How The Book of Job to some extent reflects the spirit of modernity?

History of Modern Thoughts – The Book of Job

The creation of modernity is a continuing process and this idea can be seen in “Modernization: The Dynamics of Growth” as follow:

Each of the social science disciplines has focused on different elements of the modernization process. Economists see modernization primarily in terms of man’s application. . . Sociologist and social anthropologists have been primarily concerned with the process of differentiation that characterizes modern societies. . . Sociologists also study some of the disruptive features of the modernization process: rising tensions, mental illness, violence, divorce, juvenile, delinquency, racial, religious, and class conflict. (Weiner: 1966, 3)   

Contextually, the formation of modernity has strong relationship with the phenomenal growth of knowledge in 1436 until 1789 and also it continues in the 1970s. The process of the intellectual movement is continuing and its development varies from one society to another. In this paper, we specialize in the discussion about the development of modernity in one of the greatest wisdom books in the Hebrew Bible, The Book of Job. 

The Book of Job to some extent reflects the spirit of modernity through the characteristics of the main character in The Book of Job which are Job and his friend, Elihu. Besides Job and Elihu, the other important characters that can be found in The Book of Job are the three friends of Job which are Sophar, Baldad, and Eliphaz. All of the characters in The Book of Job belong to traditional Jewish people. The essential point that makes them differ is their thoughts. Moreover Job’s friends reflect as traditionalists who view tradition as a thing that never change and keep the tradition in a very strictly way. This view is same like in the statement that found in “Modernization: The Dynamics of Growth” as follow:

Traditionalist see tradition as static, they urge that men do things only as they have been done before. (Weiner: 1966,7)

The three friends of Job, which are Eliphaz, Sophar, and Bildad, reflect as traditional Jewish people who still keep their beliefs in a strict way. Actually, Job and Elihu are shown as a traditional Jewish people but moreover they have employed critical thinking so it can be said that their characteristics have reflected the spirit of modernity.

The spirit of modernity itself can be tracked through Job’s personality. At the beginning of the story, Job was described as upright, kind, righteous, rich person who has a big family but then Satan seduce God in order to give Satan the power to afflict Job and so God gave the power to Satan to afflict Job. So then, Satan took all of Job’s belongings and his entire family member. At this point, Job still believed in God and didn’t blame God to every misery that happened in his life. It was stated at Chapter two and Verse nine, “… In all these things Job did not sin with his lips.”

During his grief, the three friends of Job came to comfort and console him. Actually what they did later was presumed to reveal the aim in Job’s afflictions. They believed that the reason why Job got all of those miseries was because the sins of his fathers or his children. The first spoke of Eliphaz which is stated in Chapter 4 Verse 17, “… Shall man be justified in comparison of God, or shall a man be more pure than his maker?” shows that Eliphaz presumed that Job committed sins. The other presumption from Eliphaz also can be found in Chapter 5 Verse 6 until Verse 7, “… Nothing upon earth is done without a cause, and sorrow doth not spring out of the ground. Man is born to labor and the bird to fly.“ The spoke of Eliphaz means that he think that misery happens because of the fault of human itself, not because the nature. Besides Eliphaz, Baldad also spoke toward Job’s miseries, it can be found in Chapter 8 Verse 3, “… Doth God pervert judgment or doth the Almighty overthrow that which is just?” The meaning of Baldad statement is he thought that Job deserved the God’s punishments since Job and his children had committed sins. The other friend of Job who also accused him was Sophar. The statement of Sophar can be found in Chapter 11 Verse 2, “… Shall not he that speaketh much, hear also? Or shall a man full of talk be justified?” To reply the statements of his friends, Job asked the reason why he suffers to God because he insisted that he never committed any sins. Then, the last friend of Job that finally speak is Elihu. He is the youngest of all but he finally speaks his minds too. The part of Elihu speaks his minds also reflects the spirit of modernity of The Book of Job since at that time young people are rarely allowed to speak in front of the oldest.    

Based on the presumptions of Job’s friends and Job’s question toward his suffering, the most essential question that appeared in the Book of Job is, “What is the reason that makes the righteous suffers?” Before, people at that time had tended to think that suffering was a punishment for sin. They have such a view since God usually punish his creations who had committed sins. The example is in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah that originated from The Book of Genesis and later will be explained and talked more throughout the Hebrew Bible. In that story, God severely punished all of the people who live in Sodom and Gomorrah since they had committed many heavy sins. The punishment of God to sinful people also can be seen in the story of Adam and Eve. After YHWH, the God of the Hebrew Bible, known that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden thing which was from The Three of Knowledge then YHWH punished them by sending them away from Eden. Based on the stories about punishment from God, we can see that the view of God punish the sinful people is accepted at that time. This kind of view is also reflected in The Book of Job through the characteristics of the three friends of Job. From their views, they did not show a different point of views from one to another because at that time people had tended to think that everything is related to God and religious views therefore they believed that every human’s act related to God and the result will be reflected if the human committed sin then God will punish him.

But then at this point, Job emerged that suffering is not always a punishment for sin. One of the characteristics of traditional people is they tended to be fatalist. Fatalism is the belief that there is nothing you can do to prevent some events from happening, therefore if we look into Job’s personality it can be said that Job is not a fatalist. His personality of not being fatalist is shown by his refusal to be consoled by his friends and defy his fate. Job insisted that he had never committed any sin since he is an upright person. It can be found in the Chapter 9 Verse 35 “… I will speak and will not fear him: for I can not answer while I am in fear”. From this statement, we can see that Job still urged that he did not commit any sin. It is the proof that his thoughts differ from other common people who live in that time. Again, we need to look back at the Weiner’s quotation above that said about the feature of Modernization process is through the rising tension, juvenile and religion. Based on the Weiner’s statement, it will lead to the new invention of thought about the phenomenon also happened in The Book of Job. If we take a look at the phenomenon that is happening through the life of Job, we can see that there is a movement and the invention of new thought which is his misery is not coming from his sins, because he believe in his self that he had never done it before. So he refuse the traditional believe of his three friends who said that somebody’s misery was always coming from his sins.

Our conclusion is that The Book of Job to some extent reflects the spirit of modernity in several ways. We can analyze it through the characteristics of the main characters and finally, it reveals that the spirit of modernity can be tracked through the personalities of Job and Elihu.

References:

http://www.ccel.org/contrib/exec_outlines/job/job_10.htm (Wednesday, 13 April 2011)

Mac, Maynard. 1968. Twentieth Century Interpretation of The Book of Job. New Jersey : Prentice Hall.

Weiner, Myron. 1966. Modernization: The Dynamics of Growth. Washington DC: Cambridge, Mass.