First things first

Scholars have long conceded that the oldest book of the Bible, of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, is the Book of Job, which can be dated to about 2000 BC. The Book of Job was written well before any of the other books of the Old Testament were written, the earliest of which is presumably the books of the Pentateuch, which were written about 1500-1400 BC. Of course, not all scholars agree on this timeline, but the fact remains that Job is the oldest book of the Old Testament, let alone the whole Bible.

Now, at first glance, it may not seem so apparent how or why an ancient of ancient books may be so important or integral to the reading, indeed, the understanding and interpretation of later ancient books. I propose, however, that the Book of Job, whether having been written down in 2000 BC upon some vellum or pile of papyrus, or only upon the human consciousness, has the import of not only being first but also being that by which everything else in the Bible is and ought to be read.

We cannot shake that which has come beforehand and so has informed our understanding such that we are not what we are without it; indeed, we are what we are, in fact, because of it. Just try and shake from your consciousness the ideas and images that bear so much weight upon you, whether be they cultural, religious, social, political, whatever. Our beliefs and behaviors are a direct result of our ideas and the images therewith that we hold, which come from everything that has transpired before us, before our birth into existence. We are as we are constructed by our environment and whatever else comes with us naturally: all that is given to us at birth, and we cannot shake it. We might disagree with it or dialogue with it or even agree with it, but we cannot shake what has come before and so informs our consciousness.

I imagine, too, that the story of Job was of such great weight for the ancients that it informed how they thought, spoke, communicated, and wrote. I imagine this because the Book of Job has an early date of inscription. As such, being of some primary importance to be written down, it seems that the Book of Job was of paramount importance to the ancients that it was so preserved. Thus, when the Pentateuch was written down, presumably at least some five hundred or so years later, it was penned with the story of Job in mind, whether at the forefront of the mind of the author, or on the back burner.

Indeed, we are so much a part of our contemporary milieu that, as a fish in water, we cannot distinguish between it and ourselves. In a very similar way, it seems that the Book of Job–or, at least, the story of Job–may have been so ingrained in the ancient societal milieu that (1) it was important enough to be written down–and at an early date, too–and (2) it informed the thinking of the ancients.

Who was Job?

Job, so goes the story in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, was a righteous man, but he was no Hebrew, not having descended from Shem or Abraham– though possibly having lived when Abraham walked the earth. Indeed, Job, having no origin story whatsoever, in fact, may indicate that he is the universal human, representative of all who seek God and seek to be good, to do right, and to live uprightly. Thus, Job was essentially a God-fearer, though an outsider to the chosen people of God, the descendants of Abraham, the Hebrews. There are many implications that may be drawn from this observation, but allow me to draw out this one in particular: who the people of God are is not defined by the external, but by the internal; it is not enough to have a holy book by which to claim divine relation, but that holy book must be inscribed upon the heart, soul, life of each person purporting to subscribe to the tenets of that book.

The name “Job” may have derived from the Hebrew for “persecution” or from the Arabic for “repentance,” indicating that Job is a “persecuted one” or a “repentant one.” As one being persecuted, Job is persecuted by both his unyielding and failing-to-understand friends as well as by God and Satan, though very little is said of Satan, except to introduce him in the beginning of the book as some catalyst for the suffering inflicted on Job. As one being repentant, Job is portrayed as one very repentant and very misunderstood: he repents of possible sins of commission, particularly by his children at their lavish parties, and he repents of possible sins of omission; Job is truly pious and ever penitent, seeking to be as upright before God as he might be.

Indeed, God speaks of Job as being so righteous, that there is no one as righteous on earth in his day as Job himself is. Whether this is to be taken as straight fact or divine jest, the title of righteousness has long been ascribed to Job, and at the time of utterance, Satan takes it as straight fact, so much so that he proposes God remove all blessings from Job’s life, to test how much allegiance he has to his righteous devotion of God.

Living in the Land of Uz

Job lived in the Land of Uz, which indicates, among other things, primarily that he is in the place of “counsel” or “advice,” as the word uz is Hebrew for such. That Job lives in the Land of Uz, or of Counsel and Advice, both foreshadows the advice that all his so-called companions offer him in his suffering as well as the fact that Job himself was a counselor and advisor before his time of suffering and thereafter. No one really knows where Uz was located, thus universalizing the place in which Job dwelt.

As a universal place of counsel, Job’s dwelling place then becomes a kind of general courtroom, where God is on trial, Satan is the prosecutor, and Job is the judge–until the tables are turned and Job is shown up by God to be a sorry judge. As such, Job, the universal man, is placing God on trial, testing him, even as he tests Job. Job’s friends are witnesses who fail to testify rightly on behalf of God, who himself must show up and defend himself, as well as thereby also acquit Job and condemn his friends.

Acquitting Job of his judgeship is the work of God in the story of Job; indeed, the story of Job is meant, it seems, to set mankind free from judging God, whose ways are inscrutable and beyond compare or comprehension. When Job seeks to have a case with God, to bear his concern before him, Job seeks not to face God as Judge, but, in fact, to judge God as the Judge, and so to justify himself before God and all humanity therewith. But God judges Job rightly as well as his friends, and vindicates each one by his grace and mercy, though he had the right to do with each as he pleased.

The divine comedy in Job

The text of the Book of Job seems so serious that to consider it a comedy may cause some to have a heart attack–or, at least, heartburn. This is likely not only because Job is so long and drawn-out, but because there seems to be in the Church or among believers or any reader of any religious text, particularly the Bible, the notion that there is nothing funny in or about the Bible or any of its parts. Before we consider the comedy, if not the humor, of the Book of Job, let us consider what makes a story a comedy.

And a Comedy Is…

A comedy might well be defined as a story with a happy ending and a ton of satire or parody all throughout, whether or not that satire and parody are humorous or funny. The humor of a comedy can be dry and dense, much like an overdone fruitcake, which, though, when considered, is found to be far more substantial than as merely an oversized paperweight. The weight of the humor of a serious comedy, a tragicomedy, is of such import as to not only make us laugh but also to take ourselves simultaneously both seriously and not so seriously. A tragicomedy is a comedy with a great deal of tragic drama, sprinkled with a deal of satire of some kind, and ending with a happy resolution.

A comedy does not always make the audience laugh their heads off: sometimes, humor is used to make people think and self-reflect. Some examples of tragicomedy of a “high variety” are Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest as well as Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. In terms of more recent examples, some movies that are tragicomedies are O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Big Fish. Most notably, Dante’s Divine Comedy might be considered a tragicomedy. Though these works of literature and film might make some laugh incessantly, more often than not, they will make a person pensive.

The idea that a comedy is meant to only make one laugh is a narrow view of comedies. To repeat, by several definitions, a comedy ends with a kind of happy resolution, and it can begin rather dramatically or tragically. All throughout a comedy are the hallmarks of satire and humor, whether that humor is good humor, dark humor, or ill-humored.

Now, to be sure, the Bible is the Word of God–and that is no laughing matter. When God created man, however, he made him to fart. Now, farting has been going on for, at least, hundreds of thousands of years, and I do not know a man who is not entertained, at least, in small part by a good fart. I believe that God gave us farting not only to pass gas, but also to keep us from taking ourselves so seriously.

We might say the same about Scripture, which was never meant to be taken so seriously that it has no connection with us at all. If we must make the Bible fart, so that we can connect with it on a real and visceral level, then so be it. I fear, however, that we take so seriously Scripture, but not our lives, that we lose the beauty of Scripture–and of farting–for the sake of our manmade concepts of greatness.

Job as a Comedy

Now, to observe that a comedy has a happy ending as well as a ton of satire and parody all throughout matches well onto the Book of Job, which, as a tragicomedy, having a great deal of terrible suffering and drama, has a happy ending and is full of satire and parody, not the least of which is between Job, representing humanity, and God, representing the inscrutable divine beyond. There is, of course, a brief showing of Satan, the prosecutor, who prosecutes God for not being worthy of praise or worship or honor, that Job only praises and worships and honors God because God protects Job.

Indeed, the very interchange between God and Satan, with the entrance of Satan with the sons of God, is highly parodic, a great exaggeration of the divine “opposites” coming face-to-face with one another, which might clue the reader in that this is a comedy. A further “indeed” lies with the fact that Job is so righteous, even with kids who party like hell and a wife who admonishes him to “curse God and die.” Now, to be sure, such a man surely existed, but the fact that he is so righteous, though his family is far from such, is a point of tension, pointing toward parody and even satire: it’s not that it’s a funny situation or family setup, as dysfunctional families are not funny–though some are; it’s an opportunity for us to examine our own dysfunction and families thereof, to see ourselves in Job and his family, as in a mirror, and to assess ourselves in the light of comparison with Job and his family.

Furthermore, the way in which the author of the Book of Job sets the opening scene is that God is in the seat of the accused, Satan is the prosecutor, and Job is the judge. Who defends God, though? It is Job’s three or four friends. Of course, God redeems his own honor by ultimately defending himself as the ultimate judge of the whole situation and goes so far as to reestablish Job with a life of blessing because of his own righteousness, quite apart from anything that Job has said or done.

Not only that, the very fact that Job’s friends admonish, berate, and confront him as they do, while he is literally scraping boils off his skin, is, of course, rude, but also very inhospitable, which would have been quite contrary to the customary habit of the ancient near east to provide for the care and comfort of the sick and dying, especially of a friend so close and dear. The joke, however, is not on Job, but on us: for the four foul friends of Job are a mirror to us, showing us as we are with those who are suffering, especially those suffering longterm or longer than we have the patience for.

Reading the Bible in light of the Book of Job

Indeed, if the chronological primacy of the Book of Job indicates that it ought to be the lens through which or the light whereby we read the rest of the Bible, then it would seem that what Job has to say to us is of paramount importance.

From the Book of Job we can derive many various items, some of which are: (1) there is a kind of wry, sardonic humor that casts its glow across the whole of the book; (2) the great question of the problem of evil is at the forefront of consideration in the mind of the author of Job, let alone the ancient near east; (3) God is not so far beyond as to be called into account by honest inquirers, who steadfastly are seeking him out; and (4) our human wisdom is but buffoonery before the Almighty God of the universe.

Now, if the Book of Job is the light by which we are to read the rest of the Old Testament, in particular, and the rest of the Bible, as a whole, then a number of conclusions might follow, to which I shall limit us to three: (1) Scripture is not to be read with holy halos and out-of-place reverence or awe, but to be down-to-earth and understandable, dealing with the common experience of humankind; (2) Scripture is to be read not a “how-to” guide or manual, but as a work of wisdom that invites us to think through, debate about, and wrestle with its concepts and ideas as well as its stories and accounts; and (3) humor is aptly apropos in Scripture and the reading and interpretation thereof.

Scripture is Accessible

The fact that Scripture is accessible, or ought to be, is a point that has long been made by theologians with the term the “perspicuity” of Scripture, which is a big old fancy way of saying the “clarity” of Scripture. Unfortunately, history with its passage of time and culture can cloud the perspicuity of Scripture, so that when we in today’s world read the ancient texts of the Bible, it is filtered through our contemporary lens. To further complicate the matter is that fact that the Bible was not originally written in English or whatever contemporary languages that exist today: the Old Testament was largely written in ancient Hebrew and the New Testament was written largely in ancient Koine Greek. Much, of course, is lost in translation.

That being said, as Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever.” What that could very well mean is that whatever God by his Spirit and his Word reveals to us might be held onto with firm conviction. While we may not know the ins and outs of ancient Hebrew or Greek or the customs and culture of the ancient near east and its people groups, we can know the basic tenets or teachings of Scripture, like the Ten Commandments, and subscribe to these with firm conviction.

Scripture is Wisdom

The words of Scripture, when read in light of the Book of Job, are words of wisdom. Even books of the Bible that are presumably strictly straightforward in commands, like the law books of the Pentateuch, such as Leviticus and Deuteronomy, might be read as books of wisdom more than law. Law as wisdom opens up the books of the law to be more than mere commands to be obeyed, but concepts of wisdom to be weighed. Indeed, how does one love one’s neighbor? What exactly is idolatry, murder, lying, and the like? To compare, for example, the Ten Commandments with the words of Jesus in Matthew 5, where he breaks down the Law into very minute and specific attitudes of the heart and mind, Jesus takes the commands and extends or explains them in such a way that requires wisdom to both extrapolate them thus far as well as to understand them as such.

Furthermore, wisdom might be applied to the books of the historical accounts in the Bible, as Joshua, Judges, and the accounts of the kings of Judah and Israel: are we to live by these books or learn from them wisdom whereby we live by that? Some of this we do intuitively. The distinction has long been made that some of Scripture is prescriptive while some of it is descriptive: what is prescriptive is what we are to do based on what is written; what is descriptive is what we are to simply read about, not emulate. For example, that King David was a “man after God’s own heart” is prescriptive; we, too, are to be persons after God’s own heart. That King David committed adultery, deception, and murder is descriptive; we are not to emulate this.

Reading Scripture requires the wisdom to weigh what we are to obey.

Scripture is Humorous

Much of Scripture is humorous, even if it is dry, wry, or sardonic, not necessarily slapstick or lowbrow. Here are examples of humor in Scripture that may or may not seem humorous or apparently so:

• The account of Genesis 1 with the Spirit of the LORD God hovering over the chaos of the world seems to be a humorous jab against the creation myths of the ancient near east that present a cosmic contest between the gods in the creation of the world.
• The account of Genesis 2 with both the insertion of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil right in the middle of the Garden of Eden and the creation of Eve because it was “not good” for man to be alone seem to point toward some sort of humor in some way: why doesn’t God plant the tree far away from the garden, out of the way of man? Why isn’t woman created with man, if it’s not good for man to be alone? How is man alone, if he is with God? Also, the creation of Eve from Adam’s side/rib and Adam’s ecstatic response to the presentation of Eve are a bit humorous, however sweet they are.
• The account of Genesis 3 with the serpent tempting Eve to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fact that the serpent is the wisest of all the animals seems to be a humorous jab at Satan. The fact that the serpent can talk and reason with the woman seems to be a wry and humorous situation as does the fact that Adam, her husband, stood by while all this transpired.
• The account of the flood in Genesis 6-9 seems much in the way of humor like that of Job, in that there is a righteous man, Noah, who stands out and who suffers through a great atrocity, the flood, and is afforded a kind of redeemed and blessed life thereafter.
• The life and calling of Abraham seems to be sprinkled all throughout with humor, as, for instance, the following:
  • The calling of Abraham to complete the presumed calling of his father, Terah, is rather humorous in that Terah seemed to have been called from Ur of the Chaldeans to the Land of Canaan, but stopped short north of Canaan in Harran: the humor in this is that Terah seemingly disobeyed the Almighty God of the universe in his calling him to the Land of Canaan to settle in the lush land of Harran, instead of fulfilling what God had presumably called him to do. Abraham, though, picks up the baton and follows through. The other aspect of the calling of Abraham that is a bit humorous is the fact that he is a pagan, presumably worshipping the Chaldean gods of Babylon; the humor of this is rather compounded when one considers that Job, a probably contemporary of Abraham, is a worshipper of God and is described by God to Satan as “blameless and upright” and that “there is no one on earth like him,” presumably, not even Abraham, the father of the Hebrews and the nation of Israel.
  • Abraham’s deception of Pharaoh and Abimelech is rather humorous in that, though Abraham is in the wrong and causes the kings to commit sin, he is made out to be righteous because God is on his side.
  • The birth of Isaac through Sarah, a woman well past the age of having children, is humorous for the apparent reason that Abraham and Sarah are incapable of having children.
  • The sacrifice of Isaac, through whom the promise to Abraham was to be fulfilled, while a serious ordeal, is rather humorous in that the obvious need for a sacrifice is missing en route to the place of sacrifice, a point that Isaac makes as he and his father scale the mountain of sacrifice. The humor is that the very means by which Abraham is to have the fulfillment of his calling and promise from God is the very object he must offer back to God; indeed, as is the redemption of Isaac by the ram.
• The account of the exodus in the Book of Exodus is humorous in its own way, such as the following:
  • Almost immediately, the Book of Exodus introduces the fact that Egypt, which had been hospitable toward the Hebrews at the end of the Book of Genesis, is now hostile toward the Hebrews, on account of a forgetful pharaoh, who did not care for Joseph or remember him–the very right-hand man of Pharaoh at the time who saved Egypt and all the surrounding world from famine! If there is anyone to forget, it’s not Joseph or his descendants!
  • The account of the midwives in the first chapter of Exodus that the Hebrew women are “vigorous” in giving birth so that they cannot reach them in time to kill the newborn baby boys is so ridiculous a claim that it borders on hilarity; and that Pharaoh accepts their excuse is of even greater hilarity. To add insult to insult with great humor, God adds to the number of the Hebrew people, in spite of Pharaoh’s attempts to control and diminish their numbers.
  • The birth of Moses in chapter 2 is in direct contrast to the last verse of chapter 1 of Exodus, and hints at a kind of divine humor, wherein God is playing Pharaoh, point-to-point: Pharaoh commands all Egyptians to kills the baby boys of the Hebrews by drowning them in the Nile, and Moses is then born, but not killed. Indeed, his being placed in a basket in the Nile is itself rather humorous, as his being adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh as her own son, to be brought up in the very household of Pharaoh.
  • The calling of Moses is humorous in that Moses was a murderer on the run: why would God call a lawless murderer on the run to lead his people out of Egypt into the Land of Promise as well as to literally lay down the Law?
  • The burning bush is humorous because it is a bush that does not burn up, though on fire. Though the size of the bush is not described in Scripture, the fact that God chose to reveal himself to Moses with powerful fire and a humble bush seems paradoxical, even parodic, to mix power with humility. Indeed, even Moses’ initial response (“I will go over and see this strange sight”) seems a bit humorous in itself.
  • The Ten Plagues themselves are humorous in that they are jabs at the gods of Egypt, upending the religious ideology and economy of Egyptian idolatry.
  • The exodus itself and the passage through the Red Sea are humorous events in that they pit the LORD God against Pharaoh and all Egypt, demonstrating the power of God over and against Egypt and all its power; indeed, the fact that the Egyptians beg the Hebrew people to leave and give them all the gold and precious metals they do, so that the Hebrews “plunder” the Egyptians, is indicative of a humorous, witty, wry mood.
  • The grumbling of the Hebrew people after the exodus and the passage through Red Sea is humorous in that they have so recently seen the power of God Almighty, and yet they despair over rather slight and trivial matters.

The various accounts and verse of Scripture that might be added to this list would possibly run the length of the Internet, so I’ll stop right there for now.

Scripture is Tragicomedy

The whole of Scripture itself is a tragicomedy, in a way. As the Book of Job begins with the confrontation of God and Satan, with Job well-to-do, so does the Bible with man and woman in the Garden of Eden, the garden of delight, with Satan as the serpent tempting them away from the God of creation. As the Bible progresses, it unveils a lot of drama and downright tragedy, a lot of suffering and destruction. But, as with a good comedy, the Bible ends with a happy resolution: the Old Testament, as the Hebrew Bible is ordered, ends with the Books of Chronicles, thereby indicating hope for the return of the Jews, the chosen people of God, from exile to Jerusalem, their home of peace; the end of the New Testament is the Book of Revelation, which ends with the coming of Jesus and the descension of the heavenly city of Jerusalem to the new earth, where God will dwell with humanity, even as he had intended from the beginning, in Genesis.