The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Traditionalists: refute Job 8: 22

NIV translantion
Your enemies will be clothed in shame, and* the tents of the wicked will be no more.** *So much for ET

how can eternal torment be so if the wicked souls’ dwelling places are destroyed?

I don’t hang a whole lot on the things said by Job or his three friends (or that Elihu kid who wanders over to give his four cents–and is promptly ignored by everyone. :wink: ) They prove to be unreliable narrators over the long haul. One of the great things about the poem is that it shows what amounts to a well-meaning flamewar starting up between friends, just like on the internet, but umpty seven centuries ago.

In fact, the whole structure of the poem is set up to illustrate that Job and his friends are missing some factor that would resolve their problems but since they don’t see it they keep going round and round (in increasingly bitter acrimony against each other and even, on Job’s side, against God).

Any theological statements from them should probably be taken along that line, as being typical of what was believed by the characters, instead of as authorized prophetic pronouncement. The prologue, the epilogue, and God’s arrival at the climax, are in a rather different category: those might be considered prophetic. (Indeed, within the story’s narrative, they’re a prophetic correction and rebuke to Job and to his three friends–God ignores Elihu just like everyone else. :mrgreen: We the readers would be expected to pay attention to those parts prophetically, too.)

Meanwhile, I doubt a traditionalist would have any trouble here; since they could answer much the same way: how could the wicked be annihilated if they are clothed in shame? The analogy is that of nomads (like Job and his friends, or the people who live around them anyway in Western Arabia east of the Jordan) having the wealth of tents but then having their wealth destroyed and sent packing with only ragged clothes to wear.

Besides, it isn’t like God Himself shows any inclination to bring such overthrown sinners, even the worst of them, back into covenant with Him, right…?

(Oh, wait… HE TOTALLY DOES! :mrgreen: Rather against what Job and his buddies are expecting, too.)