Book of Job scholar answers your questions!

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In this episode, Cambridge University doctoral student Ellie Wiener answers viewers' questions about the book of Job!

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[Poppop-ypzm]

I love her enthusiasm and energy. She’s very knowledgeable and fun! Thanks for the upload!

[djerving]

Wow, what an amazing discussion. Thanks JM and Ellie. You have both added to my understanding of this most enigmatic OT text.

[lark]

Grace and Peace to you. I definitely believe that Job is a type of Christ. That's one of the reasons why it's one of my favorite books.

[KarenDash]

With regards to Job’s fear…I think that is precisely why he was so circumspect in his living so he would avoid any hardships…it totally blows out of the water “name it, claim it” theology

[michaelmcmiller]

Concerning [leviathan] - Not many people recognize [leviathan] is mentioned in Chap 3 as well as in the end. I was impressed. Since it is the last thing the LORD says in the Book, this highlights this connection as VERY important. This is but 1 part of the Wonder & Beauty of the Book that as far as I have seen no 1 understands EXCEPT in YouTube video on Book of Job - Part 9A & 9B [leviathan]. ( additional search term keyofcreation )

[crownsoutreach]

Book of Job is central to our ministry approach to Scripture. It may have been the original Bible before Moses!

[JessPurviance]

35:00 - Job becomes the mediator. Also, everyone he knows gathers in the house of Job, breaking bread with him. Job is also God's wisdom. (A few more ways Job is like Christ)

[JessPurviance]

45:25 - I always liked to imagine that after Elihu says "Did a man ever wish to be swallowed up?" was swallowed up by the whirlwind. 😁😁

[JessPurviance]

14:00 - I like the characterization of Elihu here

[roddumlauf]

The Septuagint tells us who Job was in the very last part of the book of Job (Masoretic omits/Greek adds; depending how you look at it). Job is a real person, a righteous Edomite King, a descendant of Esau....whose name was changed ( that's a big deal. Job's original name was Jobab, and took an Arabian wife, and he lived and ruled in the land of UZ. Job's mother was named Bosorra....that's important too because it is the fifth from Abraham. But the Book of Job is a literary masterpiece, but placed into the Wisdom literature in our Bibles, a poem, not literal history, but based on a true figure.

[leepfrog]

The number of ads in this episode took away the enjoyment of it.
I understand ad revenue is needed but geez louise.

[JessPurviance]

46:00 - Job's wife, even though she has a negative role, is a sympathetic figure. Also, she communicates to Job key insights about the conversation in Heaven that he wouldn't have known about. I tend to think she acts as a catalyst for Job.

[JessPurviance]

18:00 - On my channel I've written music set to a reading of Job for the first 11 chapters. Still a work in progress.

[ShaneZettelmier]

I love the book of Job. It’s kind of the synopsis of how it all works of what salvation is. I think a lot of people missed the point. So many people think this was God letting Satan tortured Jobe just to win a bet or show Satan up. It’s pretty obvious that God already knew Satan was stalking And wanted to start judging him and accusing him. God use the situation to lead Joe to salvation because Joe in his pride was thinking that his works and his obedience to the law made him worthy of going to heaven and God was punishing him when he didn’t deserve it and he could just talk to God and clear it up until God how wrong he was because he was so great he deserved to go to heaven and have all the blessings and not be punished, God his mistake it was mistake. In his pride as great as he was as many works as he did as obedient to the law as he was was still unable to save himself and had to realise that he needed that intercession that the Messiah. God used the situation of Satan trying to accuse Job to lead Job to salvation and realise he needed a Messiah and saviour and that he wasn’t as perfect as he thought he was. He had lot of work under his belt. He was one of the most obedient people on the planet that ever existed in trying to obey the law but it couldn’t save him. You see it in Job and all of a sudden it clicks and he reales that he can’t just stand before God and say I’m perfect and I deserve heaven don’t deserve any of this. He realised that he needed salvation and Messiah because he wasn’t as perfect as he had thought. This is the story of all of us, the law exists there are good works but we’re already sinners and we can’t save ourselves simply by being obedient to the law and doing good works. It’s not enough it doesn’t make us holy and righteous makes us the best amongst the sinners who are already condemned. We still need to be saved and we need a Messiah and intercessor to be the way to salvation and that is Jesus Christ and without him there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves This is a poem written to give a summary of what the Bible is about and what our reality is that good works and obedience to the law are great if we care about being revered by our fellow men but we are all still sinners and we all still need to savour and there’s nothing we can do on our own to earn that it’s a gift of grace because God is merciful. We don’t deserve salvation. Messiah Jesus Christ died for us anyway even though we don’t deserve it and gave it to us as a gift of grace because he loves us and that’s the only way we’re gonna get to heaven that way to heaven, be able to stand with God and be eternally separated from him.

God wasn’t letting Satan play games with Job God was helping Joe realise he needed to be saved and that he couldn’t earn it because of his obedience to the law or his good works that he needed a Messiah and to be saved by Grace and that he needed mercy because he didn’t deserve to go to heaven had to be given to him. God did it let Satan torture over an ego flex he let go through all that so he could be saved.

Joe is a story to teach us humility to make us realise that we can’t be good enough. We can’t even be as good as Joe was and Joe didn’t deserve salvation and neither do we it’s a story to humble us and make us that we need Messiah and if you read the old Testament in the history of the Jewish people That’s what they desperately needed. We all need it until we can humble ourselves before the Lord and realise that Jesus Christ is our only way to be saved and it’s something we can’t do for ourselves then we are distracted from our course of salvation and we’re out there trying to do works and be obedient and save ourselves and it can’t be done, even when we’re going through, it’s not punishing us returning us over to Satan just to flex and show off. It’s correction when you don’t do it because you just wanna make them hurt or suffer or fear that to lead them back in the right direction to make them realise that they’re going in the wrong direction, guidance will not have been saved if he didn’t get humbled by his experience because in his pride he thought he could save himself and he would’ve died and gone to hell and been eternally separated from God if he continued living his life the way he was this pride and needing to be humbled is correctly important because without it we’re still under the misunderstanding that we can save ourselves by being good or behaving or doing good things. There is no scale in the Bible or you just do enough to balance things out. You either pure unholy or you are not and none of us are the only way we’re gonna get there is through Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection and the cleansing of his blood through his sacrifice taking on our sin and blotting it out. None of us can do that ourselves not even Jobe every human being needed to be saved except for Jesus Christ Mary Jobe Elijah, all of us are saved through Jesus he is the way and the only way. that was Jobson was thinking he could save himself pride and not being able to humble himself for the Lord. God let this happen to him to humble him so he could be saved.

The semantical argument over whether job was a story or a real person is kind of irrelevant because Job is God‘s word giving us an example of something that applies to all of us. The story of Joe is the story of every single human being on this planet, we are here we are sooners we are lost And no matter how much we do or obedient we are we can’t save ourselves and we need a intercessor Messiah. That’s a parable or a factual accounting written into this poem or story is kind of irrelevant because whether Joe was a real person or not the factory maintains that the character in that story is the same story of all of us the story of sinners some amazing great people but still sinners and the best of us the very best the most obedient the ones who do the most good works are still lost and are still condemned to the wages of sin and still belong to Satan Unless we learn to humble ourselves and realise we need a Messiah and a saviour. The book of Job is like a it’s like a poetic representation of the reality of salvation and our human condition it is the story of all of us one of us is a job And we all need to be saved the same way. Joe is by humbling ourselves and realising salvation is not something we do. It’s something that’s given to us and we need a messiah saviour because we can never earn ourselves no matter how good we are because we are still sinners and we are only going to be saved when we can humble ourselves and realise that we need a Messiah a saviour and that is Jesus Christ

[gangzhang]

It's a reasonable argument that the poetic text may not be literally spoken by Job, because people don't generally speak in poetic language nowadays. On the other hand, how should we make of what Jesus said, such as the sermon on the mount? It is poetic too, and it seems like the people at the time received the poetic language style fairly well.
There are some factors to ponder I suppose. Many things are passed down orally in ancient times, poetic language has the advantage on that, Homer's poems are considered passed down orally before they got transmitted in the written form. It may not be so odd to speak poetically back then.
Job has spent time doing some deep thinking. People involved in the dialogue might take their time to respond.
And there is the possibility of the supernatural.

It's a great discussion, very informative and inspiring.
I wish I had the child like excitement Miss Wiener has. Please keep it up.

[ShaneZettelmier]

Here’s a thought for topic of discussion, but it really doesn’t matter but when you were talking about if Joe was an old story or a new story. It’s obvious that pre-flood pre-Abraham Isaac and Jacob pre-Levitical law that there was some kind of understanding of God and rules. In my head Joe kind of pops up as something that might’ve been a story or rewrite of a story that was part of I guess what we could call religion or Dr In or God communication with people and telling them how to do things from before our current doctrine was written. When you look at people like Enna and Noah and that whole time before Noah they didn’t have a written law. They didn’t have a formal religion or doctrine but there was obviously some knowledge of right and wrong and how God felt about it and some sort of direction to those people And maybe it’s just me but this seems like the story of Job being kindness a submission of salvation showing that no matter how obedient or how much good we do we still need an intercessor between us and God and salvation because we’re still sinners we need a messiah to save us. So I’m guessing before and Enoch somewhere between Adam and Eve and all of that there was some system of God communicating with people and giving them an idea of what is right and wrong in my mind is that Joe was probably an older story I don’t know if it goes that far back but from a preductal set of stories or parables or something that God gave to people to kind of give them guidance before he chose his people through Abraham to formalise it and give them a law and chose his people to bring his word and salvation to the world in its final formal format. Before that there were a lot less people maybe he just went around giving them stories or parables and personal guidance and being poetic and was well known that it was maybe a rewrite or a retelling some of these old stories or something like that it does seem to have modern nuances like paralleling the song and the knowledge of Satan and God and the sort of structure of judgement and sin but it’s also very well known amongst the Jews. It seems kind of seems like Moses or somebody of the time sort of formalised that story kind of ballot things out with Levitical law because nobody is ever gonna follow the law and have that lead them to salvation they still have a messy, prevalence in the Torah and the profits and pre-new Testament there was clear evidence of a trinity and Messiah and the need for salvation. In my mind it comes across as sort of a story to Balance with Levitical law saying Levitical law laws telling us how to live, but we still need a Messiah because the law is not going to save us the law is telling us how our human existence is lived but we are still sinners and need salvation which is court component of the story of Job that is perfect as he was as obedient as he was as good as he did he still needed salvation and Messiah or intercessor he needed Jesus to be the way because without that without the Messiah we, even the best of us like Jobe, still are not gonna be able to save ourselves because we’ve still send we are still sinners we may be the best amongst the sinners but we are still lost and we need a Messiah. The book was a check system to remind the Jews that the law is not your salvation and as good as Joe was as obedient as he was he still needed a Messiah.

Maybe that’s just me reading into it as a Christian and through my experience but it kind of seems to be crammed in with all the stuff from Moses where he was kind of formalising the doctrine and saying this is the way things are officially where God started creating his doctrine in the Bible to guide us and explain things to us. It’s a part a lot of the Jewish people I talk to don’t seem to understand, sacrificing all those animals and all those rituals and ceremonies wasn’t bringing them salvation and it was preparing them. It was training them teaching them to understand that they needed a sacrifice and someone else to pay for, it like so they would recognise and understand their Messiah when he did come and because of pride and misunderstanding apparently a lot of them missed the boat and didn’t recognise Messiah when he came

[SeanRhoadesChristopher]

“And Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab: all these were the sons of Joktan. And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the east. These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.” (Genesis 10.29-31, KJV)

“And Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan.” (1 Chronicles 1.23, KJV)

[heathmichael]

I would love to hear her take on Job 13:15 which is usually taken as Job trusting in the Lord even if He were to slay him. However, in context it seems like Job is saying that he is trying to defend himself because he thinks he is in the right and that he would continue to defend himself, even if God were to slay him.

[ShaneZettelmier]

Another point of discussion you brought up, she was talking about the Talma and the Rick views of whether or not Joe was an actual person or a character. That aside I’d be interested to see what you think of the Talmud and what it is.

When I look in the Scriptures, I don’t see anything about some oral law and when I start looking at the Talmead would I see is a bunch of people all of a sudden saying there’s this oral law that God told us never write down but now we’re gonna write it down for whatever reason and I see it largely as a reaction to Christianity, legalists kind of making up a man-made version of religion and legalism as a reaction to Jesus kind of trying to hide the facts about the Messiah that are undeniable and twist theology of antichrist into it. But I see a lot of scholars referring to the Talma and the opinions of the rabbis and using them as scholarly reference. I haven’t put a lot of thought into it but honestly it seems like a silly practice to me. Why would you go to the people that missed the boat? Ask their opinion when they obviously got it wrong the Messiah came fulfilling over 300 prophecies, reciting Psalm 22 as he was dying on the cross and openly proclaiming himself as God in the flesh and the final sacrifice the final lamb even the fact that he died at 3 pm and when he said it is finished at the same time the priest were in the temple, sacrificing the final sacrificial lamb of Passover and looking up and saying it is finished simultaneously. Every Jew knew what he was saying we even have NASA confirming the date of the eclipse ending at 3 pm on the third day of Passover maybe it’s hindsight but it’s so obvious with all these prophecies fulfilled that no one before or after could ever fulfil again and Rennick Judaism is largely a protest to that and I don’t see anywhere where Moses or Aaron when Moses was want to talk to God and got the law. There was no part of that spoke of any oral tradition and it’s not in God’s character to make some sort of hidden stuff just for the priests because normal people are too dumb to understand his word, I’m not sure why scholar would go to Judy ism for answers or their opinion, seems that if they actually knew gods word that they would’ve recognised the Messiah. Christianity was a Jewish movement and basically was a sect of Judaism at the time, but the legalist mentality the liberal Jews just wanted to believe in something else and turn the temple into a moneymaking thing and a place to parade your self proclaimed holiness around with elaborate performance prayers and hypocrisy. That would be like when Jesus was killed going to the priest of the temple who had pushed so hard to get rid of them and asking them what their views on God were, when you look at the apostles, I’m sure they had very little concern what those people thought at the time, John was friends with them. His family was close with them and he worked around them because he knew there was corruption and they were not the keepers of Fast knowledge and why do we believe that 500 years after the fact these people who had rejected God and never saw their own Messiah writing something down makes it somehow worthy, or even remotely accurate? Maybe I’m misunderstanding the whole thing but as a scholar that would be one of the last places I would go to clarify what God’s word meant to understand what they believe to entertain an argument and discussion but I wouldn’t consider it accurate knowledge of the word of God, but maybe I’m missing something? And when I do read the helmet, it kind of like the Koran in some way it has all this weird stuff with sub humans and some weird stuff in the Jewish cyclopedia and you can see a lot of where Mohammed came up with his version of religion and largely plagiarising a lot of that and some of the gory creepy stuff seems to come from there so I just don’t get it. Lazarus wanting to drink of water across the golf in Hades, he’s not the one I would go to for advice so why will we take a religion written 500 years later by the people that rejected their own Messiah and lend credibility to that? I’m just not seeing it, am I missing something? You probably know way more about it than I do. Is there a reason to look at the Talmud and see it as some sort of resource or knowledge because I’m just not seeing the reason?

[ShaneZettelmier]

On the part where you were asking about Jobes friends and they’re relevant. It was obviously they got some things wrong but it was like they took something that was right and misapplied it but I think that’s part of the story that people miss. Everybody seems to think that Joe was perfect. He was on his way to heaven and everything was perfect and there was nothing wrong with the guy. He was still had Adam’s signature he was still at And he thought he was perfect because of his obedience and his works but the law and works aren’t going to save him. He was still a sinner and he still needed a messiah which I think is the critical point to the story, he had to be humble and get over the pride of his obedience of the law and his and understand that he was not worthy of heaven and needed an intercessor Messiah away to God to heaven And salvation. And that I think his friends were kind of hitting on a point when they were saying things like these things are a result of sin and they may have but in a way it was God let Satan punish him with Satan was going to do it, but he allowed it to prove a point or to settle a bet with Satan to show off he did it because Joe needed to be humbled to be led to salvation because he was thinking his works and his obedience to the law we’re going to save him he had to be broken of his pride and humbled and realise that he needed to savour That the words of his friends were providing contacts. These condemnations and afflictions of Job were related to sin. Even in the story of talks about our job said oh my children go out and party and so I’m gonna make a bunch of sacrifices at atonement for their sin, wasn’t making sacrifices for his sin? He didn’t because he thought he was guaranteed heaven that he deserved it already because he was so obedient and did so many good works and that’s what I think a lot of people and Text I think his friends were relevant to the story because they frame that, these conditions are a result of sin and that we aren’t so pure and holy that we deserve some perfect life with nothing but blessings that it’s not God unjustly punishing us those punishments were just God was saving he wouldn’t let Satan physically harm him and then wouldn’t let Satan physically kill him But Joe was a sinner. May not have been as bad as Hitler but though he was the best amongst all men that came from Adam which is all of us he was still a sinner just like we all are and he needed a messiah and he did send so God wasn’t unjustly punishing him he was letting Satan punish him But I think it’s a misnomer that Joe was so perfect he didn’t deserve to be punished. Joe was not headed to heaven. That’s kind of the point of this. He had to be humbled and get over his pride and realise he was still a sin and though he was the best amongst the sinners, he still needed a saviour. I think part of the reason this is misunderstood is because we often go to modern Jewish people who are basically taught to hate or deny Jesus and are given versions of the scriptures where parts are removed they take out the end of Isaiah and change things because it’s so ridiculously clear that Jesus is the Messiah and the only one who could be and the Trinity And God the father of the son and the spirit are in the old Testament but I think a lot of modern theologist go to Robin Judaism which the people who took it out and have an mentality the way they represent religion and it may affect the story of Joe Balo because most people think it’s God letting Joe be tortured just to show off to Satan how faithful human beings are Missed to be humbled Satan to him to break him to humble him to get him over his pride so he realised he needed a Messiah and intercessor that he could not stand before the Lord and you see that words where you break and he says I can’t stand before the Lord I’m wrong. I am. I’m not I don’t deserve heaven. I deserve this, but I think Job friends are critical part of the story because they relate these types of affliction as a result of sin were telling this must be happening to you because you and Joe was like no I’m perfect. I don’t send but wasn’t getting with that he was he wasn’t And he needed a messiah to be saved and God letting Satan do this broke him of his pride and humbled him so he could realise he needed to be saved and that his works and obedience to the law weren’t going to save him for all of us this is a summation of salvation and the story of every human being we are all we are all sinners. We all try to do a little good but we all do some bad too and we don’t deserve heaven. It’s in God‘s mercy that he gives it to us as a gift of grace even though we don’t deserve it he has just so he can’t just say oh well no big deal. I like it anyway. Jesus had to come and die. We needed Messiah and I think this is the most critical point of job was not saved, was his obedience and words and thinking that him he had to be broken and humbled Jesus because there was no other way and that the law will never save anybody.
Jobs friends were pointing out that need to think about it they were basically saying hey dude I know you think you’re perfect but these things happen because of sin may need to realise that somewhere you send and you aren’t perfect. From that context in this story is very relevant.