Job
The Babylonian exile was a national tragedy for the Jewish nation. Religious certainty was shattered because God had abandoned them to their enemies. The book of Job is propaganda designed to make the Jews maintain their trust in God. The author is unknown.
1. Job is a 'God-fearing, blameless, and upright man' with seven sons, three daughters, and a large number of servants and livestock. One day, angels come to God, one of which is Satan. God asks Satan where he's been. Satan replies that he's been 'roaming through the earth'. God says 'have you considered my servant Job? He is blameless and upright, fears God, and shuns evil'. Satan replies that Job is only faithful because he fears God and God has given him wealth, but that if his possessions are removed 'he will curse you to your face'. God hands over everything Job has for Satan to do with as he pleases to test Satan's point, but says that he must not harm Job personally. Soon Chaldeans and Sabeans attack Job's family, take most of his livestock, kill his servants, and the 'fire of God' falls from the sky and burns the remainder. Then, a 'mighty wind' causes Job's house to collapse and kill his sons and daughters. Job sinks to his knees and says 'The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away', and 'Praise the Lord'. He doesn't blame God for his predicament. Why does God have to ask Satan where he's been? He's hardly omniscient if he doesn't know already. Job doesn't blame God for his predicament, but the story makes it clear that it's the outcome of what is essentially a wager between God and Satan concerning how faithful he is, or how much grief he can bear. That Satan is said to be behind the bloodshed hardly matters, when the meaning of 'handing over' is unambiguous. A despicable God making a wager with human life.
2. The angels come again and God asks Satan where he's been. Satan gives the same reply. God says Job has maintained his integrity. Satan agrees but says that 'if you were to strike him personally, he will surely curse you to your face'. God gives Satan permission to strike Job, again to test Satan's point, but says not to take Job's life. Satan inflicts Job with painful sores from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, but Job still refuses to curse God. Three of Job's friends visit him to provide counsel. The 'where have you been' question to Satan is meaningless, and Satan seems to regard it as such as he doesn't really answer. God is goaded by Satan to make Job's life even more miserable. If God can't resist making a wager with Satan, what hope do we have?
3-37. Chapters three to forty-one are in poetic form. These chapters represent a conversation between Job and his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, and later a young man by the name of Elihu, and praise to the Almighty. Job doesn't understand why he's suffering and wishes he had never been born; his friends both console and condemn him, believing that he must have caused this predicament through sin.
38-41. God replies 'out of a storm', breaking into the conversation, and in exactly the same poetic form, to state how mighty he is. God ignores every question asked by Job in the preceding thirty-four chapters. Instead, he thunders on about 'Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?', 'Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?', and 'Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?' Job's questions about why he's suffering are obviously too hard for the author to answer. 'God's' reply is an overblown, puffed-up, load of tripe. It answers nothing and says nothing of value.
42. Hearing God's reply, Job humbles himself. God makes Job prosperous again, giving him twice as much as he had before, including another seven sons and three daughters. Easily rectified. This makes up for the sons, daughters, and servants that were murdered. No harm done.
This is the idiotic story of a man caught in a wager between God and Satan. It shows a weak-minded and vain deity bringing a blameless person to Satan's attention and then agreeing to the murder of his servants and children. Human life has no value to the Judeo-Christian God. God's reply to his faithful servant, Job, is ridiculous and pompous.