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YMMV / Book of Job

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  • Alternate Character Interpretation:
    • This book in particular is a common target used by atheists to bash Judaism and Christianity, interpreting Yahweh as downright evil, torturing His most faithful servant just to win a bet and refusing to answer Job's rather understandable plea for an answer to why all these bad things are happening to him, instead launching into a dressing-down of Job for questioning His authority. It's also often noted for how off Satan is from usual depictions, having his traditional role as tempter but potentially being on good terms with God and needing His permission to do anything. This is a hotly-debated issue; you’re more than welcome to look up Jewish/Christian sites for their interpretation of the story. (Jewish interpretations of the book are generally very different from Christian ones; this applies to a lot of both Jewish and Christian scripture, but the Book of Job stands out as an extreme example.) Overlaps with Early-Installment Weirdness since this is one of the oldest books in the Bible if not THE oldest (there's a lot of debate on this point), and it's set centuries before Abraham made his covenant with God, with some scholars believing it may have been written before or during Abraham's lifetime.
    • What do Job's final words to God mean? The traditional English translation is "Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." But an alternate translation of the first phrase is merely "I recant" or "I relent": recanting his earlier bitter words, but not loathing himself for them. And the second phrase can also be translated as "I am comforted in dust and ashes": i.e. that despite his lowly, powerless human status, he takes comfort in the knowledge of God's higher power.
    • The book's interpretations among scholars is also hotly debated. One (actually fairly common) interpretation is that Job is actually a parody of facile just-world moralistic fables.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Preachers and scholars can't seem to agree whether Elihu and his rambling speech (the longest discourse in the book— 5 chapters long!) should be lumped together with Job's other three self-righteous friends, whom God denounces as "wrong" (Chapter 42:7), or if he is a heaven-sent messenger of God whose words sets up the stage for the Almighty to finally face Job. The fact that Job doesn't answer Elihu's rebukes the same way he did with his three other friends either proves that he's "in the right" and Job has no answer to his arguments, or that Elihu is so pointlessly long-winded with arguments that have already been refuted before, that Job won't even bother to dignify him with a response.
  • Broken Base: What kind of animals the Behemoth and the Leviathan were, is hotly debated among many believers.
  • Epileptic Trees: An offhanded comment, seemingly about the End of Times and what happens after death, sparked a whole lot of this.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: Job is restored to his former fortune and has a new family of children. But this says nothing about the fact that his earlier children remain dead and that all his perseverance notwithstanding, he could be considered a serious trauma survivor. Plus the message it says about humankind's utter inferiority vis-à-vis God. Though even this is hotly debated.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: God's epic descriptions of Leviathan and Behemoth.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The absolute Hell that poor Job has to go through, all because of a bet he wasn't privy to that took place in the Heavens. And a senseless one as God is omniscient and already knows the outcome before it will happen. Reduced to a Cosmic Plaything, he loses his original children, and God doesn't resurrect them. He can't even protest or reason with the deity because God is talking over him and waving around his Omniscient Morality License in the ending.
  • Values Dissonance: Job's children are considered part of his property and not people in their own right. The Satan requires permission to test Job, but not to kill him outright. And when the children do die, and later things are all smoothed out, Job gets a new set of children. You know, because kids are supposed to be exchangeable apparently. This is why the Book of Job is often interpreted as an extended parable. Interestingly, in all other regards he gets twice as much wealth as he started with, but only ends up with the same number of (living) children; it's been suggested that this was because his original children hadn't been destroyed but were still alive in heaven.
  • The Woobie: Job. Also an Iron Woobie due to his refusal to curse God in the midst of his pain. Though every man has his breaking point, and Job at his lowest cursed the day he was born. Cue "The Reason You Suck" Speech from God.

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