[July 2006 journal entry]
The ‘scrapheap’ Job offers analogies and metaphors (6:1-3) in line with the appeal with which he begins his response to Eliphaz. However, in doing so he seems to be moving quickly (unavoidably?) to the edge of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm, to a theological position the guardians of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm (represented in the story/play by the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s three close friends) find heretical and he finds untenable. What meaning/s does the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm sanction for the phrase “the arrows of God”? Surely not the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s contention that ‘God’ shoots poison arrows into innocent persons. The ‘scrapheap’ Job describes his thoughts/words as poisoned and attributes his poisoned condition to ‘God’. The ‘scrapheap’ Job knows he is on the edge of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm – far removed from the core/center – as/when he attributes his current status to the direct and calculated action of ‘God’.
The ‘scrapheap’ Job offers analogies and metaphors (6:1-3) in line with the appeal with which he begins his response to Eliphaz. However, in doing so he seems to be moving quickly (unavoidably?) to the edge of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm, to a theological position the guardians of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm (represented in the story/play by the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s three close friends) find heretical and he finds untenable. What meaning/s does the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm sanction for the phrase “the arrows of God”? Surely not the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s contention that ‘God’ shoots poison arrows into innocent persons. The ‘scrapheap’ Job describes his thoughts/words as poisoned and attributes his poisoned condition to ‘God’. The ‘scrapheap’ Job knows he is on the edge of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm – far removed from the core/center – as/when he attributes his current status to the direct and calculated action of ‘God’.
