Dialogue Between Satan and God in the Book of Job

The following is an excerpt from the book of Job, presenting a dialogue between Satan and God:

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[Satan has just made himself present at a meeting of the "sons of God"]

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Job 1:7 -- And the LORD said unto Sa'-tan, Whence comest thou? Then Sa'-tan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. (8) And the LORD said unto Sa'-tan, 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? (9) Then Sa'-tan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? (10) Hast thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. (11) But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. (12) And the LORD said unto Sa'-tan, Behold, all that he hath is in they power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Sa'-tan went forth from the presence of the LORD

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This exchange of words clearly shows Satan's manipulative power, not just over the ordinary man, but over the Man Himself! He uses God's own ego and self pride against Him that He will grant Satan power to do evil unto His most humble and loyal follower.In what is clearly a brilliantly-worked episode of reverse psychology, Satan has outsmarted the Father of Creation!Whether Satan knows Job will give in or not is irrelevant; in fact, all the rest of the book is irrelevant to this one exchange. Were God truly as loving as you are supposed to believe, He would've not allowed such horrible treatment of such a loyal and good man. However, Satan puts up a challenge, and, instead of lovingly backing down, God accepts. Except, Satan's secret agenda is to gain power to do evil, as is customary of Satan. Whereas God is interested only in proving Satan wrong, and shows no regards to Job, but instead allows His God-ly pride to get in the way of His loving nature.This leaves two possibilities:1) God IS all-loving, except He loves Himself a slight bit more
2) God is less brilliant and genius than SatanNeither of these possibilities sits well for Christianity.I would like this topic to focus ONLY on the above passage of Scripture and its meaning. Please do not discuss the rest of the book of Job. References to Scripture which confirm or contradict any parts of my assessment are allowed.Thoughts?J0NEdited by Jon, : Added message to the administrator.Edited by Jon, : Removed message to the administrator.

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In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist... might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. - Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species

You're not quoting the whole thing. Satan is edging God. God mentions how loyal and wonderful Job is (perhaps He is proud of him; the reason doesn't much matter), Satan responds with a "Yeah? I bet he wouldn't be so damned loyal and wonderful if you took away all the great shit you've given him."God accepts the bet, convinced He is right. Satan may be convinced he is right or not, but that isn't important. What is important is that Satan's technique gains him power from God to do something that God would not normally do (at least not a good God). It would be like hunting down Osama Bin-Laden and then puting him in power in place of the president. Who ever puts the evil in power, is certainly equally as evil.God puts the evil in power, yet, God is supposed to be good, which brings up the two possibilities I mentioned in the OP.J0Np.s. you say God challenged Satan, but what you quoted is actually God accepting the challenge!Edited by Jon, : Format.

Then this brings us to thinking, does it not, of why a good God--a God worth worshipping--would ever want such horrible things to happen to such a fine and upstanding fellow.And besides, why even bother studying the Bible if you are just going to explain away every contradiction with "God's omniscient, He knows everything, it only happened because He wanted it to"?J0N

Satan is an evil-doer. God gives him permission to do evil unto His most loyal follower who's done nothing to deserve this evil. In what way does that not make God equally as evil as Satan himself?And, please, lets hold back from going into the moral of the rest of the story.J0N

Just because God started the conversation doesn't mean He cannot be manipulated by Satan. Consider the following analogy.Jon has a very lovely and expensive cars. The girls walking by constantly comment him on his ride. Jon meets Jake as he's getting from his car. Jake is envious of Jon's car, and hates how wonderful it is! Jon says "What do you think of my sweet ride?!"
Jake replies, "You know, it isn't that great without the work. You have to keep it clean and all. What would your car be if you threw a bucket of paint over the top of it?"
Jon's so damn confident of the beauty of his car, that he says back to Jake "Yeah, okay, go ahead, I give you permission to do what you want with it, just don't mess the driver's seat."Who wins here? Who's done the manipulating? Did Jon manipulate Jake? Jake manipulate Jon? Before the actions are commited, and the results accounted for, who has been played for a fool? Who do you think is getting the more sour deal here!?Answering these questions doesn't require that we go on with the rest of the story. The rest of the story is irrelevant in this case, and with the book of Job.Continuing with that point, I would like to ask once again that we stop talking about who ultimately won the competition and keep the focus on who got their way in this little exchange of words.J0N

I'm not making it up, I'm concluding it from that little bit of exchange.

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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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Do these sound like the words of someone with good intentions and a good heart?J0NEdited by Jon, : Wording.

Really? Because it doesn't sound like your previous message had much to do with the manipulation of God/Satan: A couple things:1) Job is NOT the issue. Job could've just as well been a car, a dog, a tree, ANYTHING! The issue was the wager between Satan and God, and whether or not Satan's actions led him to gain a slight upper-hand.2) If you can give me reason why Mother Theresa has anything to do with the Scripture quoted in the OP, then be my guest. Otherwise, don't try to claim that it was "parts of the story [used] as evidence."J0N

What's YOUR solution? A good God wouldn't want to hurt someone like Job, would He? I mean, even to make a moral of Job, it seems odd to go to such extremes.So, we have a good God, who is letting evil happen; or you can opt for a good God, who is loving, who doesn't want evil, but was caught off His guard. I don't believe I've ever excluded that as part of the dialogue's meaning. Clearly this is a bet. However, Satan is using God's ego against Him. Another analogy; Jon and Jake again:Jon: Man, I'm so wonderful and happy.
Jake: Oh, yeah? But that's just 'cause you got all this cash, dude! If it weren't for all this money, you'd be rather misserable.
Jon: YEAH RIGHT! Go ahead, take all the money, I'll still be just as happy! (with a self-righteous grin on his face)Who lost? The subject wasn't the happiness. Even if Jon is still just as happy, that's beside the point. The point is that Jake used Jon's self-righteous ass-holishness against him to get all his loot!In the book of Job, the subject isn't Job's loyalness... it's the stuff he has, and the evil that Satan now has the power to bring upon those things. Power given to him, when he tricked a self-righteous God. So, God knew it was happening? Why let it go on? Is He that evil? We're back to the two possibilities I stated. God's either showing His evil side, or was "innocently" tricked by Satan.J0N

Are you KIDDING me!?! You asked me to point out what in the text brought me to believe that Satan was evil. I gave you that bit of text (words of Satan, not God) which clearly indicates his evil intent, and you say "big deal"!?! Man! I don't think I've ever said that God was evil. The text I quoted were the words of Satan, not God. God is, most likely, good. Which is why when He is tricked into giving Satan power to do evil, it shows Him at one of His not-so-high moments. Read my analogies, and you'll see that just because God was the winner of the bet has nothing to do with who was manipulated. The moment Satan challenged God, God had two options:1) Decline allowing Satan to do evil and live with the fact that He was not able to prove Satan wrong (swallow His pride).
2) Allow Satan to do evil in order to prove He's right (letting His pride conflict with His "supposedly" loving nature). Because the context is irrelevant. It doesn't matter what happens with Job. And it doesn't matter that it is Job, or even that the test subject is human. The story has a moral, no doubt, and I'm not saying in any way that this bit of text makes the moral any less important. And, yes, in the end, God was proven right, and He did win the bet. But looking back on it, Satan is an evil-doer who enjoys doing evil, and in making the bet with God, he got something that he would not have otherwise gotten from God.Do you think God would've granted Satan power to hurt Job if he had just walked up to Him and said "yo, I wanna hurt that dude, can I?"J0N

Correct. These events are not evil, however, if there were an entity that was causing such "unpleasant, unfortunate, unwelcome" events, would you not find that entity to be evil?Dwell on that for now, and I'll get back to the rest of your post in a little.J0N

So then God's done something evil. There is no having it both ways. Either God was manipulated, or God did something evil.I guess, in the end, it is up to you to believe which of those things it comes down to. Continue following the words of a God who brings evil upon His own subjects. Or, continue following a God who was outsmarted by evil itself.J0N

Don't think you'll get away with twisting my words. I said CAUSE not allow! They are different.And I suppose Sept. 11 was just the "unpleasant, unfortunate, unwelcome" collapsing of some towers? Or was there some evil behind that?J0N

And I am not saying that God DID do any of these things. Satan did, but that shows Satan as being evil. I realise this... but Satan caused it. And you have been arguing that Satan is not evil, and that there's no evidence of him being evil anywhere in the book of Job. But there is. The last plane, crashed in a field. Planes crash in fields of natural (unintentful) actions regularly. So, this was just another crashing of a plane?No. The people who caused it are evil. The entities, beings, whatever you call them, who caused that event are evil. Are you going to disagree with me on that?The wind blows, sure, and it knocks things down, sure. But if an entity capable of doing such a thing as making the wind blow so as to knock over a house does just that, does that not make that entity evil? And an even more powerful entity, who gave the evil entity that power, is he not evil in even a slight bit as well? Or perhaps, he was just tricked .J0N

This is a pathetic reply. My parents created me, and that does not make them immune from my manipulation. Your argument is baseless, and I do hope to God that no one else replies to it!J0N

So, which one are you arguing? Make up your mind! So, Satan is not behind any of the bad things that happen to Job? The dialogue about which this thread is focused does not serve a purpose to set up the story?Since you are set on using the rest of the story, check out this:

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Job 42:11 -- Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintances before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him...

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According to this, these things WERE evil, and they were brought upon Job by God Himself, and not Satan, as is implied in the opening dialogue around which this thread focuses.Are you still going to argue that these things were not evil?J0N