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Tuesday, September 11, 2018

WHO IS THE GREAT ACCUSER IN THE PROLOGUE OF THE BOOK OF JOB?

 

I copy this from the "Jesus Creed" an evangelical blog. It isn't fundamentalist but a very good commentary on the prologue of the Book of Job and who the Great Accuser actually is. 

Pope Francis uses the wrong interpretation of it in his Tuesday morning homily (printed in full below this post) which seems to me to be rather self-serving. The correct interpretation by this evangelical minister is the one that fits what is happening today to Pope Francis and our bishops: 

The accuser is not Satan (RJS)

The prose prologue to the book of Job, found in chapters 1 and 2, introduces a number of issues that challenge standard Christian presuppositions. As a result I am going to move rather slowly, in two or three posts, through the prologue to think about some of these issues. The commentaries by John Walton (Job (The NIV Application Commentary)) and Tremper Longman III (Job (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms)), both their agreements and their differences, provide the basis for this discussion.

There are three major points:

First, Job is not on trial, God is on trial. Although the legal metaphor is not carried through consistently in the book, it appears most strongly in the prologue.
Second, the challenger or accuser is not Satan.
Third, Job is innocent, and he proves faithful.

The book of Job is not about Job, it is a thought experiment that explores the way God works in the world and the appropriate human response to God.

 The setting is a divine assembly where God as the supreme king is consulting with his court. Heaven is described in analogy with an ancient Near Eastern royal court. Most English translations translate “the accuser” as Satan, capitalized to indicate a proper name. The dramatized audio I listened to cast the voice as a stereotypical diabolical Satan. Both Walton and Longman point out that this is wrong. Walton prefers to use the term “Challenger” while Longman calls him the accuser. Not only is the accuser not Satan, but there is nothing particularly diabolical about the exchange. The accuser is not out to destroy mankind in general or Job in particular. Rather he is challenging the policy of reward and retribution.

Walton summarizes his conclusions about the Challenger (p. 74 – Walton):

He is one of the “sons of God” (a member of the divine council)
He serves as a policy watchdog.
He uses the ambiguity of Job’s motives and concept of God to challenge God’s policies.
He does not act independently.
He is not inherently evil.
He cannot confidently be identified with Satan in the New Testament.

Longman doesn’t discuss the accuser as extensively as Walton, but the conclusion is the same. Both find it highly unlikely that the accuser or challenger in Job can or should be identified with Satan.
The challenge. During the exchange with the accuser God brings up his servant Job, restating the opening verse lest we have any doubt of Job’s innocence.
And (God) said to the accuser, “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, and innocent and virtuous man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” (Job 1:8 – Longman p. 83)
The accuser is not impressed – after all Job has lived a life characterized by health, wealth, prosperity, and success. He is God-fearing, but is this not simply to protect his status? Job is virtuous and innocent for his own benefit.

Longman, who also wrote the volume on Proverbs in the Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms, sees echoes of Proverbs in the way the challenge is framed. As an example:
Honor the Lord with your wealth,
with the firstfruits of all your crops;
then your barns will be filled to overflowing,
and your vats will brim over with new wine. (Prov. 3:9-10 NIV)
Proverbs often explicitly appeals to reward to motivate right action. Why then should God care if Job’s motivation is shaped by his material prosperity? Longman points out that godly behavior is expected no matter what – a theme that continues throughout scripture. Walton sees the challenge of this idea of reward for behavior as central to the story of Job. The “wager” that comes from the exchange between God and the accuser is not a challenge to Job per se, but a challenge of the wisdom of God’s policies.

And now we wring our hands. In the next passage Job’s wealth, servants, and children are wiped out as a test of his motivation for fear of God. Lest this worry us, we should remember that the book of Job is a thought experiment. Walton, doubtless from the experience of unnumbered students viewing the calamity from the point of view of the children, notes:
It is pointless to wring our hands over the sad fate of Job’s innocent family, for the challenge does not focus on his family and their innocence, but on God’s work in the world. The children simply represent the blessing of God, like Job’s cattle. … Their fate is part of the challenge to God’s policies, but not its focus. (p. 69 – Walton)
I also wring my hands over the poor servants – wiped out by Sabeans, Chaldeans, and the Fire of God – all to answer the accuser’s challenge. (It is not just the children who die.)

The book of Job is a thought experiment – a parable of sorts designed to make a point, not a historical account of a wager between God and Satan. It is pointless to plead the case of either the children or the servants; to do so, or to insist on the historicity of Job, or for that matter, the literal reality of the divine council, only misses the point.

5 comments:

Fr. Michael J. Kavanaugh said...

The author mixes up his "Satans" it seems to me.

No, the Satan of Job is not the devil, but he is Satan: "The Accuser" or "The Adversary." By whatever name, Satan or The Great Accuser or The Adversary, is not a personal title or a reference to an individual. It is a reference to the reality of evil that is beyond our comprehension.

I don't see why the author thinks we can say that "God is on trial."

The author says, "He uses the ambiguity of Job’s motives..." What makes him think that Job's motives are ambiguous?

It is written, "The book of Job challenges the simple equation of suffering with punishment, by telling the story of one righteous man's confrontation with overwhelming misfortune." This is one of the great struggles of believers throughout most, if not all, of history.

It is also the idea that all prosperity Gospel preachers must avoid like the plague since it undercuts their belief/teaching that God's favor is shown through good health and material wealth.

"What is the origin of suffering?" and "Why do the innocent suffer?" have beleaguered us from the get-go, and still do today.

The non-answer Job and we are given is, "Your mind is too small to comprehend the mind of God." As it is written, "Within our ken is neither the tranquility of the wicked nor the suffering of the righteous."

Victor said...

"14. But the old adversary, when he fails to discover any evil of which he might accuse us, seeks to turn our very good points into evil, and being beaten upon works, looks through our words for a subject of accusation; and when he finds not in our words either ground of accusation, he strives to blacken the purpose of the heart, as though our good deeds did not come of a good mind, and ought not on that account to be reckoned good in the eyes of the Judge. For because he sees the fruit of the tree to be green even in the heat, he seeks as it were to set a worm at its root. For he says, Ver. 9, 10. 'Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast Thou, not made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in, the land.'"

-St Gregory the Great, An Exposition On the Book Of Blessed Job, Vol I. Pt 1, Bk II.

And he continues: http://www.lectionarycentral.com/gregorymoralia/Book02.html

The crafty accuser is Satan.

The traditional (Catholic) understanding is that Jesus is prefigured in Job because Job is an upright man. In the Moralia here, Gregory demonstrates his threefold interpretation of Scripture, which became the standard throughout the Middle Ages.

Is the Pope an upright man?

Fr Martin Fox said...

This may seem an odd comment, but it's exactly on point: there was no capitalization in the original biblical texts.

Therefore, there is no textual distinction between "satan" and "Satan." But of course, there is a huge real difference effected by capitalization.

In the case of Job, this is "satan," not Satan. The word, as noted, means "accuser" or "adversary," and of course, this fits as a name for the prince of demons. But it is also a fit term for someone we might call a "prosecutor" or "prosecuting attorney." That is the role "satan" plays in Job. As mentioned, he is not a cast out spirit, but a member of God's heavenly curia.

While it's true that Job is, in a sense, on trial, so is God in a secondary way.

The real issue in Job -- the whole point of the satan's investigation -- is not to condemn Job, but to help him. If you notice, in the beginning, Job offers sacrifices for his children, just in case. The accuser states his case: perhaps Job is righteous because he thinks this is his part of the bargain: if he lives right and worships God, God will bless him in exchange. That proposition is what is tested in the rest of the narrative. The friends believe the same: that's why they insist, Job must have sinned -- i.e., broken the bargain. Job insists, no I did not.

One fruit of this whole experience is that Job comes to understand that God's blessings are not a result of a transaction; they are gift. And our living right and worshipping God, likewise, are not transactional.

Here's why it's valid to say that God is also on trial. At one point, Job demands that God appear and make his case against him. Job repeatedly insists, he has nothing to fear, because he is innocent. It's a breathtaking thing for Job to say, and his friends are shocked. But if, indeed, Job is innocent, then he's not wrong to say so. Nor is he wrong to ask that God tell him what he did wrong. This actually shows that even if Job was thinking in a transactional way, nevertheless, he is close to God -- and he's genuinely hurt and puzzled. He doesn't just walk away from the business deal, as it were.

So notice: God answers the summons! God appears and responds to Job. And Job is satisfied. God, also, is satisfied with the results of the trial: Job's faith is better founded. And when Job's health and life are restored -- even more generously -- he pays more attention to his family, and is less worried about transactional sacrifices.

And lest there be any doubt about Job's innocence, God himself tells us that Job is righteous, but that his accusers sinned! So they must ask Job to pray for them to be forgiven.

In short, I largely agree with the commentator. FYI, all this I learned from Rev. Tim Schehr while in seminary. He is brilliant, but not widely published, alas.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Father Fox. As always, you have offered a cogent and well-written explanation of the subject at hand.

Anonymous said...

Bee here:

I've heard a lot of bad theology and a lot of bad preaching over the years, so please excuse me if I have this 25%, or even 100% wrong.... :-) )

I hadn't thought much about the identity of the accuser in the Book of Job, but I always thought the book itself was a sort of theological essay to deal with the Jewish question of whether God blesses the just with prosperity and afflicts the wicked with poverty and woe, and whether it is the actions and character of the person which causes God to send good or evil into someone's life. The same question arises in the Gospel of John, when His own disciples ask Jesus, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?

But I did think the "accuser" in the book was Satan, and corresponded that to the book of Revelation that says, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night." Rev. 12:10

Although the accuser in the Bible has no good intentions, he does serve God's purpose by bringing out and into the open the evil being done in the world.

God bless.
Bee