Job's Friends

A couple of months ago, my dad and I got into a good-natured email argument about Job. Most of the book of Job, we agree with. Our point of disagreement is about Elephaz, Zofar, and Bildad.

Those are three of Job's friends, and at first, they're great. They just come and sit with Job for a week, in silence.

But then, they open their mouths.

Dad says, they're trying to understand. This is what friends do. They sit around, and talk, discuss, trying to figure out why this is happening.

I say -- they're being asshats. Trying to find out the reason "why," sure, because like most humans, they want an assurance that it can't happen to them. It happened to Job because he's a sinner. But they're not sinners, so they're safe. (I don't know if this is still true, but back when I was in college, I remember reading that if you were a woman raped, you wouldn't want women in the jury box. Because they would be searching for something that you did wrong. Because then they could say, "I would never do that. So it'll never happen to me.)

Anyway, I contended that his friends were being asshats, pushing until Job finally loses it. Which proves, I wrote, that you can survive death, destruction and boils, but what will finally break you will be your friends being asshats.

Let me state emphatically and unequivocally that my friends are NOT asshats.

We argued back and forth. I imagine there's a little bit of truth in each of our views.

I'm not leading up to anything. No one has been an asshat to me, though I will admit to already being tired of those who are not close to me attempting to explain why we may be facing a relapse. They mean well, all of them. But I'm weary of their thoughts.