Post B1aLxV5ne1UI0IqAmu by paulc@mstdn.social
(DIR) More posts by paulc@mstdn.social
(DIR) Post #B1aLPjQzocDydeeX6e by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-24T20:54:37Z
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The story of Job is so weird. It has some of the best parts in the Bible— but also I am confused why Satan is back in Heaven talking to God? Didn’t that guy get kicked out? To me getting kicked out of heaven seems like a big deal “let us never speak again” kind of thing. Confusing! I guess God might care what even a fallen angel thinks? God seems very unstable.
(DIR) Post #B1aLbjOZmoMPzbF6cy by CdnCurmudgeon@mastodon.social
2025-12-24T20:56:46Z
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@futurebird I was bemused that they were gambling with a human's life. And then all of Job's family is slaughtered... and some Stepford-like family is created for him at the end...
(DIR) Post #B1aLryytbekqxqypXs by vandys@noauthority.social
2025-12-24T20:59:43Z
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@futurebird Metropolitan Ware touches on this; communication is indeed possible, but its nature is beyond us. Speculation is thus not worthwhile.
(DIR) Post #B1aLuZ2IWgXrMjno3s by AbramKedge@beige.party
2025-12-24T21:00:09Z
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@futurebird that's the oldest book in the bible. It's interesting how God changes throughout the bible - the switch from Old to New Testaments is particularly jarring. I think of it as documentation of the evolution of the human psyche.
(DIR) Post #B1aLxV5ne1UI0IqAmu by paulc@mstdn.social
2025-12-24T21:00:41Z
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@futurebird In that point of the Bible there was no devil. I believe he was called the Adversary and he was supposed to challenge G-d. The bookend of Job are not the meat. The arguments are and Job was altered over time to meet political needs. See Robert Alter’s translation.
(DIR) Post #B1aM0ITszSY1l6RLqi by sahqon@beige.party
2025-12-24T21:01:11Z
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@futurebird Iirc Satan and the serpent are two different things. And then Revelations happened on some serious drugs. The Bible books rarely agree with each other and once you go read the next, it will tell you how wrong the people were for following the rules set in the previous one.
(DIR) Post #B1aM4JfWW4oAbInf3g by graydon@canada.masto.host
2025-12-24T21:01:55Z
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@futurebird In context of the Hebrew Bible, "satan" is something like "adversary" or "prosecuting attorney" and is more or less a job description for a job which any divine being may undertake. Not at all the late Protestant font-of-all-evil.The really kinda Manichean (and thus heretical) notion of Satan as a rebellious angel who opposes God is not there even in initial Christianity; it gets added later with the "imperial cult" layer.
(DIR) Post #B1aM9pMu5L7mMaicW8 by statsguy@mas.to
2025-12-24T21:02:55Z
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@futurebird If you want to learn* all about Satan then you need to listen to Old Harry's Game: a radio sitcom set in Hell. One of the best comedies ever. Not sure if it ever made it to your side of the Pond?* For some definition of "learn"
(DIR) Post #B1aMGkkTexsy3w30K0 by dlakelan@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-12-24T21:04:10Z
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@futurebirdi had a high school teacher who had studied at a seminary at one point, and his take on the book of Job was that it was written by people whose goal it was to eliminate a standard religious idea at the time that people who did the right thing were owed some sort of good life by God, and that if you had done all the right things and had bad things happen to you, it was evidence that there was no real God.
(DIR) Post #B1aMGpJ0iVsyCCEdhg by dlakelan@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-12-24T21:04:11Z
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@futurebirdso you can think of it as a effort by the religious leaders of the time to consolidate their control over people who were otherwise beginning not to believe.
(DIR) Post #B1aMJxSypd8ENIOLB2 by j2bryson@mastodon.social
2025-12-24T21:04:45Z
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@futurebird not to mention the exchangeable wives and children
(DIR) Post #B1aMpDgoZ3ivfPlkno by gdinwiddie@mastodon.social
2025-12-24T21:10:20Z
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@futurebird I remember an article in the CoEvolution Quarterly circa 1975 where Gregory Bateson is talking (I think to California Governor Jerry Brown) about the book of Job. I'm fuzzy on the details, but in the midst of Job's suffering, he's asked "Dost thou know when the hinds do calve?" What an odd time to inquire about knowledge of natural history!
(DIR) Post #B1aNWWWMQRk2WWWomO by BLTpizza@mastodon.social
2025-12-24T21:18:15Z
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@futurebird The OT is crazy and the character of god is childlike, and very insecure. Maybe that god was worried Satan was holding a grudge and didn't like him.
(DIR) Post #B1aNaM7R2fDdQ8hGyG by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-24T21:18:51Z
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@Linebyline I just find Job to be one of the more fully realized people in the whole book. He has feelings and doubts. Too many of the people in the Bible are implacable and alien.
(DIR) Post #B1aNukuOaHQg61KDlw by darkling@mstdn.social
2025-12-24T21:22:37Z
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@futurebird "Never talk to me or my son again. Or my holy spirit."
(DIR) Post #B1aO7t4pWfRNC6T332 by GoblinQuester@dice.camp
2025-12-24T21:24:59Z
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@futurebird As other have pointed out, there is no indications _in_ the bible that Satan is a fallen angel, that is just things the church added later. But what I what to point out is that God actually cheats in the end. Satan is right about Job giving up on God, but God steps in, scares Job to fall back into the fold and I think it is so beautiful.
(DIR) Post #B1aOA3xk1Yz7XDBnF2 by BenAveling@mastodon.ie
2025-12-24T21:25:23Z
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God and Satan is the original good cop/bad cop routine.@futurebird
(DIR) Post #B1aOz2y3U0RlDYeB5U by lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
2025-12-24T21:34:20Z
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@futurebird IIRC, Stavrakopoulou's "God : an anatomy" uses the Book of Job heavily to argue for the evolution of Hebrew's vision of God along their history.
(DIR) Post #B1aRCVcoRkfjlnG3lY by lffontenelle@mastodon.social
2025-12-24T21:59:15Z
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@futurebird Other people here said Satan in the Bible is not the fallen angel, and that's what I came to say. They say Satan is more like "the enemy", and they probably know better than me, but I've heard Satan was more like the personification of temptation, of something we have in ourselves.
(DIR) Post #B1aRHw8JJlVrQmZxVg by regordane@mastodon.me.uk
2025-12-24T22:00:23Z
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@futurebird "Satan" in the Hebrew bible means "the adversary" or maybe prosecutor. When Satan appears (mostly in the book of Job) it is as an angel in the service of God, if a bit provocative. Jewish tradition and the Hebrew bible perceive Satan as only ever acting with God's permission. And do not associate the serpent in the garden of Eden with Satan. The idea of Satan as a fallen angel, or God's opponent, is later and Christian
(DIR) Post #B1aUgncoO4eu96OPXU by shovemedia@triangletoot.party
2025-12-24T22:38:31Z
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@futurebird don’t let any of the apologists confuse you—your instincts are spot-on—the Abrahamic god is indeed unstable
(DIR) Post #B1amcB61UdAcfR0Byy by regordane@mastodon.me.uk
2025-12-24T22:01:34Z
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@futurebird None the less, the book of Job is indeed deeply weird. But not for the reason you cite
(DIR) Post #B1amcCAfUqTq08BPrU by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-12-25T01:59:23Z
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@regordane why do you think it’s weird?
(DIR) Post #B1amgc3jBfjbRx2k5I by funambolo@mastodon.world
2025-12-24T21:32:59Z
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@paulc @futurebird I recall reading that there are at least two historical layers in the book of Job: one where god is called El (=head god in the Canaanite mythology) and another where he's called Yahweh (the warrior/storm god that early jews worshipped as their tribal god). I think that satan (as he's later referred to) was only present in one of those layers: the one where he has dialogue with god. Not sure whether he talked to El or Yahweh though.
(DIR) Post #B1amgdCcw4RmzqDMau by paulc@mstdn.social
2025-12-24T22:14:12Z
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@funambolo @futurebird according to Alter the writing of Job is beautiful but the style is different from other books making up the Bible. But the beginning and end are just setup. The meat is the discussions Job has with his friends and the involvement of the Adversary—a position G-d created and assigned—isn’t that important. Most people seem to concentrate on on what was done to Job, that he stood with G-d, and that Job was rewarded in the end.
(DIR) Post #B1apC3kqSxMSEOKkk4 by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
2025-12-25T02:28:15Z
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@futurebird Without textual study, the most basic way to answer this is that Christianity grafted on the whole Satan-falling-to-hell thing at some later historical point. Since that was written later, it hasn't happened in this earlier text.
(DIR) Post #B1asuQRXlrd9Ce9W8O by Neat_hot@beige.party
2025-12-25T03:09:54Z
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@futurebird What I always found confusing was that, if we are meant to take the entire Bible as literally, historically true, then that means that not only did this conversation literally occur, but some random human must have been present to witness and document it‽
(DIR) Post #B1bN7BmoZclm8Q6W2K by regordane@mastodon.me.uk
2025-12-25T08:48:20Z
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@futurebird Although, as I've said, Satan in the Hebrew bible is not the same character as in Christian teaching, it's strange to describe Satan and God in conversation. And stranger still that they're conspiring to torment an innocent man