.  It is not merely allegory, but one of many means to link the Old Testament to the New Testament.

One of the reasons adherents to the Jewish faith would vehemently deny this is because it's even there in the Old Testament that belief in God is as much about religion as forming basic cultural rules.  It's the same with Christianity, the same with Islam, and any other faith.  In fact, the inseparability of this (otherwise known as the problem of separation of Church and State as understand in the West) is the basic moral entanglement of recorded history.  When a culture shucks off its religious beliefs, they still persist, in the realm of mythology.  When religious beliefs are tied up both in identity and the form of society itself, this becomes far more difficult.  The fundamentalists, who prefer to overlook nuances, are prepared to kill anyone who contradicts them.  I say that's a very poor manifestation of anything divine.  If you faith tells you to kill people, then you need to reconsider your faith.

It's not faith that ever dictates that, but the fear that the faith can be forgotten if challenged.  And it's not the faith that motivates this, but the cultural norms, everything you're familiar with.  It's how we get things like the Inquisition and suicide bombers.  Both are inherently insane things to do.  Neither invalidates the faith that led to them, but rather speaks to cultural and moral fallibility.  Faith exists to reflect truth.  It is not in itself truth.  This is a dangerous statement to make.  Those who most vehemently seek to silence opposition claim everything they believe was recorded by divine intervention.  The truth is, everything that a human has ever done has been done by a human.  A human may be inspired, may even have mystical experiences.  But in the end, whatever a human does has been done by a human, fallible being.  And someone else after them is free to do whatever another human will do.  And so on.

One of the most important theological works of our time was recently released.  It's called Zealot and is by a man named Reza Aslan.  In it he details how the historic Jesus became the Jesus we know today.  It's hugely fascinating, and funny enough is almost exactly like the Monty Python movie Life of Brian with more scholarship.  When Aslan discusses what type of man Jesus likely was, and how the earliest days of his resulting new religion unfolded, it illuminates backward as well as forward.  Aslan himself does not seem to have read the Old Testament as well as he did the New or other early sources.  Here I humbly submit my work in this regard to further explore the ways in which the Jewish faith evolved and led to the most incredible development in human history.

When you pick apart the tenets of faith, you may find yourself with a house of cards.  You may doubt everything and thus end up believing none of it.  I've been saying this for a while now in these notes.  When you no longer unquestionably believe everything your religion tells you, you may either reject it outright or attempt to split off from it, create another schism.  Reforms seldom work.  Except they were happening all the time right there in the Bible.  Reforms, revisions.  The Book of Job is a revision right at the heart of the Old Testament, hiding in plain sight.

The Jews were a restless people always looking for a home and seeking to explain why they periodically had such major problems with stability.  They frequently had exceptional leaders, and just as frequently didn't.  Their whole concept of a messiah is another exceptional leader.  Around the time of the greatest such exceptional leader, they began to realize, especially after his time, that this was a pattern that could not be sustained.  And so they began to look for alternatives.  Their belief in God led them to realize that God as they understood him was capable of fixing his own mistakes.  Later they even acknowledged that he always had a plan.  Every echo in the Bible, in fact, might be said to be a manifestation of that plan, preparing the way as it were.  

When Job discusses faith, he's breaking the mold apart.  He's demonstrating a dialogue about the future of the Jewish faith.  Christians understand Jesus to be an equally blameless individual who took on the sins of the entire world and thus broke the cycle of constant punishment and possible damnation for all humanity.  Jesus was also a failure at ushering the same kind of religious revival that the Old Testament constantly demonstrated, except he provoked the faith that ended up sweeping the entire globe.  He ended up being a permanent example for everyone.

Do you have to believe every Christian doctrine to believe in Jesus?  Absolutely not.  Anyone who says different is interested in preserving an institution, which in itself is not a bad thing.  But it does not need to be protected.  Maybe that's all that's needed in a new reform.  Stop worrying so much.  Incidentally, that's also what Pope Francis is saying.  Stop being so defensive.  By becoming inclusive again, you better follow your own faith.