Dialogue Between Satan and God in the Book of Job

Since God brought up the subject of Job, how do you figure Satan "manipulated" Him?Did I "manipulate" you into starting this topic?

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Where is there any sign of manipulation by Satan?God initiated the conversation:

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Job 1:7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou?

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God initiated the subject of Job:

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Job 1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?

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God challenged Satan to mess with Job:

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Job 1:12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power;

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God put limits on what Satan could do to Job:

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Job 1:12 ... only upon himself put not forth thine hand.

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Where in the passage does Satan come across as anything but a minion?

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God says to Satan, "Look what a fine, upstanding man Job is." Satan responds, "I bet he wouldn't be so loyal to you if you took away his cars and houses and dancing girls."God throws it back at him, "No, you do your worst. That way you can't claim I went easy on him."The challenge is to Satan from God. He doesn't gain power from God - he gets permission to test Job.And remember that Satan loses the "bet", so there is no possibility of him being smarter than God. Bad analogy. Bin-Laden is an enemy, Satan is an employee. (The story would start with Bin-Laden strolling into a cabinet meeting and Dubya asking him what he's been up to.)It is, after all, a story. The moral of the story is that bad things can happen to good people but good people can still be good."Evil" doesn't really enter into it at all. The misfortunes that befall Job are facts of everyday life, in no way comparable to terrorist attacks. The character "Satan" is not the personification of evil - he's the personification of bad happenstance.So the God in the story isn't "evil" - He just acknowledges that life on earth isn't perfect.

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I knew somebody was going to bring that up.... But in the Book of Job, Satan is always an employee.Why else would he be at the board meeting? Was Hitler at Yalta?If anything, Satan's stature decreases in the Book of Job.

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Where is that indicated in your passage or anywhere in the Book of Job? Chapter and verse? What "evil" is done to Job? What happens to him that doesn't happen to other people every day?As I have said, bad things happened to Job. Big deal. So what? That's part of life. The story is about Job's reaction to misfortune - it's not about "evil".If you think there was something unusual in what happened to him, spell it out. How come you can make up stuff about "evil" that isn't in the story at all and I can't point out that you're wrong?

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Maybe he flew around in a zeppelin dropping silver dollars on the poor - but that isn't in the story and neither is anything about "evil".By the way, how may lobes do you suppose Job had?

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It isn't mine either - it's just the only one I have left.

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What do "good intentions and a good heart" have to do with it?You've been claiming that Satan "manipulated" God. If that was true, it would indicate that He is gullible, not evil. If God was evil, wouldn't He be doing the manipulating?But nothing you've said - other than your own opinion - shows that God was manipulated. You've been shown from the context of the story that God won the exchange - hardly a sign that He was manipulated. Your only comeback has been to whine that you don't want to look at the context.This is Bible Study. It's time for you to step up to the plate and show where the text backs up your claims.

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And I have been trying to get through to you that the text does not indicate "evil intent".Satan says to God:

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Job 1:11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.

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and God throws back the challlenge:

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Job 1:12 ... Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.

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Satan is given permission to take away what Job has - e.g. his property and his children. Bankruptcies happen every day. Children die every day. Those events are unpleasant, unfortunate, unwelcome... but they are not "evil".You have yet to show any indication of "evil" in the story. Of course it matters what happens to Job. That's the only thing that matters. Why do you think they named the story after Job? You can not draw any kind of conclusion from any part of the story without considering the context of what happens to Job. You're completely missing the point. Once again, it was God's idea to do the experiment with Job as guinea-pig. There is no indication in the story that Satan wanted to hurt Job - all he said was, "Job wouldn't be so great if you took away his stuff."This is Bible Study. You can not draw conclusions that are not supported by the text.

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Of course not. If the events are not evil, how is the entity that "causes" them evil?Volcanic eruptions, floods, etc. are often "unpleasant, unfortunate and unwelcome" but an entity that allows them to happen isn't evil. That's just the way the world works.

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I know. I was correcting you.God ALLOWED Satan to take away Job's riches. He didn't "cause" anything. If you could show any terrorist attacks in the Book of Job, that question might have some relevance.Job's children were killed when the wind caused their house to collapse. The wind blows every day. Nothing evil about it.

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I have been arguing that nothing that happened to Job was "evil". If you think the text shows evil, show us. Chapter and verse. The terrorists had an evil intent and that led to an evil result. But you haven't shown evil intent on the part of God or Satan. Once again, you're confusing "cause" with "allow". The wind does blow and it does knock houses down. There is no need to "cause" that. The wind happened to knock down Job's son's house and the brothers and sisters died. If they hadn't died that day, they would have died the next day or the next year or decades later. Where is the evil?

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Empty speculation. We'll discuss it when there's a book in the Bible about it.Don't duck the issue. Show us the evil intent in the Book of Job.Edited by Ringo, : Fixed quote attribution.

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In this thread, I am arguing that there was no "evil intent" in the misfortunes that befell Job. Satan was simply an employee helping God with an experiment.I asked you for evidence that Satan is an "evil-doer" to get you to actually look at the text. Finally... but you didn't have to go that far to find the word "evil".You only had to go to chapter 2. Check out this:

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Job 2:10 But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

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The "evil" refers to misfortune rather than intentional evil like a terrorist attack. Look at the events themselves: Job's flocks were stolen, his servants were killed by the thieves and his children died in a weather-related mishap. None of those events implies intentional "evil" on God's part. So what happened to your argument that Satan tricked God into giving him the power? I can understand your confusion, since the word "evil" is used to describe the events. But you have to look at the events themselves and understand that the way you have been using the word "evil" does not apply.Look at Job's own words: "shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" He is saying that there are good things and bad things in life. He is not accusing God of doing "evil" in the same way you are.

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We know that three other planes were hijacked on that day, with evil result. Does anybody really doubt that the fourth set of hijackers had evil intent, even though their intent was thwarted?My speculation is based on similar events. Yours is based on what?

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