JOB - The Oldest Known Story circa 60,000 BC

In the Beginning, There Was the Oldest Story...

Everything relating to this patriarch has beeen violently controverted. His country, the age in which he lived, the author of the book that bears his name, have all been fruitful themes of discord, and, as if to confound confusion, these disputants are interrupted by others who would maintain that no such person ever existed, that the whole tale is a poetic fiction, an allegory.
George Smith, F.S.A. (from The Patriarchal Age; vol 1, p.351)

In the first place it [The Book of Job] is, I believe, conceded by the foremost scholars that the book of Job is not a Hebrew work; it was not written by Moses; it far antedates even the time of Abraham.
Ignatius Donnelly (Ragnarok; p.277)

He shall give for earth, flint and for flint torrents of gold.
Job 22:24, from (The Holy Bible; Douay version)

And all this buried, unrecognized, in the sacred book of a race and a religion.
Ignatius Donnelly (Ragnarok; p.315)


...Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked I shall return thither: the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
Job 1:21

No later than 58,000 BC, Neanderthal groups were digging graves and burying their dead in an area east of the Tigris River in what is now know as Iran. These are perhaps the first conscious, ceremonial buryings of the dead done by humans.

Bodies were placed on their sides. The legs were drawn up and the head was placed on the right arm in what appears to be a position of comfort. The overall effect is that of someone sleeping comfortably. Within these Neanderthal graves have been found charred animal bones which indicate cooked meet for the dead person to eat; well-made whole flint tools for the dead person to use for the various practical purposes in their own experience of daily life; and fossilized lumps of pollen, indicating that fresh flowers were ceremonially placed upon the dead person. Here is clear evidence that at least as early as 58,000 BC, our Neanderthal forbears used religious ritual and at the very minimum had some agreed-upon abstract ideas. Obviously, they had a spoken or psychic (or both) language. Obviously, they used their language to communicate abstractions. Obviously, they told stories. At the end of the 20th century AD, we can say with relatively high certainty that storytelling by humans is at least 60,000 years old. Perhaps, it is older!

We have many documented examples of oral traditions keeping an almost word-for-word story travelling through time for centuries. We have the example of the Navaho code-talkers, who can remember incredible amounts of verbal/conceptual material for their entire life and pass it on verbatim to another person. He have examples of currently preserved Native American folk-tales which are not only profound, but appear to be thousands of years old. A full-use memory is individually and collectively a necessity for a group or tribe of humans who do not have or use a written language and who are constantly in touch with one another.

So what about the Book of Job? This book is both profound and puzzling.

It is profound because it delineates every single religious question based upon the idea so eloquently stated by Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. And no one can ponder upon the subtleties of the Book of Job without deeply penetrating and examining their own religious motivations, their own deepest doubts and fears, and exploring their own sense of or lack of sense of, their own ambiguities.

The Book of Job is puzzling because while it is profound, it immediately feels like a story from outside the Sumerian-Babylonian-Hebraic Continuum (ca. 2600 BC-500 AD), and its Latin through English translations. It feels like reading a "1930s literal, school-style" translation of an ancient text. The story seems to be bursting to get out of its Sumerian-Babylonian-Hebraic translations and back to its own native language. Every language has its own peculiar logic and the logic of the Book of Job is very foreign to the rest of the Old Testament and very foreign to many other earlier ancient middle eastern texts..

George Smith, recognizer and further discoverer of the original tablets of the Gilgamesh Epoch claimed that through analysis of the Septuagint, either Job lived or the Book of Job was written between 2650 BC and 2250 BC. This would mean that the story of Job was written down on clay tablets by one culture, but not by others. Within the proto-Israelite culture, Job remained part of the oral tradition for a much longer period of time. And for that reason alone, although admitting that it was elaborated over time, the Israelite version of Job may be more close to the most ancient version of the story than that of the Sumerian. In fact, this reasoning also may apply to the Book of Genesis.

Through assesing that the cardinal constellations of spring and autumn were Chima (Taurus) and Chesil (Scorpio) during Job's lifetime as maintained by the text. In the constellation of Taurus, the principal star is Aldebaran also known as the Bull's Eye, and that in the constellation of Scorpio, the principal star is Antares, also known as the Scorpion's Heart. Knowing present longitude of these stars and tracking backwards at the rate of 1 degree every 71 1/2 years, to where these stars would be to make the cardinal constellations of Taurus and Scorpio those of spring and autumn, we reach the date of 2338 BC.

In his Sacred Annals (vol 1, p.364), George Smith states:

Job acted as high priest in his own family; and minute as are the descriptions of the different classes and usages of society in this book, we have not the slightest allusion to the existence of any priests or specially appointed ministers of religion, a fact which shows the extreme antiquity of the period, as priests were, in all probability, first appointed about the time of Abraham and became general soon after.

Dr. Magee in his On the Atonement (vol 2, p.84) says:
If in short, there be on the whole, that genuine air of the antique which those distinguished scholars, Schultens, Lowth, and Michaelis, affirm in every respect to pervade the work, we can scarcely hesitate to pronounce with Lowth and Sherlock that the book of Job is the oldest in the world now extant.

...The various arts, the most recondite sciences, the most remarkable productions of earth, in respect to animals, vegetables, and minerals, the classified arrangements of the stars of heaven, are all noticed.

We know that basic animal husbandry and basic farming techniques were known and used during the latter part of The Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age 750,000? BC - 15,000 BC?). and through The Neolithic Period (New Stone Age 10,000 BC? - 4000 BC?). In the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC there is an animal bone with incised or drawn star positions. This probably dates from the latter or end period of The Paleolithic Period To make things yet more mysterious, from the archeological work and analysis done through the present, there is no indication that the Sumerians (The oldest known civilization) developed from some humble and entirely primitive beginning. They just appear and then slowly disappear. Clearly, there was some unknown much earlier beginning to what became their own culture. Evidentiary necessity exists. Logical necessity exists. No evidence has been found.


Job Himself:

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God and eschewed evil.

And there was born unto him 7 sons and 3 daughters.

His substance also was 7,000 sheep and 3,000 camels, and 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 she-asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all men in the east.

And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and drink with them.

And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and santified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job siad: "It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.
Job 1:1-5
Job may be an indicator of a tribal leader, a head of household and household priest, an entire tribe, a larger group, or humanity itself.


Job's Changing Situation:
A supreme God hands over his benign rulership of the world (the Earth) to Satan who is not described at all. God does this because Satan argues that if God were not all gracious, all rewarding, and always fully protective of the"good people" they would turn against God, because it was the basis of human nature to act in this manner.

And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth fromthe presence of the Lord.
Job 1:12

Job was very prosperous. Now he is stricken with poverty. Maurading tribal groups killed some of Job's servants and stole camels and whatever else they could lay their hands upon. Job is told that additionally:

And behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men and they are dead...
Job 1: 19


Primitive Cursing or A Prehistoric Religious Sacrament?
Job now appears to curse the day he was born and indeed this may be exactly what he is doing, but perhaps he is actually conducting a religious ritual sacrament or yoga, which by the time this text was in its final form had included a misinterpretation of an actual ritual. Let us ask, how would a primitive people who are earthy, intelligent and sensitive, but without a written, intellectual tradition "go into themselves" meditatively? Perhaps Job provides the answer:

Let the day perish wherein I was born...[3:3]
Let the feeling of birth and the stories which I have been told of my birth disappear from my mind

Let that day be darkness...[3:4]
I visualize and experience darkness replacing my own specific memory.

Let not God regard it from above...[3:4]
Le me experience the inner and outer closeness of God

Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. [3:5]
I visualize and experience my own death merging with my former sense of birth - all of which I allow to be wrapped around with A Cloud of Unknowing. I/We remind myself/ourselves that the actual darkness of days since the geophysical and weather holocausts which we currently experience is the immediate motivation for practicing this religious sacrement.

As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months. [3:6]
Let this new geophysical darkness which we experience wrap itself inside the darkness wrapped within The Cloud of Unknowing. Do not let it stay with us. We need the sunlight.

Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein. [3:7]
Let this darkness wrapped within darkness wrapped within The Cloud of Unknowing not be joined to any other thing. As this miraculous experience unfolds within our consciousness, let us remain humble or we automatically join ourselves to the darkness wrapped within the darkness wrapped within The Cloud of Unknowing and we don't want that.

Let them curse it that curse the day...[3:8]
We should not curse what has cursed us for in so doing we shall automatically curse what we love and desire, because we have created the curse within ourselves and it will affect everything automatically.

Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark [3:9]
I will accept darkness at twilight

let it look for light, but have none [3:9]
I will continue to search for the light no matter what.

neither let it see the dawning of the day. [3:9]
I accept the darkness.

Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. [3:10]
My mother's womb is mysterious, accessable, and holy. In some way, even while I was in my mother's womb, I was alive and being educated as to the inner structure of our daily world, because she was living this structure, every moment, every day, and somehow a base-line knowledge of all this was given to me prior to my own birth. Gratefulness for this process makes this process continue to work in my own mental womb or mind.

Why died I not from the womb?...[3:11]
The chances of my never have been born are astronomically high. Yet I was successfully born. Normal birth is a miracle. The birth process is a miracle. We do not know how much this birth-process miracle may do in the future. Looking through a glass darkly, we sense but do not understand that within and from this mysterious birth-process which later developed and manifested in the Shekinah of Judaism, the birth of enlightened people either at infant birth or from the matrix producing a second mystical birth which later developed and manifested as the Tathagatagarbha of Mahayana Buddhism, or ultimately a miracle beyond miracles, the descent of God into human flesh through the agency of Virgin Birth which later manifested in Christianity. I honor the birth process forever.

If this is so, then it is on the highest level of prophecy.

Then there follow cultural examples of human suffering, all of which are in some varied relationship with the previous quote [3:11].

Why is light given to a man whose way is hid and whom God hath hedged in? [3:23]
My great question always is why do I know that there are aspects of life I don't know and why do I feel that there are life-issues which I don't know that I don'y know?

For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. [3:25]
The fears which I have feared to fear have all become active. Actualities which are negative are now part of my life; I feared that something bad might happen, now here it is.

I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came. [3:26]
Now I realize that I have never had true inner stillness, that I have always lived with some amount of personal fear, all of which, originally, I experienced internally. Now I am seeing various fearful manifestations in the outer world which is deemed "real".
Thus ends the sacrement of inner searching, of crossing the Void (Buddhism), penetrating


Merely Compassionate Conversation or Theological Explanation of An Ancient Sacrament?
Job has three visitors: Elphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. Job actively debates each in turn as to whether these calamities are due to the people doing wrong action or is it arbitrary or is it unknown? These "debates" have the sound, look, and feel of the Greek Chorus in the plays of Aeschylus (525-456 BC) who wrote in the oldest known style of Greek tragedy. One wonders if both the Jobean debates and Aeschylean choruses have a common progenitor in dome tribal-discussion-ritual which predates written language.

First, Eliphaz the Temanite answers Job:

If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? but who can withold himself from speaking? [4:2]
Are you ready for a higher knowledge, because, be aware, this higher knowledge will cause you some inner pain.
Job is told that he is basically good and has been helpful and positive, wanting life to be good for himself and others. He has done no wrong to himself or others, but he lacks understanding.

But now it [trouble, suffering] is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled. [4: 5]
Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and thy uprightness of thy ways? [4:6]
Trouble and suffering have finally affected you directly and you are intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually shaken. But can't you see? All things come from God. Any aspect of the Divine Structure corroborate and maintain any and all other aspects of the Divine Structure which is the One But Unbounded Always. The fact that you can experience this suffering of loss indicates that you are essentially good.


Job Relates His Inner Experience:
Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up. [4:15]
It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof; an image was before mine eyes, there was silence...[4:16]
I really did come into communication with a mystical world, at this moment, not an inner mystical world, but a mystical world, exterior to my mind and immediately before me. And I experienced this event as great fear.

...and I heard a voice saying: [4:16]
Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his maker?...[4:17]
The voice of the Spirit [inner spirit of an individual human combined with some aspect of the following:, God the Mother, God the Father, the Holy Spirit of the Trinity, some version of all or part of these or directly God the Mother, or God the Father, or The Holy Spirit of the Trinity] says that mankind cannot create, have, or maintain more justice than his own Maker. A series of examples follows.

Although affliction cometh not forth from the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; [5:6]
Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. [5:7]
Trouble and suffering seems to be centered within the human race. It is not really in the natural elements of dust. It does not grow out from the ground like plants. More than this we do not know.

I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause: [5:8]
Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number [5:9]
God your own Creator is the only help there is. God is infinite and has created not only everything of which we know and think we understand, God has created also, infinities which we have never seen, never understood, and currently do not even know of their existence. You are part of this process. Appeal to your own Creator. While you are doing this, review the everday miracles of natural cycles and of amazing events which you have personally experienced.

Job now talks at great length and from different viewpoints about his very real sorrows and personal suffering. This suffering includes a wide catalog of different negative mental states and unpleasant physical ailments. Here is an attempt to place upon the example of one good man, the various real sufferings know to exist, directly observed, and/or personally experienced by Job and his tribe or by the "Job Tribe".A therapist or a medical doctor could accurately identify most of the examples on this list.

It is clear that there is some level of recognizing the existence of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome:

Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof. [4:12]

In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon a man [4:13]

For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. [6:4]

The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat. [6:7]

What is my strength that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life? [6:11]

Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass? [6:12]

Is not my help in me? and is wisodom quite driven from me? [6:13]

My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and are spent without hope. [7:6]

O remember that my life is wind; mine eye shall see no more good. [7:7]


Textual Elaboration:
Now there follows a succession of quasi-historical events which have changed from version to version and simply are used to elaborate on the ideas already expressed.


Actual Ice Age or Geophysical Cataclysm Accurately Recalled?
It is interesting to note a number of unusual geophysical descriptions which would reinforce the idea that the "Job Group" experienced or orally remembered an Ice Age or some geophysical cataclysm:

Theses textual mentions of catastrophes can be easily related to the beginning of an Ice Age environment produced by either an unknown cause, volcanic activity, or meteoritic or cometary impact. The conditions roughly match what could result from an impact or geophysical explosion greater than 50 megatons.

...as a stream of brooks, they pass away...[6:15] - Flooding or lack of useable water.

Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid: [6:16] - Ice, dirty ice (unpleasant, perhaps containing poisonous elements)

What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place. [6:18] - There are times of intense heat which is very dangerous, sometimes deadly.

The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing and perish. [6:18] - The entire sense of familiar geography is changed. People don't know what to do. They become lost. Some die.

When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise and the nights be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day. [7:4] People are having trouble physically and menatlly coping with prolonged periods of varying darkness.

The following quotations would indicate a daily existence of a people who had once lived out in the open, but who were now living in caves or cave-like structures.

Nor shall he return any more into his house, neither shall his place know him any more. [7:10]

Am I a sea or a whale, that Thou hast inclosed me in a prison? [7:12]

My eyes shall not return to see good things. [7:7]

For he shall crush me in a whirlwind and multiply my wounds without cause [9:17]

It is God who:
...removeth the mountains, and they know not; which overturnith them in his anger. [9:5]
Which shaketh the earth out of her place and the pillars thereof tremble. [9:6]
Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars.[9:7]
Which alone spreadeth out the heavens and treadeth upon the waves of the sea. [9:8]
Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. [9:9]

Before I go and return no more to a land that is dark and covered with the mist of death. [10:21]
A land of darkness as darkness itself, where the shadow of death and without any order, and where the light is as darkness. [10:22]

All of this is definitely descriptive of some form of geophysical cataclysm or Ice Age.

Now Zophar the Naamathite talks to Job. Basically, he reviews the earlier conversations, confirming the same ideas. But several things which he says refer to cataclysm, giving assurances that the cataclysm shall end, being the harbinger of a good, safe time, and saying that the memory of the harsh cataclysmic time will give them a new beginning to things and that they shall "shine forth" and "be as morning" which indicates an unspecifed new addition to the existant spirituality.

Because thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away. [11:16]
And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as morning [11:17]
And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety. [11:18]

Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also, He sendeth them out, and they overturn the Earth. [12:15]

He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. [12:24]
They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man. [12:25]

Zophar adds that there are ways to further deal with and understand the cataclysm:
But ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, they shall tell thee: [12:7]
or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare it unto thee. [12:8]
Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? [12: 9]

Job speaks. In Ignatius Donnelly's marvellous paraphrase, Job says:
In other words, I don't think this thing is right, and, though I tear my flesh with my teeth, and contemplate suicide, and though I be slain for speaking, yet, I will speak out, and maintain that God ought not to have done this thing; he ought not to have sent this terrible affliction on the earth - this fire from heaven, which burned up my cattle; this whirlwind which slew my children; this sand of the sea; this rush of floods; this darkness in noonday in which mankind gropes helplessly; these arrows, this poison, this rush of waters, this sweeping away of mountains.
Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel; p.296

Demonstrating a superhuman bravery, Job makes it clear that he will speak his mind and heart to God and maintain himself and his identity. It is implied that Job refuses to ever believe that God is merely the meanist SOB in the universe which destroys free will through the negative convincement process of creating a clear view that all is terror, chaos, and nonmeaning. Even if God kills Job, Job will not believe this: One must ask: Here do we find the beginning of human ethics? Were human ethics first consciously developed at least as long ago as the Neolithic period (The New Stone Age) prior to the end of the last glacial period?

Shall not his excellency make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you? [13:11]
Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.[13:12]
Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will [13:13].
Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth and put my life in mine hand? [13:14]
Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain my own ways before him.[13:15]

Zophar claims that only the wicked ones are ever punished. Almost violently, Job disagrees. He argues that from his own past experience, that in human living, the wicked doe not suffer any more than the virtuous.

Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. [21:9]
The bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf. [21:10]
They send forth their little ones like a flock and their children dance. [21:11]
They take the timbrel and the harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. [21:12]
They spend their days in wealth and in a moment go down to the grave. [21:13]
Therefore the say to God, depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. [21:14]
What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit shall we have, if we pray unto him? [21:15]
Lo, there good is not in their hand; the counsel of the wicked is far from me. [21:16]

Eliphaz returns to the story and rebukes Job and charges him with many sins and oppressions. Job responds with the perfect answer in the form of a question. If the sinners, the wicked, and the guilty are only those punished by God with the death and destruction which is so apparent, then why am I still alive? Why have I survived intact all this death, destruction, chaos, and pain? You contradict yourself when you accuse me!


Second, Bildad the Shuhite begins to conversationally argue with Job. The main thrust of his arguement is that manking lives under a god who rules dominion and fear and that man is an unclean creature no better than a worm. He says:

How can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? [25:4]
Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. [25:5]
How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man which is a worm? [25:6]

Job answers:
How hast thou helped him that is without power? how savest thou the arm that hath no strength? [26:2]
How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? and how hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is? [26:3]
To whom hast thou uttered words? and whose spirit came from thee? [26:4]
All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils [27:3]

Job continues by taking a stand of absolute trust in God and maintaining a basically pacifist position and in a direct way foretells parts of the teaching attitude used so completely and miraculously by Jesus, a number of thousand years later.

Again, appear more mentions of what appear to be cataclysmic situations:
Hell is naked before him and destruction hath no covering [26:6]
He stretcheth out the north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing.[26:7]
He bindeth up the waterss in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them. [26:8]
He hath compressed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end.[26:9]
He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud.[26:10]

And most interesting, is the next reference:
By his spirit, he hath garnished the heavens; his hand nath formed the crooked serpent [26:11}
Is this the description of an out-of-control atmosphere, a comet, or some form of planetary disturbance? Perhaps, it is.

Job now begins to describe cataclysm in a more mystical manner. His expanded perception allows him to re-experience the cataclysm but now he talks like a visionary and poet:

As for the earth, out of it cometh bread; and under it is turned up as it were fire. [28:5]
The stones of it are the place of saphires: it hath dust of gold. [28:6]
There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen: [28:7]
The lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it. [28:8]
He putteth forth his hand upon the rock: he overturneth the mountains by the roots. {28:9]
He cutteth out rivers among the rocks; and his eye seeth every precious thing. [28:10]
He bindeth the floods from overflowing; and the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light. [28:11]
But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding? [28:12]

Many examples and elaborations follow. Then
And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. [28:28]
Unfortunately for us, either we must be in a condition of fear in order to sek and gain wisdom or we mistake fear for wisdom and wisdom for fear. When we depart from what is generally agreed upon as evil, we depart from any base instincts which we might have and begin to appreciate the value of our lives. We cannot appreciate the value of our own life without appreciating the value of other human lives and vice versa.

Again, more cataclysmic description:
For he maketh small drops of water; they pour down rain like water according to the vapour thereof: [28:27]
Which flow from the clouds - the bottom of the sea laid bare [28:28 - literal translation]
With clouds he covereth the light; and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt. [28:32]
The noise thereof sheweth concerning it, the cattle also concerning the vapour. [28:33]

And the beast shall go into his covert and shall abide in his den [37:8]
Out of the south cometh the whirlwind: and cold out of the north. {37:9]
By the breath of God, frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened. [37:10]
Also by watering, he watereth the thick cloud: he scattereth his bright cloud. [37:11]

When the dust is caked into a mass by heat like molten metal, before the rain falls [38:38]

Ignatius Donnelly is again worth quoting. Here is his assessment:

God, we are told will call Job out of his narrow-mouthed cave, and once more will give him plenty of food. There has beena great tribulation. The sun has sucked up the seas, they have fallen in great floods; the thick clouds have covered the face of the sun; great noises prevail; there is a great light, and after it a roaring noise; the snow falls on the earth, with winter rains (cold rains) and great rains; men climb down ropes into deep shafts or pits; they are sealed up, and beasts are driven to their dens and stay there; then the continual rains dissipate the clouds.
Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel; p.308.

But what is the time frame? 3 to 10 years? 20,000 to 30,000+ years? There appears to be no answer to fully resolve the time frame.


End Game:

The first final aspect of the Book of Job is God's response to Job. This response is a long and very detailed series of mystical-rhetorical questiobs, lasting for several chapters. Some of the questions are profound and primary. Many of the questions are secondary fill-ins and elaborations of the primary questions and were probably added to the text at various times. These additions draw a very complete picture of God, created solely through the use of questions, but some of these secondary questions tend to show attitude, while the primary questions show a growing human awareness of infinity and a Prime Creator called God. Here follow some examples of primary questions contained within these chapters:
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said.[38:1]
Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? [38:2]
Gird up thy loins like a man; for I will demand of theee, and answer thou me. [38:3]
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou has understanding [38:4]
Who has laid the measure thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? [38:5]
or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth as if it had issued out of the womb? [38:8]
Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know its place? [38:12]
Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof? [38:19]
That thou shouldst take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldst know the paths to the house thereof? [38:20]
Hath the rain a father? or hath begotten the drops of dew? [38:28]
Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? [38:29]
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleides or loose the bands of Orion? [38:31]
Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven/ canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? [38:33]
Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? [38:36]
Upn the earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. [41:33]
He beholdeth all high things; he is a king over all the children of pride. [41:34]

Job responds:
I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee [42:2]

Job repents and humbles himself. Elphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are humbled by God who holds up Job as the example to be followed, making it clear that by their conversational arguements with Job, they have not spoken correctly about God. God then restores Job's fortunes and had more sons and daughters and lived to be 140 years old.

One can envison a happy ending. It is called rebuilding after a calamity. Internal and external reconstruction are difficult and possible. However this part of the text is condensed and without the same fluidity of style which marks the earlier part of the text. It is a variation of the "and they lived happily ever after". Most likely it is a later addition. Was the original ending of the story, Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not [42:3]? Or was there a longer, more detailed, and more adult theological happy ending? Perhaps, but if so, it no longer exists. After the possibilities of beeing an historical record, a profound sacrament, and profound metaphysics, The Book of Job is our earliest known story of an prolonged, massive group attempt to survive on a wonderful planet during and after a hideous holocaust from Outer Space and as this story travelelled through time it became the first story of what we might call “apocalypse-survival” and it does not seem unreasonable that this story of survival under hideous, frightening conditions, created in the mind of the Neanderthal, a deep spiritual sense of being protected in some way by some One Power that had chosen to look after them in their many years of trial and tribulation and of wandering into the Shanidar region in the Zagros Mountains of Kurdistan currently connected to Iraq?

copyright 2001 Caiyros Verree