Twisted Tale

Over many centuries, a debate has consistently been waged on this question: does God reward us for our good acts and punish us for the evil we do?  The positive answer to that equation has been promoted by moralists who insist that God dispenses rewards and punishments according to our actions.  Let's call them PROVERS. .These moralists think that pain and accidents prove God's punishment for evil.

However, some moralists have investigated that idea more deeply.  Call them PROBERS.  These thinkers see that if a person prospers or suffers, these are not the result of God's intervention.

Of course, there is no proof of either position.  So the debate continues, fueled largely by the moralists who want to promote goodness by predicting divine punishments and rewards.

Some centuries before Christ, a group of PROBERS decided to demonstrate their conviction by telling a story about a man who suffered unduly.  They pictured a man who was a model of moral behavior, admirable in every way.  But he suffered accident, illness and family disaster.  Friends of the suffering man visited him regularly, accusing him of sinful actions -or else, why would God punish him so severely?

In order to make the story realistic, they gave the sufferer a name: Job. And to make sure that everyone who heard the story knew it was make-believe, the narrators opened the story with a fantasy debate between God and the devil.

Now, the central story is long, consisting mostly of the friends' unyielding efforts to persuade Job that he is a sinner - or else, why would he be suffering? Job is just as certain that he is guiltless, and  he defends himself vigorously.  A grand conclusion comes when God  appears in majestic form and tells both Job and his friends to quit judging what God will or will not do.  God's majesty is far beyond human calculation; his judgments are beyond man's analysis.

The PROBERS have made a strong conclusion, carefully argued and decisively stated.  But, as the strong determination of the PROVERS held that God's judgment favors the righteous and rejects the evil man, their editors dreamed up a new ending to the story, portraying the good man Job recovering his health, possessions and family after all.  This violation of the original story is a shameful reversal of the lesson the PROBERS intended.  But it attached itself to the wonderful picture the PROBERS drew.  And because that second ending was included in early translations, we Bible readers today are the victims of this awful hoax. It's a twisted tale!