Dialogue Between Satan and God in the Book of Job

yes, that too.

It doesn't matter how they appear. Job thinks that the events are caused by God. This is enough to get the point of the story across.

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Job 2:10 -- ...What? shall we recieve good at the hand of God, and shall we not reviece evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

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And come to think of it, what was your original point supposed to be with the misfortunes being natural? It's hard to keep track, you keep spinning the focus of this thread into slightly different directions.J0N

Except, that this thread is NOT about the point of the STORY! It is about the conversation between Satan and God that is quoted in the OP. I think we should get back to discussing how God was/not manipulated by Satan. The rest of this is about the story as a whole, and once again, that is not the focus of this thread.I'm sure the rest of us would be perfectly happy to debate you in a thread started with the moral of the story as its focus. But if you are not going to be able to stick on the topic, then there is really no need to keep posting in this thread.Thanks,
Jon

How can you discuss the conversation and ignore the results of the conversation? The aftermath tells us a lot more about "what they meant" than your speculations do.Have you ever seen the movie, The Godfather? In the opening sequences, we see Don Corleone talking to various people while his daughter's wedding reception goes on in the background. Do you think we can intelligently discuss that conversation without looking at the context of the whole movie? How do we know who Don Corleone is or how he operates or what his motivations are if we focus our attention on only that little introductory sketch?Do you want an intelligent discussion or do you just want to make up silly little speculations about what "might" have been?Your OP was poorly conceived. Do we need to waste the whole thread because of that?

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Some people posted that God could not be manipulated because He is all-powerful and all-knowing. Others led on that Satan just wanted to do evil and so did manipulate God into gaining that power. This is where I wanted the discussion to go; into debate about the nature of the characters and whether or not there was manipulation.Now, the thread got pulled off-topic when the subject of the cause of Job's ill fortune was brought up. Discussions about whether it was natural or not came from it, or maybe the other way around. Either way, the thread has been spinning horribly off topic. Some posters have pointed out the "meaning" or the "point" of the story, but that's off-topic.I am not trying to use this small bit of text in order to form an analyses of the overall story; THAT would be crazy! I am trying to use this small bit of text in order to analyze this small bit of text. I am looking at the whole of what is in question.I have given a couple of analogies: Message 30
Message 35These analogies don't use details from the rest of the story. They are, I guess you might call "empty plot devices." Though they go nowhere, they can still be used to draw conclusions. Now, if you could show me how those analogies don't fit, or are somehow wrong, then we would be getting somewhere .Satan bets God that if He took away Job's good life, Job would hate Him. God accepts the challenge, except He tells Satan to cause the evil to keep it fair. God knows Job will see all acts as being those of God and so is pleased the bet will be fair. Satan walks out laughing at how that dumb bastard just gave him power to have fun...And behold, another anaology is upon us:A man and a boy are talking... The man just happens to own an amusement park. Own day, all the children are meeting at the park for a big celebration; this child is own of them. The man sees the child and says "look at that rolercoaster over there... it's guaranteed to never wear out!"
"HA!" says the young lad, "I bet if you rode it all day it would!"
"Well, tell ya what, I'll let you ride that thing all day, and you can tell me if it wears out!"The child rides the coaster all day, and even into the night, after asking the man if he could. However, after it's all done, the coaster still stands. The man was proven right; the boy was proven wrong. The man won the bet; the boy lost.However it's clear to see that the boy came out happy. Would the man have let him ride all day for free if he had just went up and asked him?In the conversation in Job, something happens that is, to a degree, apart from the story... but still, it happened, regardless of the rest of the story's outcome!J0N

Ringo does have a point, though. How can we do anything but speculate about the characters without getting to know them through the story?We have God and we have Satan. What can we conclude? You suggest that Satan plays God. I would argue that God by definition cannot be played...but I would be drawing on my bias of God as I know Him to be.Where do you get your conclusions? well to begin with, neither of us can really show the other anything except our own opinions and conclusions...there is no answer.Edited by Phat, : addEdited by Phat, : spelling

From Message 30:

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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."

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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!?

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Your analogy illustrates why it is necessary to look at the whole story."Jon's car" is a possession. Job is not.Jon stands to lose if his car is damaged - loss of resale value, loss of chick-magnetism, loss of aesthetic appeal. God stands to lose nothing from the calamities of Job because (have I mentioned this before?) those events would have happened anyway.In a good analogy, the calamity befalling Jon's car has to be a common, everyday event - and it has to be reversible.From God's viewpoint, the damage to Job was more like a flat tire on Jon's car than a bucket of paint.Jake: Your ride wouldn't be so sweet if it had a flat tire.
Jon: *shrug*(By the way, if you haven't noticed, analogies are kind of a "thing" with me. I can spend the whole next 200 posts picking apart this one analogy if you like.)From Message 35:

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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)

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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!

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But Satan didn't get any loot. He didn't gain anything. Again, it is necessary to look at the whole story to understand what a loser Satan is. He's a hick walking into a casino saying, "I'm going to take you guys for everything you've got."God didn't lose anything. Satan didn't gain anything. Two dead analogies.Edited by Ringo, : Spellinging.

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God is understandably proud of His servant, Job. When He sees His rival, Satan, He decides it's a good time to do some boasting--after all, Satan doesn't have such a devout servant.

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Job 1:8 -- 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 esceweth evil?

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Perhaps God's trying to incite jealousy in Satan, who knows the reason. Either way, Satan is most-likely jealous, and he would love no more than to make that goodie-two-shoes little Job pay!Satan knows that God will never just randomly give him authority to bring tragedies upon Job, so long as God sees no reason. Thus, Satan devises the bet:

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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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He knows God will make it fair, and let him do the hurting. And with the above words, he's pre-answered God's question: "What's in if for Me?" (I wonder if God capitalizes His own name when talking to Himself.)Satan has a desire to hurt Job, something he cannot do without permission from God. So, he convinces God that He will have something to gain from allowing him to harm Job. Had Satan never mentioned 1:11, God may have granted him the power just because, and then only Satan would've gained anything, however thanks to Satan's quick thinking and wise use of words, he was guaranteed a romp through the forests of evil, while helping God in the process. He turned an unsure thing into a sure thing and helped teach a moral!I guess what I'm trying to say, is that if God and Satan were attorneys, I would much rather have Satan at my table .J0N

Where do you see that in the text?God takes no credit for Job. He just gives him a good reference. Where do you see in the text that Satan has any servants? You have been shown that Satan is a servant and you haven't had much to say against that. Exactly. You don't know why God brought it up. And since this is Bible Study, not Make-up-whatever-fairy-tale-you-feel-like, your speculation has no value. Show it in the text or take it to Faith and Belief. On the contrary. The text says that Satan asked God to "hurt" Job. There is no indication whatsoever that he wanted any "authority". God gave him "authority" that he didn't want and strictly limited that authority. Where do you see that in the text?As far as I can see, the text doesn't suggest any knowledge at all on Satan's part. He's too dumb to fool God into doing the "dirty work". He's too dumb to know that Job won't cave. Later on, he's too dumb to know that killing Job is a deal-breaker, so God has to specifically tell him not to. Where do you see that in the text? Exactly. Since you seem to understand that Satan is nothing but a flunky, why do you make up all this nonsense about him trying to one-up God?I'll remind you one last time: this is Bible Study. "Maybe" and "mighta been" and such fantasies have no place here. Support it from the text or keep it to yourself. I wondered the same thing. I decided to go with humble-God. Based on the text, it seems more likely that Satan would be the bus-boy.

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How could God ever be convinced? Sounds like God doesnt foreknow everything if a cherubic con angel can fool Him!

A common feature in the analogies you put forward is dualism. In this one God, for example, is an attorney sitting at the opposite table from Satan. In another post you call Satan God's 'rival.' They face each other as equals. Good God versus Bad God. Dualism.Please take into account that this is all very bad monotheism. An ancient Hebrew--or a modern Jew, or an ancient or modern Christian--would say God is the judge. How does a book get into the Hebrew canon that espouses the strongly dualistic, openly polytheistic view you take from it?Satan's role in the story appears simple enough to me. God holds court and Satan is God's prosecuting attorney. He is the one who brings charges. (This is typical of his role in the Hebrew canon. His role in NT writings, of course, is different.)Many scholars believe the whole prologue involving Satan was added later. The Job story, it is well known, is not originally Hebrew. We're told Job lived in the land of Uz. That locates him and everyone associated with him in Edom, the region south of Judah. The story, one of the oldest literary documents in the Bible, is originally Edomite.Satan was attached later to introduce the situation the Edomite tale opens with as a given and to situate the narrative inside the Hebrew belief system. Satan serves as a plot device--the chaos element that sets everything in motion. He functions in Job as the serpent functions in the Genesis 2 narrative or Iago functions in Shakespeare's Othello. There's no story to tell until something kicks over the apple cart.It's telling that Satan disappears from the story of Job as soon as the situation is arranged. After that he is a non-factor. Job and his friends never mention Satan. God, in his appearance at the end of the story, never mentions him either. Job suffers; his suffering is unjust. All sides accept that the issue is between Job and God.___Edited by Archer Opterix, : clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : repair.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

reverse that. the story involving satan (the first two chapters, and the last chapter) is probably the older one. it has the hallmarks of older hebrew writing, and external origins would explain a lot. satan's presence is not the only vaguely polytheistic thing in the story -- god also has a council of demi-gods (sons of gods) which seems lifted right from other levantine and sumerian religions. it's kind of difficult to say, because satan does appear relatively late in biblical judaism, but judaism also tends away from polytheistic towards monotheistic. i suspect it goes through minor phases, where the strictness of the monotheism varies. and it's highly probable that the satan figure was taken from elsewhere.the other 30-some chapters appear to be a later poetry, a philosophical argument against the wisdom movement (which itself is pretty late in biblical history), and is written in a much more advanced style.

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Many scholars do place the book's authorship, at least in its final form, around the late sixth century to fifth century BCE. This is relatively late compared to the book's setting. Job is presented as a patriarch: a contemporary, roughly speaking, of Abraham or Noah. The choice of an Edomite hero is odd for a writing from this late a date. But for any storyteller determined to have a patriarchal-age protagonist, an Israelite hero was not an option. The setting predates the Exodus.Satan's story function in Job, however the narrative originated and came to its final form, is as described. God is the Sovereign holding court in the heavens. Satan, one of the courtiers, acts as God's prosecuting attorney, much as he does in Zechariah. Satan brings charges and, in Job, sets things in motion. Once this is done he leaves the scene. Neither Job nor his friends discuss Satan at all; neither does God once the opening prologue is done.___Edited by Archer Opterix, : typo repair.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Could you then indicate which verses from the 42 chapters we shoukld delete in order to read it without these alleged additions?I'd like to see how much sense it would make if I pretended that all the things spoken about the Sovereign God were not originally there. Why does God need a prosecuting attorney? In Zechariah Satan is interfering with God's plans and not assisting them. He is a nuisance to be rebuked and commanded to stay out of the way.I think a vicious and mad dog on a controled leash is a better analogy. Satan is on a limiting leash. His talents and damage are not allowed to run wild. That is why God had a hedge around His servant Job. Without the protection this so called assisting prosecuting attorney would destroy man completely. Satan hates humanity.The planet was his before humanity came along and God said "Let them have dominion ...".Of course without the assistence of the New Testament it might not be so easy to expose Satan for what he really is. Though the friendly assisting prosecuting attorney of God doesn't even fit the Old Testament description so well. So why do you think God needs a prosecuting attorney to do it for Him? The same book says that God charges angels and men with error."Indeed, He puts no trust in His holy ones; Even the heavens are not clean in His eyes. How much less one who is abominable and corrupt! [How much less] man who drinks wrong like water!" (Job 15:16)The "holy ones" here I take to be angelic messengers. In essence the passage must mean that God charges some angels with error. He would not trust some of the angelic beings to do right let alone man the sinner.Where's the hint of God needing a prosecuting attorney to inform Him of the errors of men and angels?The book of Job like many other biblical books speaks of the interaction typical people with the unseen spiritual realm behind the obvious. Without God's revelation we would not have much understanding of His court, His enemies, the spiritual conflicts going on. etc. These things are not usually sensed by man's five senses and require spiritual communication from God to man in the way of revelation.It is interesting that people have a tendency to always want to believe that those portions of the story were "added on" latter. They frequently want to hold that the embellishments were latter adorned on the story.How do I know that this is not just the rationalizing of the natural mind more accustomed to leading a life of the natural senses? We don't typically hear conversations between God and his angelic creatures or spiritual messengers."Did you listen in on the secret council of God? And do you limit wisdom to yourself?" (Job 15:8)Because some people who have not heard such dialogue assume that none ever could happen. Therefore they assume that such a dialogue was an imaginative addition to the story.A prophet of God would informed by God as to events about the story that we could not know apart from divine revelation.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

If there is a prosecuting attorney for God in the Bible it is more likely the law of Moses. The law of Moses does the job of prosecuting sinful mankind before God.The law of God rather than Satan is the accusing function. The law of God also works in conjunction with the God created conscience of man to prosecute man. We have the law of God on the outside and the human conscience on the inside. These two act if there is any prosecuting to be done.Satan's accusation is not only toward sinful man. His accusation is also directed toward God Himself. To say that Satan is God's prosecuting attorney is like saying an attorney who riles against the judge, showing contempt of court and insulting the judge is the judge's assisting prosecutor.Can you imagine a prosecuting attorney constantly turning his attack against the motives and goodness of the judge? Yet this is what Satan does. He comes to the court of God to make trouble for God and not to assist God.He walks up and down on the earth to slander God's work rather than assist Him as a helpful prosecuting attorney.The divine prosecutor in the Bible should rather be understood as the law of Moses which does its ample share of condemning sinners before God. And it is from the law of God that man must be justified.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.