 This year, the ICJS conducted an inquiry into the Book of Job.
Along with other local clergy and educators--sixteen Christians
and sixteen Jews--I was invited to study the book and explore
the issues it brings into focus. We looked together at implications
for our preaching, teaching, and pastoral counseling, all the
while attending to the ways in which the text has been interpreted
by our respective communities. In the process, the ICJS tested
a model for interfaith study that alternated plenary sessions,
featuring visiting biblical scholars and theologians, with small-group
text study sessions.
In October, 1994, Dr. Steven Vicchio, author of a forthcoming
history of the interpretation of Job and Philosophy Professor
at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, noted that the narrative
is structured so that the reader cannot blame either the Adversary
(Hebrew, satan) or Job for Job's misfortune. Thus, we are being
asked to question God's role in human suffering. The sketchiness
of the details surrounding Job's afflictions prompts the reader
to identify with Job's plight. For example, we are not told what
kind of sores he is scratching; the focus is on the itching, the
universal experience of agony. Finally, readers are invited to
join in the debates that will follow. Job's initial patience and
his friends' vigil of silent comfort create psychic space, allowing
a reader's latent inner turmoil to emerge. And the words of Job's
spouse are ambiguous, testing the reader, drawing her/him in like
opinion surveys that accompany political fund-raising letters.
In December, Dr. Peter Pitzele, author of Our Fathers' Wells:
A Personal Encounter with the Myths of Genesis (HarperSanFrancisco,
1995), directed the second plenary session. Originally trained
to analyze literature, Dr. Pitzele is now directing psychodrama
for psychiatric patients. With us, he shared a method of narrative
engagement that combines these two fields, thereby demonstrating
psychodrama as a potent tool for close reading of the Bible.
Dr. Pitzele asked us to "step into the sandals" of the story's
characters. As Job's friend, what goes on in our minds after a
week of sitting with him in absolute silence? What considerations
begin to nag at us? As Job, how do we respond to our friends'
assertions? How comfortable are we with the notion that not everything
that happens to us is a direct result of our own behavior? This
playful, but serious, exercise prompted us to identify with the
characters and allowed us to experience the vibrancy and timelessness
of an ancient, although often obscure, text.
In February, 1995, Dr. Rosann Catalano, ICJS Theologian, explored
theological themes and questions in the Book of Job that remain
crucial today. For example, what, if any, meaning do we give to
suffering? To explicate this question, she turned our attention
to the dialogues between God and Job near the end of the book.
Job interrogates God: "How can it be that I, a righteous person,
am afflicted?"
God never answers this question directly, but says, in effect,
"You can hammer away at me all you want. But my answer is: There
is no 'answer' forthcoming! This is my mysterious nature: I do
not answer you in your own terms." Surprisingly, the divine presence
itself is the answer offered. Dr. Catalano thus asserted that
after the book rejects as inadequate the models of God presumed
by both Job and his friends, we are left with this dilemma: God
is never who we think God is.
Further, on the key line of the book, Job 42:6--Job's ambiguous
response to God--Dr. Catalano suggested that the text charts a
theological journey in which Job lets go of his identity as ultimate
victim. By relinquishing his previous world-view, Job undergoes
a transformation that repositions him in relation to God and enables
him to see God as God desires to be seen.
Dr. Catalano concluded by sketching in broad strokes the lines
of thought to a much larger inquiry: what are the implications
for Christian faith of the theological claims that emerge from
the Book of Job? Are there connections between Job's theological
assertions and certain core Christian affirmations? What might
be the impact on Christology if Christians allow Job to be a lens
through which they interpret the death of Jesus? Might the claims
of Christian faith be more clearly apprehended by allowing the
theology of Job to act as an interpretive narrative through which
the story of Jesus can be told? Such an inquiry reverses the more
traditional Christian pattern of understanding Job as prototype
of Christ. Dr. Catalano noted, for example, that the book prompts
us to question the notion of retributive justice; that is, the
idea that if we do good, we will be rewarded, and if we do wrong,
we will be punished. This premise is what gets Job "stuck" in
the identity of victim. Job is aware that he is not standing in
a right relation to God, and that on his own he cannot set things
right. Job needs God's help.
For Christians, Christ reveals an alternative model of being related
to God and to the world; namely, that those saved by Christ undergo
a transformation, like Job after the whirlwind, that repositions
them from an adversarial relation to God to one in which God and
human beings together face evil, pain, and suffering.
Dr. Catalano was quick to note that this approach to getting "unstuck,"
or repositioned in relation to God, is embodied in symbols and
terms particular to Christians, but that the approach itself is
not unique to Christianity. She thus modeled how a deep commitment
to one's own particular faith can be combined with respect for
the other's tradition.
In May, Dr. Bruce Zuckerman, a scholar of ancient Near Eastern
texts who teaches religious studies at the University of Southern
California, turned our attention to the book's Epilogue. He asked
a powerful moral question: What compensation at the book's end
can ever replace the loss of Job's children? He sharpened this
question by noting that the story need not have ended the way
we now see it; he even inferred from Ezekiel 14 that in another
version of the story, Job's original children were restored to
him.
Dr. Zuckerman then suggested that the present version wants us
to confront the God of a flawed cosmos. Job comes to accept that
things aren't fair, and so should we. This message is implied
by Job's own rhetorical question in 2:10--"Should we accept only
good from God and not accept evil?"
As a child of survivors of the Holocaust, Dr. Zuckerman identifies
with Job's second set of children who knew that all their older
siblings had died suddenly for no reason. "We American Jews are
children of Job. Our relatives died for no reason too. In this
sense, the Holocaust was not unique!" For Dr. Zuckerman, the Epilogue
is profound in underscoring that life goes on, despite cataclysmic
interruptions.
The Study Group's finale on the evening of May 1 consisted of
a public presentation honoring the late Dr. A. Vanlier "Van" Hunter,
who figured prominently in helping to define the character of
the ICJS. This memorial tribute to a much loved scholar brought
Drs. Vicchio and Zuckerman together for a dialogue about the legacy
of the Book of Job.
In pondering the question, "What does Job see in the whirlwind?"
Dr. Vicchio noted, "In the midst of a sandstorm, you can't see
anything." Precisely! What Job sees is that he cannot see. And
therefore he is content to leave the matter in God's hands--and
get on with his life. He is no longer trapped by the problem of
suffering.
Dr. Zuckerman, in turn, started with a different query: "What
is God really like?" The book's author critiques both glib faith
and silent suffering as forms of spiritual morbidity. The book's
answer is fascinating, said Dr. Zuckerman. First, there is God's
telling response: a set of questions that Job cannot possibly
answer. And Job's response to God is a puzzle; it is not clear
whether Job speaks out of a sense of connectedness (faith) or
of disconnectedness (despair). Job says decisively that he rejects
something, but the rejected object is not named; we readers must
fill in the blank. Although the thrust of the book invites us
to choose faith over despair, the fact remains that we ourselves
must make the choice.
Until the ICJS convened this Study Group, I had despaired of making
sense of the Book of Job. Studying with the ICJS, in a group of
serious yet nontriumphal Christians and Jews, allowed me the safety
to seek out my own understanding of the text, knowing that my
study partners would be interested in my insights. This was Bible
study at its best: not as work, but as ennobling spiritual play.
I could not be more pleased or grateful to rediscover the adventure
in creative biblical study. |