CONTRADICTION BETWEEN THE WISDOM BOOKS OF THE BIBLE

The American Atheists association poses the contradictory passages below to question whether God really can be trusted to keep his promises.

        “A good man obtaineth favour of the LORD…” — Proverbs 12:2

        “Now consider the case of Job. After commissioning Satan to ruin Job financially and to slaughter his shepherds and children to win a petty bet with Satan. God asked Satan: 'Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.'” — Job 2:3

There are several ways to answer this objection to the truth of the Bible, but unfortunately most of them cannot be followed without a certain amount of intelligence, knowledge, and patience on the part of the critic, which is not always present.

The most basic place to start in answering the above objection is to consider the nature of the Wisdom Books in the Old Testament. Much has been written on this subject but to a great extent it boils down to where they stand in the context of the whole Bible. The way the Hebrew Scriptures are organized helps us to understand this. Basically the OT books are grouped into three categories: The Law (i.e. the Pentateuch), The Prophets (comprising what Christians would call most of the Historical Books and the Prophets), and lastly The Writings. This last category in Jewish thinking comprises a hodgepodge including the Poetry Books, Wisdom Literature, and some miscellaneous books that Christian Bibles group with the Prophets or History Books.

Jeremiah alludes to this three-fold division when his enemies wish to do away with him and say sarcastically that “instruction shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet.” (Jeremiah 18:18) But of the three sources of truth, by far the most stressed and the most reliable come from the Law and the Prophets since the teachings there stem directly from God's own direction.

By contrast, the wisdom teachings are those which are common revelation to all mankind, not just to the Jews. We can see this in the Book of Proverbs where 30:1-31:9, and possibly the remainder of chapter 31 as well, are specifically stated to come from non-Israelite sources. This common wisdom is a definitely lower form of truth than comes from the other two major portions of the OT. For one thing, it is almost exclusively limited to conditions here on earth and rarely takes into account any eternal verities. For another, you may note that a number of the proverbs have no real moral component to them at all, but strictly reflect what happens to happen, whether it is right or wrong. Thirdly, at best the proverbial sayings express what is the general rule of thumb, not hard and fast statements that apply to each and every occasion that may arise.

Thus, we can even divide the Wisdom Literature in the Bible into two categories: the wisdom of the ages (as in Proverbs) and the “anti-wisdom” books Job and Ecclesiastes which seriously question this accepted wisdom of the ages and demonstrate that there are certain exceptions to the general rule.

Since both types of writings are included in the Wisdom Literature, you must take the whole of these teachings into account in order to arrive at the complete truth, rather than pitting one passage against the other as the atheist above has done in order to expose a contradiction that will allow him to safely ignore the whole thing as nonsense.

But rather than talk in such generalities, let us address the specific passages quoted at the start, beginning with Proverbs 12:2. Since to the title originally given to this contradiction was “Can God be trusted?,” we need to first delve into the exact meaning of this verse to see what it is really saying and whether it is germane or not to that subject. What does it mean to be “good” and what does “God's favor” consist of?

And here our atheist has played the same trick his compatriots often use in creating a contradiction where one does not exist; he purposely leaves out part of the verse to make his point. Our greatest aid in deciding the meaning of a poetic passage such as Proverbs 12:2 is to compare the first and second stanzas against one another since Hebrew poetry usually consists of two or three lines which are either parallel in thought to one another or composed of purposeful contrasts. The latter is the case here. Read the entire verse, shown below with the pertinent elements placed above one another:

                    “The good                        obtain favor from      the LORD, but

                    Those who devise evil     condemns                  He.”

Thus, “the good” are those who treat others well as opposed to “those who devise evil.” Similarly, obtaining favor from God is the exact opposite of being condemned by Him. Note that this promise says absolutely nothing regarding God showering down material blessings on the good person in this life or even giving him a comfortable existence. It only states that God will find that person acceptable to Him and will not condemn him. The full revelation of any eternal blessings that God may have in store for such a person was hidden to a large extent from the OT Jews, only to be fully revealed in NT times.

Moving on to the situation of Job, the first thing to note is that he certainly is described in the opening chapters as one who is “good” by the above definition. And correspondingly, God finds him acceptable as is obvious from Job 2:3, which is quoted above. Thus, we have another example of two passages in the Bible perfectly confirming rather than contradicting each other as our atheist friend claims.

The only accusation left to counter is the offhand comment that God purposefully inflicts all this unnecessary pain and suffering on Job for the sole reason of winning a “petty bet with Satan.” Such a statement betrays a complete lack of understanding of such a deep book as Job which has been rightly called a masterpiece of world literature, even by those who are unbelievers. It is, I will admit, not an easy book to totally comprehend, but it is certainly not to be simply dismissed by someone who is ignorant of its depths.

I do not have the time or ability to completely go into any sort of analysis of the Book of Job. However, here are a few of the more obvious observations to point out. In the first place, it is not a petty bet because an awful lot is at stake here. If Satan is right and the most righteous person on the face of the earth is only following God because of the blessings he can get from Him, then all of God's followers are in it for the same earthly or eternal reward, not because they have any real love of the LORD Himself.

    But that is not the only reason that God agrees to Satan's experiment, with some stipulations. Job and his friends also benefit in the long run from a successful conclusion to the trial:

    Job can at last “see” God in a personal way rarely granted to any human being instead of merely hearing about at him second hand (Job 42:5).

    He also is told to add to his usual prayers (Job 1:5) those for his “enemies” as well (Job 42:8), just as Jesus would later instruct His followers.

    Job has to learn the hard way that God is infinitely above him in every way, and he repents of his harsh words toward God in demanding that He explain himself to a mere mortal. (Job 42:6).

    Job is fully justified in the eyes of his friends, and they are all put in their proper place by God for daring to speak in His name things of which they had no comprehension (Job 42:7).

    Lastly, and least important from God's viewpoint, Job's family and possessions are restored many-fold.

It is that final point which bothers even Christians the most, since most of his original family was killed off under the permissive will of God Himself. Again, we like Job and his friends are so short-sighted and limit ourselves so much to the here-and-now that it is really hard for us to comprehend what God's divine plans are for our future existence. It is something that we must accept on faith if we at all accept the fact that God is good as well as just.