EVEN gOD AGREES WITH THE PROSECUTION:

By the end of 2017, what felt like an ongoing societal collapse compounded various personal problems and led to the most abysmal depression of my life. Despair called; it was quite hard to find a reason to keep going. Screw it, I thought. Let's see if God has anything to offer.

I started going to synagogue. I started studying the Hebrew Bible--the Torah--first in English and then in halting Hebrew.

I started reading Job.

The first time I read it all the way through in English, I could barely make out what was happening in the plot. That's not surprising. If modern scholarship is right, the ancient scribes may have accidentally placed sections of the text out of order in the canonical version; even they, it seems, were thrown off by Job's notoriously obscure verbiage. But as anyone who's read it in any tongue can tell you, that doesn't stop you from being awed by its imagery and immediacy.

These lines from the 28th chapter struck me in particular, as they had many before me:

But whence does wisdom come

And what is the site of understanding?

It is hidden from the eyes of the living

Concealed from the birds of the sky

Even though I'd later learn the passage was likely put in the wrong place, the words stirred me. I knew that, many centuries ago, there was a poet who understood what it was like to feel completely lost.

Edward L. Greenstein's astounding recent translation taught me that Job's suffering is only half the story. It's not even the most important half. Greenstein's version does not rob readers of the comfort that comes from sympathizing with Job. But it also exhorts us to rebellion against power and received wisdom.

Greenstein points out that a huge portion of what looks like Job praising God throughout the text may be meant as the opposite: Job sarcastically riffing on existing Bible passages, using God's words to point out how much He has to answer for. Most importantly, Greenstein argues, there's something revolutionary in the mysterious final words Job lobs at God, something that was buried in mistranslation.

In the professor's eyes, various words were misunderstood, and the "dust and ashes" phrase was intended as a direct quote from a source no less venerable than Abraham, in the Genesis story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In that one, Abraham has the audacity to argue with God on behalf of the people whom He will smite; however, Abraham is deferential, referring to himself, a mortal human, as afar v'eyfer--dust and ashes. It is the only other time the phrase appears in the Hebrew Bible.

So, Greenstein says, Job's final words to God should be read as follows:

That is why I am fed up:

I take pity on "dust and ashes" [humanity]!

Remember, for this statement, God praises Job's honesty.

The deity does not give any logic for mortal suffering. Indeed, He denounces Job's friends who say there is any logic that a human could understand. God is not praising Job's ability to suffer and repent. He's praising him for speaking the truth about how awful life is.

Maybe the moral of Job is this: If God won't create just circumstances, then we have to. As we do, Job's honesty--in the face of both a harsh, collapsing world and the kinds of ignorant devotion that worsen it--must be our guiding force.

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