Page 18 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+

Galiet & Galiet
and impiety on Job.41 Their dogmas that rewards and punishments are returned in this life are perverse.42 Yet, howsoever guilty they are in Yahweh’s eyes, they are spared and pardoned.43 If they are spared, why is not Josef K spared even if truly guilty? This we do not know. Yet it demonstrates how volatile, tyrannous and arbitrary Yahweh’s Moral Court and a Secular Court can be, when corrupt.
Job’s trial, however, aims not at moral refinement or purgation, as Mr. Frye and Mr. Terrien proffer,44 but at proving Job’s innocence. If G•Scholars claim there is something to refine in Josef K 3⁄4 his solipsism, there is nothing to purge in Job. Yahweh is witness to his innocence. At the Heavenly Court, Yahweh’s eulogy of Job’s exemplary righteousness (1:8) provokes Satan, Yahweh’s moral police. Satan 3⁄4 the patrolling angel, incriminator of the disloyal in Yahweh’s court, or Goethe’s der Geist der stets verneint, the spirit of everlasting negation45 3⁄4 suspects Job’s pretenses and tests Job’s ‘disinterested piety’ (1:8). Satan throws adversity and sufferings at Job that he does not deserve (1:11, 2:5).46Yahweh authorizes Job’s two ordeals 3⁄4 minus his death, to prove Satan wrong, to cure him of hiscynicism,47tomanifestJob’svirtuetoall,48andtovindicateJobagainstSatan’sinsinuations.49 Thereisreallyno need to probe Job’s heart or test him as Yahweh tests Israel, or to refine a blameless Job by inflicting heedless suffering.50 Itistheirrationalsimple:JobmustnotcurseGod.IfJobcurses3⁄4Jobhassinned3⁄4provingSatanin the right. If God takes away Job’s possessions and diseases him, Job will surely blaspheme God to His Face (1:11-12, 2:1-4).
But how is Job’s curse-power in the future going to prove his innocence in the past? It baffles ratiocinations. Job’s potential curse-power shall actualize into guilt as soon as Job fulfills Satan’s prediction that he will curse God. In
41 Aquinas, Thomas. The Literal Exposition on Job. A Scriptural Commentary Concerning Providence. Trans. By Anthony Damico. The American Academy of Religion. Classics in Religious Studies. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1989. 214-15
42 Please see commentary on Job 13:4. Aquinas, Thomas. The Literal Exposition on Job. A Scriptural Commentary Concerning Providence. Trans. By Anthony Damico. The American Academy of Religion. Classics in Religious Studies. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1989. 214
43 Frye, Northrop. Words with Power. Being a Second Study of the Bible and Literature. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990. 311
44 Frye, Northrop. Words with Power. Being a Second Study of the Bible and Literature. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990. 310-11.
45 “It is likely that by the early post-exilic period, when the Book of Job was probably written, the expression “the Satan” had come to designate a particular
divine being in the heavenly court, one whose specialized function was to seek out and accuse persons disloyal to God. The Chief evidence for this is Zech 3:1, which describes the heavenly trial of the high priest Joshua, who is “standing before the angel of Yahweh with the accuser [ha-satan] standing at his right hand to accuse [Satan] him.” Some scholars have speculated that the figure of the accuser in Zechariah and Job may be modelled on officials in the Persian court who served as informers (“the eyes and ears of the king” (cf. Zech 4:2, 10b) and even as agents provocateurs although this is less certain. The accusing angel is a subordinate of God, a member of the divine court who defends God’s honour by exposing those who pose a threat to it. In that sense, he is not God’s adversary but the adversary of sinful or corrupt human beings. Yet in Zech 3:2, Yahweh rejects the accuser’s indictment of the High Priest, and rebukes the accuser instead. In Job 1-2, Yahweh and the accuser take opposing views of the character of Job. As one who embodies and perfects the function of opposition, the Satan is depicted in these texts as one who accuses precisely those whom God is inclined to favour. In this way, the ostensible defender of God subtly becomes God’s adversary... In later centuries, the figure of Satan develops into the dualistic opponent of God. This hostile image is presumed by the New Testament. In the Book of Job, the accuser is simply the wily spirit who embodies his given function to perfection. In Goethe’s famous phrase, he is der Geist der stets verneint, “the spirit who always negates.”” Summary by A. Carol. See The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. IV. Newsom, Carol A. “the Book of Job.” Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections. Excursus: The Role of Satan in the Old Testament. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996. 347-48. See also Peake, A.S. The Century Bible. Job. Ed. By Walter F. Adeney. Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1904. 30-1; 59. Peake says, “The Satan is strictly subordinated to Yahweh, and acts only on his permission.” He adds that Yahweh authorizes Satan to test him, but forbids him to smite him. He is the Adversary and loyal servant of Yahweh: his moral police. Satan observes men’s actions to guard Yahweh against the abuse of his goodness by detecting their sins, their cloak to fair pretence or goodness, and then oppose their claims to righteousness before God. Peake adds that Satan “is one of the sons of the Elohim, entrusted with a special divine commission and exists only to do Yahweh’s will.” Satan is obstinate. He’ll gladly ruin Job to prove himself right. “It is not so much that he hates his victim as that he hugs his own cynicism; though there was a malicious zest in so piquant an experiment, to say nothing of the gambler’s instinct.”
46 Lasine, Stuart. “The Trials of Job and Kafka’s Josef K.” The German Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 2, Focus: Jews and Germans/Jewish–German Literature (Spring, 1990), 189
47 Peake, A.S. The Century Bible. Job. Ed. By Walter F. Adeney. Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1904. 26
48 Aquinas. Thomas. The Literal Exposition on Job. A Scriptural Commentary Concerning Providence. Trans. By Anthony Damico. The American Academy of Religion. Classics in Religious Studies. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1989. 83
49 Peake, A.S. The Century Bible. Job. Ed. By Walter F. Adeney. Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1904. 61. See also footnote 12 on Job 1:12-13. 50 Peake, A.S. The Century Bible. Job. Ed. By Walter F. Adeney. Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1904. 26-7
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