By the world's standards, Job had it going on until everything fell apart. But here's the thing, Job didn't have a clue as to what was happening in heaven. And in the midst of our trials, that's the exact same thing with us. Important for us to remember that God's ways are higher than our ways, and we need to trust in Him and the good and the bad of life. That's what we're talking about today on ClearBeat Today.
You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galante. Sleeve today is all over the place.
That's right. We're so thankful to be with you with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. Dr. Shah, welcome to the studio.
Thank you. Good to be here, and good to see you guys. Wonderful to be here. I'm excited to continue the conversation today. There's so much here, so much in the book of Job that we gloss over, we just skip because we don't understand.
So I'm excited to continue this conversation. I've been doing Job in my morning devotionals when I take my son to school. We listen to Job, and we listen to, so the plan goes through like a couple books in the Old Testament, or a couple chapters in the Old Testament, one in the New Testament. We've been going through Job, and Gavin was listening to it. You know, Job, New King James Version, it's a little lofty.
It's written kind of poetically. And he's like, what is this? And I was telling him, I said, it's this man who did everything right and he was doing everything that God told him to do, but God still sent some hard times his way. And Gavin, literally, after the discussion we had, I'm not joking, he said. Why would God do that?
And I said, Gavin, do you remember when we were at the Sand Dudes buddy and you yelled that? He was like, But anyway, isn't that the question? Why would God do that? Yeah. And that's the big question that people all over the world ask, especially believers as they're going through difficult times.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Right.
Now, we can discuss why do bad things happen. But two good people takes on a whole different dimension. And the book of Job, as we spend the past two shows talking about. Um it's an old book. It goes back to I would say maybe 100 or maybe 200 years after the flood.
So that puts it about 2200 BC to 2100 BC. He lived at a time where maybe Noah was still alive. I would say Noah was definitely alive. but also a time when Abraham was coming up.
So think about it. This man is living very early on in life, in in the history of world. He is also asking the question which others around him are also asking. like the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians, Which is Why do bad things happen to good people? Yeah, and we started the last two.
You know, if today's the first time you're listening, I want to encourage you to go back and listen to the last couple of episodes because we laid the foundation of the book of Job, and that's context, right? You know, Dr. Shah is a you're a text critic. Context is everything.
So if you don't understand, if you don't listen to those episodes, you're going to start the story off on the wrong foot and end up at the wrong conclusion. But the story does sort of start in a weird place. And what I mean by that, it's something that we don't see a lot in scripture, which is the scene. Apart from the narrative on earth, it's a scene in heaven. Or maybe I should say in the presence of God.
Yeah, that's where it begins. I mean, well, it actually begins talking about Job. Sure, sure. It says Job was a blameless man. He was upright.
He feared God and he shunned evil.
Now, focus on those four things for just a moment before we look at. Scene two. Blameless. Nobody can find anything wrong with him. Does that mean that he was sinless?
No. Does that mean he was born perfect? No. We're all born. dead in trespasses and sins.
We all need the grace of God to come to us, and the grace of God comes to every person. We believe that the Holy Spirit speaks to every heart. most hearts reject Some receive those who receive are given further light. And the light is Jesus Christ.
Some people often ask me, you know, how about those who live? In some remote part of history in a remote part of the world. How about them? Yeah, they're not going to hell, right? That's not their fault.
Surely. Yeah, I mean, surely God's going to judge them on some other standard. Yeah. There's only one way to God. There may be different ways to Jesus.
But there's only one way to God. There you go. That's a great quote right there. That's a t-shirt. Yeah.
That's a hat. Let me contact the God. Just real quick. Let me just send that off. The copyright logo.
You may come by way of a missionary. You may come by way of a gospel track. You may come by way of radio. You may come by way of some traveling salesman. I don't know.
Somehow it will come to you.
Okay. God will bring you to Christ.
So, how about those who were living in a remote part in a remote time in history?
Sometimes generationally, people have rejected the gospel. Mm-hmm.
So coming back to this He was blameless, but does not mean he was sinless. Upright. Means everything that he that he did, the way he conducted himself was not like I don't do anything wrong. He also did a lot of things right. He was A model citizen.
He was a leader in the community. He was somebody that you would tell your sons to emulate. Yeah. And say, you know, that's the kind of person you need to be, upright. Character, uh integrity.
Who you are, as I say, when no one's watching. That's the kind of person Joe was. Who feared God?
Now, this is a big one because it's not just that he was a good guy, great guy, he'll help you, give you the shirt off his back. No, he was a person who feared God, means he had a relationship with God. I would say the living, true, triune God. And you know that because he's talking about a mediator, he's talking about his redeemer standing on the earth.
So this is not just a. Person who just believed in a generic God. Yeah, his language very much speaks to the Trinity. It very much speaks to the different persons in the Godhead. That's right.
And feared God, the Bible tells us. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
So it's not just he had a relationship with God but made some horrible choices. No, because of the relationship, he had a fear of God does not mean the fright of God. It means a reverence for God, a submission. To not only God as a person, but also God's purpose in this world, God's word. He feared God, and wisdom came to him.
and knowledge came to him, and he shunned evil. That's a big one. That's a big one. Because you can be all those things and still partake. You can be a great Christian.
You can be someone who understands the Bible and even has a right fear of the Lord, but you can certainly fall into temptation and let it become a habit. And just because this is the world after the flood, don't think that evil wasn't present or evil was kind of like still bubbling up under the surface. In generation, we talked about this on the last episode. In generation zero, we have evil sin, horrific sin. Couldn't even make it one chapter away from the brain bone.
No, I mean, the earth was still drying out. The ground was still wet and there's sin entering into the world. Right.
I mean, that's why, you know, I tell people. It's not enough just to do the right things, but also you need to walk away, turn away from the wrong things. That's right. That's right. You have to reject.
The enemy. You have to reject evil. Don't live a double life in any aspect of your. of your personal I don't have In another side to you. It's not going to help you, it's going to destroy you.
And it's also going to destroy your family. You're going to destroy your testimony. Don't do that. I mean, so when you look at this, By the world standards and by believers standards, He is An amazing guy. Yeah, he's awesome.
He's got it made. Parents would say: be like Job. Or, like we say, parents would say, now get a job. Get a Job. There you go, man.
Very quick. Wow, we're getting a lot of week for that one. A lot of t-shirts. Yeah, we're going to make some merchasms. We're going to license Job, yeah.
Why can't you be more like Job? But then all of a sudden In verse 6, scene 2. Here it comes. The inciting incident is here. It's here.
And it's a weird thing because you only see like one or two other scenes like this in all of scripture. I think in Revelation, it's got a lot of them, but like in God's presence away from what's happening on earth. It is kind of weird. Do you think this scene?
Well, maybe you can lay it out first and then I can ask you about it. No, no, no. I mean, that's that's fine. Go ahead. I was gonna say, do you think this scene kind of is what makes people think that this is more of a mythic book, that this adds to the the mythology and takes away from the credibility?
I mean, there are various reasons why higher critical scholars over the couple of centuries have have done that to the book of Job and it does not deserve that because When you study it, examine it, it's simply telling you. While Job is living this kind of a life, a good life, a moral life, a God-fearing life. A righteous life, and also leading his family well, doing all these things. that there's another realm. Let's enter into that realm to see what is happening.
Okay. I think the higher critical scholars are wrong because they find Other Parallel accounts. And in these parallel accounts, there may be mythologies of what's happening. On Mount Olympus, or what's happening with Marduk, or what's happening, you know, and then they take that and then they superimpose that on scripture with no regard to the scripture has its own character and it's not. that easily You cannot easily fit it into another template.
I want to ask you: this is a digression, and I know this is not the point of the episode, but I do want to ask you: speaking just in terms of scholarly scholarship. Not like Christian application. Can something be methodical? I'm sorry, mythological and also actually have happened. Or or in scholarship, are they seen as opposites?
There has been a trend and it has been coming for some time where people and it was there, but then it went away and it's coming back. Where people are seeing that Mets have an echo of truth. In them. Joseph Campbell and others who did a lot of work on myths and mythologies. Myths tell us that something happened.
And it was Either traumatic or it was very impactful. And so societies and communities and civilizations and cultures have shared them again and again. And in that sharing, like the telephone game, more has added on. And some of that, when you peel away the layers, you get back to the truth.
So yeah, But unfortunately In the nineteenth century German hierarchism lot of this was sort of thrown aside as um as just Mythological now if I can go one step further. Since then We're talking about the scholarship on Job. Since then, Job was put into the category of wisdom literature. Like alongside the proverbs and stuff like that.
Well, not even poetry. Right.
Wisdom literature, as in Proverbs, maybe Ecclesiastes, you know, books that or other books that may have wisdom kind of guiding principles in life. And I think now there is a shift that is coming. And I think it's a well needed shift because I don't think Job fits in that wisdom. Genre.
So, would you put it more as like a narrative? This is like a historical account? I agree. I think it needs to be narrative. Yeah.
It may have some.
Some lament psalms in it, and that's fine too. It may also have wisdom in it, but to put that in an exclusively a wisdom category, Emphasizes the myth element of Job. Gotcha. Or The perceived myth element. Because wisdom In a narrative, it requires that the narrative may have been fiction.
Right, right. Just to communicate wisdom, they created this fiction.
So let's get to the core and find the wisdom, and let's. Do away or peel away all the narrative. And so these are Christian scholars saying this as well? They have been for quite some time. Yeah.
Kind of putting it in the fable category where there's like principles of fable. Yeah. So go ahead.
Well, I was going to ask, and this maybe opens a larger discussion, but in classifying books in the Bible, because I 100% agree. I think Job reads more like a narrative. I think it needs to be in the narrative category. If it contains these elements of wisdom or it contains these elements of poetry, what lands it into the narrative category versus one of those other categories? Why is it more suited to be in the narrative category?
Because it is a narrative. I mean, from day one, it begins with telling us about a man who lived. In the land of Oz. And we know where the land of Oz is. Right.
Yeah. Like, that's a great point. Even though it's got those elements, I would not put, like, I wouldn't put the gospels in wisdom category just because Jesus is telling fictional stories. Right.
And also, that's not to say that I think that Job is fictional. That's the thing is that I'm. that I'm confused about is these are Christian scholars, but they're saying, okay, so you've got this scene of the devil going before God up in the heavens and they're having this back and forth. A secular scholar, I could see them who don't believe and say, yeah, that's fiction, of course. But a Christian scholar, they would say also that that's fiction.
That didn't actually happen. There is no other realm. You also have things like Mary's song when she is given the assignment to bear the Messiah. You also have Miriam's song in Exodus, but that doesn't mean that Exodus and the Gospels are poetry, even though it contains that poetry.
So I think that's a good clarification in examining the larger context of the book, how the book reads as a whole, even though it may have these. Elements of wisdom or poetry, literature kind of planted into the news. I guess I just don't see the gain. Like, there's plenty of supernatural events in Genesis. They're super, I mean, I guess they say that that's mythological too, but even take the Exodus with the parting of the Red Sea.
Those are supernatural events, and you see them throughout the Old Testament, but those have no problem being classified as historical narrative things. Is there any benefit to regarding Job as a myth? Or is. Is there an underlying agenda there? I think the underlying agenda was sort of to get away from the historical, critical, completely mythological to no, let's bring it to the wisdom side of things so we can still sort of, how do you say, rescue it and kind of have some like a house is burning down and you're trying to save what you can.
Trended the hashtag save Job. Yeah. Will Kynes. Will Kynes is a scholar who did his dissertation on Job, his PhD on Job from Cambridge. In recent years, he has written a lot in this direction on calling scholars to Job as wisdom and start treating it more and more as a narrative, a theology, rather than wisdom literature.
In an article on in the Oxford Handbook, On wisdom literature. He wrote that. The article on Job. And in that, he just says, Wisdom, to call it wisdom, and I'm paraphrasing, to call it wisdom literature is passe. It's dying, let it die.
So we can now. Approach Job the way we're supposed to.
So, is this kind of a minority opinion right now, or is this a major shift that's occurring? I think it's a major shift that's occurring. Yeah. And it's going to have some pushback because reputable scholars like Tremper Longman, who has written, say, in the dictionary of the IVP dictionary on Old Testament literature, wisdom literature, I mean, he definitely classifies Job as. As wisdom.
As wisdom. So, with that understanding, can we read that scene where Jesus, or I'm sorry, where Satan comes before God. as a historical account and see maybe how like if we go into it with that mindset, how does it change our understanding? It it does because many of the commentaries who are approaching Job from a wisdom perspective, that's all they're trying to glean from the book of Job.
So they miss other elements of seeing Christ in it. Uh they miss, for example. Um Tremper Longman will say Where it says Satan came? That's not really the Satan. Really?
Yeah. Just some other character? But it's not really, and you say, like, what? Wait, I'm reading the same Bibles. It says in Hebrew, Hashatan.
How can he say that?
Well, he is putting the wisdom literature template on the book of Job. And then he's saying that's not really Satan.
So. It does make a difference if you're approaching this.
So so to the average person you're thinking Wait a minute. I don't read it like that. What are they? I don't know for the past 10 minutes, we went a little academic to help you understand. Where Um Job is right now in And Old Testament critical studies.
Right.
Right.
Yeah. That's, and it's important for us to have that framework as we launch in, because, like you said, it's going to change the way that we read it. It's going to change the way that we make our way through this, what should accurately be classified as a narrative and the way that we absorb these principles that we learn from Job's life. Yeah, David just sent us some information. Michael Heiser, who I think since passed away, come back right.
Yeah. Who's an Old Testament scholar and did a lot of work on the demonic world and things like that? He believed that it wasn't Satan. Mm. It was an angel whose job it was to accuse, and he accused.
So, this is not the same thing. And it's like, it's very jarring, but it's again, they're approaching. Approaching Job as wisdom literature.
So the point is: no, you need to know who these characters in the story are. The point is, you have to approach Job with the right mindset because then you're going to glean the information that the author actually intended. And of course, Kynes will definitely. I think it's a, he and his father wrote a book called Wrestling with Job. Great book, by the way.
And When you approach it with the right perspective, which is not like, let's go back. I think Keynes is. Suggesting, let's move forward with all that we've learned. Let's move forward and do away with unnecessary things that we have picked up over the. centuries of critical studies.
And let's now look at Joe with all that we know, with fresh eyes. And it's not like we're going to bring back the commentaries of 17th, 18th, 19th century centuries, but we're gonna Find things even better now. Than ever before. Yeah. So, with all that we've discussed, with all that we've looked at, Job being an old book, the oldest book written in the Old Testament, not the oldest account, of course, but the oldest book written in the Old Testament.
It is a timeless book. It's a narrative and should accurately be classified as such, although it contains wisdom for us. How then do we jump into the story of Job?
So, Act 2.
Something is happening in the other realm. And it says right here, if y'all want to read that. Job chapter one. In verse 6, it says, Now there was a day. When the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Hashatan or Satan also came among them.
Time out. Yeah. Time out. I hate it because we finally started the story, but we got a time out. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Because I heard Dr. Shah, God can't have sin in his presence. Yeah. So Satan can come.
So, like, I'm being facetious. I actually thought this. I was told this all the time growing up. God is so holy that he cannot have sin in his presence. That's why you have to be saved because if you approach God with sin, he can't have it.
You're going to hell. I really thought this. And then I realized literally this weekend after hearing this sermon, that's not in scripture. That's just something that I was always told. Right.
So I guess what I'm saying is it really does help to know that there's another realm with its own with its own reality that goes on. And it truly affects us. It affects us here in this realm. And again, if I can kind of go back and talk about that whole debate we just had or discussion we just had about the wisdom literature thing. One reason.
They have trouble with Satan coming here is because they believe the idea of a Satan was something post-exilic. And they believe that Job was written post-exilic.
So, if you claim things like that, then you're going to make it fit into your timeline.
So, in your timeline, Satan Cannot happen until much, much later. They would have to think that Genesis is post-exilic. Yeah, it's all messes up. This is the equivalent. But he's not called Satan there, you know?
He's a serpent. Fair enough. This is the equivalent of having a jigsaw puzzle and you've got one piece left to fit in, but it has a little knob on the side that doesn't fit.
So you just saw that off and just kind of cram it in there. Yeah. That's. That's a lot of biblical scholarship. Is Isaiah post-exilic?
I mean It's about the time of the first exile.
Okay, okay. Because I'm just thinking of where he's mentioned by name. Yeah, yeah.
Okay. So What's happening now? Of course. He has access to come before God. And who speaks first?
The Lord. God does. Yeah. Yeah. From where do you come?
From where do you come? What are you doing here? What hole did you just crawl out of? Yeah. And Satan answered the LORD and said, From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.
Wow. Who speaks then? God the Lord.
So, the initiator of this conversation regarding Job is God. Is God.
Now, that is something. That would require a mind shift in a lot of us. And it also requires. A reappraisal of a lot of our preaching and teaching on the book of Job. Because what we end up doing at this point is, once we have introduced Job as this good man, great man, to whom bad things happen, the next subject is The presence of evil and the power of evil and the evil of evil, what evil does, and how we need to be aware of evil.
Here what we find is He shows up. God is the one who begins this whole thing. Yeah, God initiated. Satan does his stuff. But the rest of the book is not about Job talking about Satan.
He doesn't say a word about him. And we may not know this, but do we know why Satan was there? Do we did Satan come About Job, or do we know why Satan was there in the first place? It doesn't say, but I think he has access to come before God, which trips a lot of people up. I'm going to be really honest.
I had a hard time kind of reconciling that because of how I was raised, because of what I heard growing up. See me too. Satan being able to come into God's presence threw me for a loop. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That's why I'm saying I struggled with this. I, I, after the sermon, not struggled like I didn't believe it, but it definitely was raised in red flex because this idea that God physically can't have sin within his presence destroys the book of Job. Yeah. And so that was where I was like, well, hold on.
Have I ever read that or have I just heard it preached? Yeah. Have I just heard it? Yeah, God is holy. Trust me on that.
God is holy. God will not tolerate sin. Sin must be destroyed. Yes. But.
If that were the case, right now the entire World would just implode. Or we'd have to say God's presence isn't in it. Or the Old Testament accounts of God interacting with his people. I mean, they would have been consumed. If they're looking ahead to a savior, they are still human.
They're still, you know, they saw original sin. Moses, when God, you know, is with him on Mount Sinai, would have just been vaporized. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, God is holy and God will deal with sin and he cannot tolerate sin.
Having said that, God is also patient. God is also merciful. God also has an order and purpose in what he's doing in the universe.
So he's not like, oh, sin, God kill. You know, it's not like that. Right.
Right.
I mean, yeah, we need to be careful. Yeah. I agree. But we got maybe four minutes left. You want to leave it on a cliffhanger?
Because Satan is about to wreck Job's entire day. Let me deal with one thing, which hopefully will help our listeners before you start looking in the Bible whether or not this is true, that Satan can come in his presence or not, in God's presence. Revelation 12.10. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven. Where is the saying?
And this is in the presence of God. After this life there will be new heavens and new earth. Physical new heavens, new earth. Right now, Heaven is the presence of God. That's right.
Okay. So In Revelation 12:10, this is the presence of God heaven. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven.
Now, salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ, have come. Why? For the accuser of our brethren who accused them Before God. Before God. Before our God, day and night.
So, I mean, he has access. Before God, this is not some Old Testament, whether you believe the book of Job was written.
Sometime after the flood, or you believe in a post-exilic Job. He accused accuses believers, brethren, before God day and night. And then in the end he has been cast down.
So good. Man, there's so much here. And I so appreciate the time that we've taken, Dr. Shaw, the time that you've taken to walk us through how to accurately see the book of Job. Because growing up, this is a confusing book.
Because you read about Satan coming into God's presence. You read about all this calamity happening to a righteous man. You read about these people coming into his life. And there's these big discourses on how Job should respond, what he's done wrong versus, you know, Job saying, I haven't done anything wrong. Then we have creatures like Leviathan and Behemoth.
There's so much to unpack, but accurately seeing the book of Job in the proper context and the proper framework helps us in that journey. Yeah, because you can approach it one of two ways, right? Like you can do it just like a normal sermon where you just read that Job suffered and this is how I should act. And I'm just going to apply that to my Christian life and not worry about it. Or you can do what we talked about today and you can apply like a mythological status to it.
But then at some point, you're going to look at other things.
Well, what about Genesis? Hold on one second. I don't know if God really created the earth like that.
Well, now that I'm doubting that, did he really part the red seed? See? Did Moses actually stop the earth from turning? That can't happen.
Now, all of a sudden, we're doubting God's supernatural presence within the story.
So, I think it was really beneficial for us to talk about Job like this and actually approach the story in the correct way before we dive into the narrative. Absolutely. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow. Same time, we're going to be digging further into the account of Job and seeing how it applies to our lives today. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible.
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