Knowledge vs. Ignorance
Adam and Job both seek awareness, but for different reasons. Adam is inexperienced like a child so he is naturally curious about the world around him. Job’s child-like curiosity emerges only after he is physically struck with boils and does not understand why. As Adam awakens, he adapts to his surroundings, but still longs for further knowledge. The world around him is unfamiliar and he desires to know how everything operates. Adam receives these answers from the archangel Raphael, but has “doubts in his heart” when he hears that he has the choice of being disobedient to God (164). He is “sinless, with desire to know…” (164). Adam not only wants to acquire information of how the world works, but he doesn’t accept that
…show more content…
However, immediately after God allows a curse to be placed upon him, he laments furiously. Job continually questions God to the point where almost every sentence he speaks is an inquisition. His prominent complaint, which countless people have had, is that of cursing the day he was born. Job asks, “Why couldn’t I have died as they pulled me out of the dark?” (13). One terrible thing happens to Job and he’s ready to give up. In an instant, Job has turned from prized possession to pathetic coward as he contemplates what reasons he has to stay alive …show more content…
Job may give to the poor, and think he is doing good by this, but in his heart Job recognizes and God recognizes, that he only does this to be viewed by others as a truly giving and caring person, not because he feels intrinsically motivated to assist others. One example of this is when Job questions “And where now is my hope? My piety—who will see it?” (45). Job is immature in the way that he believes he has virtue when in reality all he has is the facade of virtue (73). Once his psyche cracks, the whirlwind “appears” and Job rapidly gains insight to all of his inquiries. Only then does Job develop mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. He now recognizes that it is acceptable, although uncomfortable, to not understand everything, and that one cannot “grasp the infinite”
Second, the story line. Although Archibald MacLeish wrote the play based on the story of Job in The Bible, there are many differences in the story line. In the Bible, Job’s misfortune was spawned by Satan trying to show God that Job was not as holy as God had thought. God gave Satan the power to destroy everything Job had, including his health. Job’s children all died together when the roof of the house collapsed on them while they were all dining at the house of the oldest brother.
...n the world. Job questions what god is really doing for him. Then god talks to job in question form about the creation of the earth. This shows that jobs is very small compared to god, so small that he cannot even being to understand some of the the things god is telling him. Chapter 38 proves to job that humans are far below the power of god then in chapter 42 job quickly shames himself for the previous things he said.
Job has no agency, no participation in God’s decision to make him the object of a wager. God does not give him the option to decline and he is presented with no opportunity in which he might refuse God outright. He has no control over the duration or intensity of his suffering. He is completely at the mercy of God.
Their ignorance protects them from the anxiety that comes with life's misfortunes. Shortly after Charlie has the surgery to make him smart, he starts to discover problems that, beforehand, he was not aware he had, therefore, he did not worry about them. He soon learns, “the end of the maze holds death (something [he has] not always known...)”(Keyes 124). Similarly, Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge and their eyes are opened to a problem they did not know existed; their nakedness. Both Adam and Eve and Charlie come out of their blissfully unaware state and realize how vulnerable, how “naked”
He wants to find a way to justify God’s actions, but he cannot understand why there are evil people who “harm the childless woman, / and do no good to the widow,” only to be rewarded with long, successful lives (Job 24:21). Job’s friends, say that God distributes outcomes to each person as his or her actions deserve. As a result of this belief, they insist that Job has committed some wrongdoing to merit his punishment. God himself declines to present a rational explanation for the unfair distribution of blessings and curses. He still suggests that people should not discuss divine justice since God’s power is so great that humans cannot possibly justify his
The Book of Job is a book about a wealthy man Job who lived in a land called Uz with his large family and extensive flocks. He was “blameless” and “upright,” and was always careful to avoid doing evil. One day, Satan (“the Adversary”) ap...
...ade to choose him for the spiritual task. Job realized he had to experience loss and suffering in the name of God to pass the test God bestowed upon him. God stated “Who is that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me... Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth” (p.667) God notified Job he was in no position to question the loss he must undertake in order to complete his mission. Job realized the meaning of his life, when he realized the magnitude God went to convince him of his calling. Job forgave himself for his sacrifices, because he realized it was instructed by God.
Kusher tells the reader about The Book of Job. Job is a good man who...
Knowledge is the cornerstone of Paradise Lost . Adam and Eve must not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan pinpoints Adam and Eve’s vulnerability in their ignorance of evil. Adam worries that he may seek knowledge that displeases God. Raphael praises Adam’s thirst for knowledge and warns him about obsessively seeking knowledge that is useless. Eve eats the fruit because she wants to know how ...
The Book of Job shows a change in God's attitude from the beginning to the end. At the beginning of the book, He is presented as Job's protector and defender. At the end He appears as the supreme being lecturing and preaching to Job with hostility, despite the fact that Job never cursed his name, and never did anything wrong. Job's only question was why God had beseeched this terrible disease on him. I intend to analyze and discuss the different roles God played in the Book of Job.
The Book of Job, especially the Poet's treatment of the suffering and searching Job, is behind Shakespeare and Milton, Melville, Dostoevski, and Kafka. Its mark is on all tragedy of alienation, from Marlowe's Faustus to Camus' Stranger, in which there is a sense of separation from a once known, normative, and loved deity or cosmic order or principle of conduct. In emphasizing dilemma, choice, wretchedness of soul, and guilt, it spiritualized the Promethean theme of Aeschylus and made it more acceptable to the Christianized imagination. In working into one dramatic context so great a range of mood---from pessimism and despair to bitterness, defiance, and exalted insight---it is father to all tragedy where the stress is on the inner dynamics of man's response to destiny.
Job was a man of the purest faith. When the world shunned God, Job's faith never declined. Job was a wealthy, handsome man with a beautiful wife and a vast amount of property. At some point in time, Satan made a bet with God that if Job situation was changed, his faith would quickly falter. On this note, God took Job's wealth, his property, his family, and his wife. When times were at their worst, God gave Job pus welts on Job's face, taking his looks. Job's faith, however, did not falter, instead it becamestronger. Job passed the test. God then healed Job, gave him more land, greater wealth , and a better wife. Job was baffled, he wondered the purpose behind his fall and rise. When he asked God this, God replied: "...Because I'm God." That was answer enough.
Why does God allow Satan to cause such tragedy in Job’s life, a man whom God has already acknowledged as “my servant Job, that there is none like on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”(1.8) From the beginning, it is known that Job is in no way deserving of his injustices, so a reason must be given. God gives Job an opportunity to prove that under any circumstances Job will still have faith. This simply a test for Job. The whole Book is a “double” journey for Job -- he shows God his faith and realizes the faith God has that Job will not stray from his path. Job knows deep down that God has not forsaken him.
Then, Job says to God that he hates his life. He is going to protest to Him to stop condemning him until He has shown him his sin. He asks if somehow, God gets enjoyment from attacking him while at the same time favoring the wicked. He knows that Job is innocent and that he is helpless against Him. It appears that He has evil motives toward Job.
In The Book of Job, one of the main themes is desire, more specifically the desire to know the actuality. Job is a wealthy man living in a land of Uz with his family minding his own business. He is a very religious man and usually strives to do what he believes is morally right. Satan one day challenges God that Job will lose his faith in him if he allows Satan to torture Job. God accepts the challenge and Job greatly suffers. Job at the beginning of the story had no desires or intentions at all, but as his condition gets worse and worse. Job mindset about God and his belief begins to shift. At this point in the story desire starts to play a key role in Job’s life. Desire is shown in Job when he demands answers from God and why God is putting him through all of this. The idea of questioning God terrifies Job but his desire for an answer ultimately overshadows his fear of questioning God, “Here is my desire...