Possible Vedic (or other Eastern) imagery in the Book of Job?

[seattlegal]

The book of Job begins:

Originally Posted by Job 1:1-3

1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil. 2 And seven sons and three daughters were born to him. 3 Also, his possessions were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very large household, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.

Job was from the East. I had always thought of the Book Of Job as having a higly Zoroastrian element to it, because in this book Satan is actually personified and speaking to God, much like the dualistic pair of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman of Zoroastrianism. However, when I made a reference to leviathan from Job 41 as a parallel to "The Shadow" of the Unconscious mind, a Hindu made a connection between leviathan and makara of Hindu mythology. Since Job was "from the East," I'm wondering just how much imagery parallel to Hinduism (or other Eastern traditions) it contains.

Anyone interested in exploring this?

[bananabrain]

quite a few of the talmudic sages hold that job never existed and that the story is only meant as a parable. the thing is, you'll note that even though ha-satan is personified, it is never represented as doing anything other than G!D's bidding - at no point does it act outside of its purview. that is a reflection of the jewish perspective on evil, that it too is a part of the Divine Plan, not at all evidence of dualistic thought. in no way, shape or form is ha-satan portrayed as having equivalent power to G!D, or even opposing G!D. so, personally, i think you're barking up the wrong tree here.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Netti-Netti]

Mmm. I think bananabrain was lookin' at it from G-d's point of view. I'd look at it from the individual human's point of view.

I don't think evil exists for G-d. Evil is an issue for humans given the imperfection of matter (the tenuous physical world, natural disasters, infirmity, sickness, and death) and our faulty understanding of our incompleteness which makes us do foolish/crazy things.

[Dah-veeth]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

Mmm. I think bananabrain was lookin' at it from G-d's point of view. I'd look at it from the individual human's point of view.

I don't think evil exists for G-d. Evil is an issue for humans given the imperfection of matter (the tenuous physical world, natural disasters, infirmity, sickness, and death) and our faulty understanding of our incompleteness which makes us do foolish/crazy things.

I believe that God only creates good and that anything evil is from human beings.

"Every good thing is of God, and every evil thing is from yourselves." -Baha'u'llah

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Dah-veeth

I believe that God only creates good and that anything evil is from human beings.

"Every good thing is of God, and every evil thing is from yourselves." -Baha'u'llah

Interestingly, that is the argument that Job's companions were trying to make to Job--that the bad things that had happened to him must have been due to some sort of fault within Job himself. Hmm, and the exploration and soul-searching begins...

[Dream]

I've heard a theory that Job is a play that re-enacts the life of Hezekiah or some other historical Bible figure.

[Devadatta]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

The book of Job begins:

Job was from the East. I had always thought of the Book Of Job as having a higly Zoroastrian element to it, because in this book Satan is actually personified and speaking to God, much like the dualistic pair of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman of Zoroastrianism. However, when I made a reference to leviathan from Job 41 as a parallel to "The Shadow" of the Unconscious mind, a Hindu made a connection between leviathan and makara of Hindu mythology. Since Job was "from the East," I'm wondering just how much imagery parallel to Hinduism (or other Eastern traditions) it contains.

Anyone interested in exploring this?

Hi Seattle. I’ve looked makara up in a couple of other places but really come up with no more than you’ve pointed to on Wiki. So I don’t see much to go on here except the obvious psychological parallels of mythical aquatic beasts of the unconscious, associated with the instincts, and even there as you see makara is associated principly with lust and desire and leviathan/behemoth with a kind of primal power, as king of all unconscious beasts. What I think you need to find is a narrative setting for the makara in some way similar to the book of Job, but I don’t know of any.

As for the Zoroastrian connection, my pure speculation is that perhaps the writer of this book knew about their beliefs but wasn’t in fact following them; instead, he was asserting the Jewish view and only using Satan as a device in a parable, as BB suggests.

Actually, maybe a more interesting parallel for you to explore would be that between the Book of Job and Bhagavad Gita; not because I’m suggesting there’s any influence involved here, but because here you have the same fundamental structure: both Arjuna and Job are at a point of moral crisis, both are essentially saying “f*** it, I can’t do this anymore, and the solution in both cases is the same: God bloooows their minds (paste in Jimi Hendrix guitar riff here) in a grand hierophany. How each narrative arrives at that hierophany and the many other differences in circumstances, content and tone tells you a lot about two contrasting spiritual world views.

Sorry I couldn’t be any real help here.

Cheers, Shanti, etc.

[seattlegal]

Thanks, Devadatta. Yes, the soul-searching part is probably the best way to approach it, now that I've looked at it a bit more closely.

[Dondi]

It seems to me that Satan is merely used as an instrument of God to try Job's faith. If satan is not real, then the circumstances surrounding Job certainly is and it may be that it is an explanation that, like Kushner said, bad things happen to good people. It is a study in the response to harse conditions imposed on Job that is at issue here. What is our attitude toward God when sh*t happens? What is the attitude toward ourselves when sh*t happens? Do we blame ourselves when things don't go our way? How do react when our friends give poor counsel? (I mean, misery loves company, but only if the company doesn't make you feel worse than you already are.) Or when our spouse blames us for something beyond our control?

Incidently, many preachers try to paint Job's son's and daughter's as wanton carousers, thus that's why they were hit with calamity. The logic being that while they were off eating and drinking, Job offered sacrifices for them. But Job only did so because "It MAY be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts," which just seems like sensible maintenance to me. If Job raised hellish kids, then that hardly makes him perfect. Eli, on the other hand, definitely spawned bad seed, and was thus dealt with harshly.

[Vajradhara]

Namaste all,

within the context of traditional Sanatana Dharma (Hindu) every noumena and phenomena is an aspect of MahaBrahma even the traditionally ascribed adversary or Mara. in that aspect it mirrors Judaic thought on ha-satan being an agent of G-D rather than an independent being opposed to G-D. a key difference between Sanatana Dharma and the Abrahamic conceptions, particuarly the Christian, is the difference between G-D and humanity. within the context of the Abrahamic traditions G-D and humans are not the same, there is an intrinsic difference between them whereas in the Sanatana Dharma (and within all the Dharma traditions which posit a creator) the difference is psychological, the difference between G-D and humans is soley within the humans psychological outlook.

now it would be fair to say that the particular understanding of the relationship or way in which the beings manifest is different though that is an area of Sanatana Dharma which i'm not conversant enough and, i dare say, the same would apply to Judaic thought on this matter.