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A Vegetarian Reading of Job

Posted Thursday, April 03, 2008 by Charlie Trimm
Categories: Old TestamentHermeneutics  
Dan Block told me about an amusing "vegetarian" reading of Job by David Clines his in commentary a few months, so when I saw the commentary for a decent price on ebay, I couldn't pass it up. Here is a summary of the vegitarian reading of Job (pages l-lii in the Word commentary series). There are three places in Job where animals play a major role. First, Job owns many animals. They are the outer edge of his possessions. But there is no eating of meat in the narrative of the book, only the labor of the animals is mentioned. While vegetariansim is not taught here, it does fit. Second, Job offers sacrifices for his family. This clearly does not fit with vegetarianism. But note that the sacrifices do not work (his kids die). So perhaps the sacrifices at the end of the book don't work either, and it is actually his prayer that works. Here is a turning over of the effectiveness of animal sacrifice. Third, animals appear often in God's speech at the end of the book. Wild animals are more important than tame animals because they remind humans of the "inexplicability of the world as it has been created." Pretty goofy what people can come up with sometimes.

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