No music tonight. It's late, and I'm not sure what I'd pick anyway.
Oh boy, King James Bible time!
Summary: God makes a bet with Satan that, no matter how terrible he makes his life, God won't lose faith. Satan kills his family and destroys his farm, and then God gives him a horrible skin disease. Job sort of questions God in the end, but only to point out the futility of doing so.
Commentary: I think Job is very underrated as an example of OT God as an abusive father/husband/just plain evil. We hear all about the flood, or that time he almost made Abraham sacrifice Isaac, etc., but most of those stories have at least semblance of justification and/or God "redeeming" himself in the end. Here, it's just straight up him being a dick for most of the book, then (after the end of the reading) chewing out all the humans for doubting him in the slightest, and sort of fixes things up with Job (by giving him a new farm and kids to replace the ones he murdered.)
I don't think we used Job much when I was in church as a kid, and it's easy to see why. I talked in my reflection on last week about how the best part of T5FSOB is the idea that anyone can be a good/smart person, and most people probably are most of the time. Job crushes that. Even the best people are completely clueless before God, and probably secretly evil in a way that they can't understand even if told about it. It couldn't be any less "liberal" (in the "liberal education" sense). Part of me wonders (I can't find any definitive information on his religion) if Eliot purposely chose such an outrageously repugnant selection as a subtle way of questioning traditional Christianity. I was a little surprised that it ended so early (we have no idea what happens to Job, if God restores him, etc.), but it would make sense to end "on a low note" if your goal is to make people question God.
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