Feet held fast in the stocks of tragedy, breakdown and debility, Job is pummeled on all sides—to the point where he may lose track of his own head. He cries:

“If only my words were written down, If only they could be inscribed in a book! O that they were carved forever in the rock, With an iron stylus and lead!” (19:23-24)

Yes, put them down somewhere before these louts pound me into mush with their specious words!—cisterns that don’t hold water, polished marble gravestones that conceal rotted bones. Has anyone been there? You know what’s what, but the hounds are tearing at your flesh to the point you may lose track of it. If only it was written down!

God has it in for him. He’s thrown him down, uprooted his hope. He sends his troops to finish off the job—troops in the form of brothers driven from him, friends who abandon him, servants who jeer him, louts who have gained the upper hand and taunt him, other friends who now detest him, and comforters who beat him up. (19: 8-19)

And yet—and yet— “For I well know that my redeemer is alive; He will come later and rise up over the earth. After my skin has thus been destroyed, While yet in my flesh, I will see God, Whom I will see for myself, Whom my own eyes will see, not someone else’s.” (25-27)

He’s not dead yet, just as the Monty Python Dark Ages peasant thrown on the corpse-wagon was not dead yet. His hope is not dead yet. Almost, stretched to the breaking point it is, but not quite dead yet. There will somehow be a last day in which all is set right.

“But deep inside I feel overwhelmed!” (vs 27) He barely seems to know what he is saying.

To his tormentors: “For you say, ‘In what way are we persecuting him?’ Since the root of the problem is with me.” (vs 28)

Yeah, it’s his own fault, they say. So if we just point that out to him, how does that become a problem?

“Be in fear of the sword yourselves,” Job tells them.  “For the sword brings punishment against errors; You should know that there is a judge.”

Says Chesterton: [Job finally] demands an accounting from God, but “in the spirit in which a wife might demand an explanation from her husband whom she really respected. He remonstrates with his Maker because he is proud of his Maker. He even speaks of the Almighty as his enemy, but he never doubts, at the back of his mind, that his enemy has some kind of a case which he does not understand, In a fine and famous blasphemy he says, ‘Oh that mine adversary had written a book!’ It never really occurs to him that it could possibly be a bad book.”

A redeemer. (v 25) He knows that one will come later and ‘rise up over the earth’—it will be a big deal. Bells and whistles go off in JW land at mention of a redeemer, for it is a cornerstone Bible theme. Naomi and her makeshift clan had fallen on hard times, but it was all made right by a redeemer (repurchaser—the word can be rendered either way). It foreshadows the Christ’s (Hebrew: Messiah) own role as repurchaser. Adam sells out his offspring through disobedience, bringing upon all of them the penalty for sin. Jesus buys back by paying just the right price exactly offsetting that of Adam, the only other perfect man who’d ever existed. Put faith in that arrangement and you’re golden, so long as you hold to it.

Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned. (Romans 5:12)

The wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is everlasting life by Christ Jesus our Lord. (6:23)

The first man Adam became a living person.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.  (1 Corinthians 15:25)

So, the redeemer verse is a big deal for Jehovah’s Witnesses, right up there with ‘Until I die I shall not take away my integrity,’ and ‘Have you seen the storehouses of snow that I’ve stocked up for the Great Day?’ Those verses comprise our own triumvirate of verses. There are a few others, but anything in the preamble of Job, chapters 1 and 2, doesn’t count, for it is just setting the stage.

Then there is the one about Job never being overly attentive to a virgin. (31:1) We tromp on that one for all it’s worth because we’re trying to delay our kids from sex until they’re ready—and ‘ready’ for us means, not only being no longer kids, but being married, and ideally married at a mature age—not just ‘at the bloom of youth’ age.

It’s not easy. The verse doesn’t even fit, really, and is better used as a stopgap against adultery. But we need all the help we can get. The young people creep closer and closer to this new thing that is sexual attraction. It is so tantalizing, so enticing. What’s all this fuss of the old people, with the cautions and dating restrictions? They edge in ever closer, till—like entering the threshold of a black hole, the strange force sucks them into an elongated two-mile strand of spaghetti.

******  The bookstore

For best results, see Part 1:

To the great atheist rank and file, Charles Darwin is science—far more so than Anthony Fauci said he was when he wanted to win over the general rank and file and silence detractors. You can even purchase ‘Stand Up for Science’ merchandise in his honor. I see a coffee mug advertised on Facebook all the time. It is emblazoned with six statements, each supposedly settled once and for all, each uttered with equal authority: “The earth is not flat, vaccines work, we’ve been to the moon, chemtrails are not a thing, climate change is real, and evolution is a fact.” You can get a tee shirt with the exact same artwork. Modeling that tee-shirt is a fellow with a great long Darwinian beard. Yes, you can drink your coffee in your Stand up for Science mug while wearing your Stand up for Science tee-shirt and look just like Charles Darwin, your hero!

Imagine: Darwin is the face of science! Not Mendel, who discovered the mechanism for how Darwin's ideas worked but who believed in a higher power, nor Einstein, nor Newton, nor Galileo, nor Copernicus—all of whom believed in a higher power, but Darwin, who also nominally did (in his younger days, he trained to be a clergyman) but who smoothed the way for those who would not. Frankly, Jehovah’s Witnesses will have little issue with Darwin, insofar as the specific findings he points to. Finch modifications to meet changing conditions are no surprise at all to anyone familiar with animal husbandry. Witnesses only get squeamish from correctly anticipating the truckloads of dogma that atheists will drive through the door he cracks open.

Darwin certainly has not lost his place in the subset of science that is origin-of-life, but every subset needs its own tee shirt and coffee mug star. That honor falls to Stanley Miller, who in 1952 created a few amino acids in the lab among contrived conditions and thereafter held firm that such conditions must have prevailed in primordial earth—otherwise his findings could not have happened. If that seems like somewhat circular reasoning, consider that Dr. Hazen says as much: “Most previous origin researchers have fallen into a kind of trial and error approach to devising hypotheses; they would cook up some likely geochemical recipe and run an experiment. If the experiment did something interesting, they patched together a theory around those observations.”

Well--surely the field’s own ‘Darwin’ didn’t do this. Yes, even he: “Stanley Miller's experiment is a case in point. the Miller-Urey experiment produced amino acids, so his followers became convinced that that's how it happened long ago in nature.” In fact, what he did was not even new. The Great Courses professor tells of another scientist who did exactly the same thing 50 years earlier, Walter Loeb, a German chemist. But Loeb didn’t frame it as searching for life’s origin; he just said he was mixing chemicals. Nor was he a self-promoter. Moreover, he was German, and in the years just following the World Wars, nobody wanted to hear anything from Germany.

So they just find something that works and say, ‘Ha! Early earth must have been that way! Otherwise, my experiment would have flopped!” It is not exactly rigorous science, most neutral parties would conclude. So typical is this slipshot guesswork passing for science that when someone comes along who actually details his work, it’s a big deal! “You don't mind if I brag a little” Gunter Wachtershauser says many years later, “but something like this has never been done in the entire field.” It hasn’t?! All he did was provide “more than 100 pages of specific chemical reactions. each of these reactions is a testable step.” Aren’t they all supposed to do that? Instead, they just spin guesses and gullible atheists lap it all up as ‘science!’

“We're going to take a much closer look at Gunter Wachtershauser’s theory in lecture 20,” Dr. Hazen says, and when he does, he finds other things not to like, but at least Wachtershauser did what you would think all scientists would do.

So, Stanley Miller is top dog, the Darwin in his field. He does not want to lose his place. Of a competing hypothesis, he mutters: “the vent hypothesis is a real loser I don't understand why we even have to discuss it.” The reason ‘we’ do is that, for all the euphoria, his hypothesis has some gaping holes that sink it. The early ‘primoridal soup’ is far too dilute, by all accounts, to host steps necessary for abiogenesis. Not to mention that water, the ‘liquid of life,’ and carbon, the ‘framework for all biomolecules,’ don’t mix. Not to mention that certain steps essential to life never work in water at room pressure.

So, maybe some areas of high pressure are where life originated, Hazen lectures, and he considers oceanic vents where weird life has been discovered since Miller’s time. Maybe life originated there! and there are a host of researchers going under in that direction. Presently, however, Hazen uncovers just as many difficulties there as with Miller’s soup. The non-scientist can get a rough idea of the troubles crushing pressure might pose to newly developing delicate life by smashing his thumb with a hammer. [my proposed experiment, not Dr. Hazen’s]

Since both scenarios post intractable problems, many others emerge. Maybe the earliest cells formed, not in the high pressure ocean depths nor the low pressure primordial soup, but on some material that served as a ‘scaffold’ to pin the early molecule to, and after so serving, disappeared. There is a hypothesis that maybe life emerged, not as carbon-based, but as something-else based—clay, says one, minerals, says another—and only later transitioned to carbon-based. Maybe it started silicon-based, the outer shell of silicon offering the same connections as carbon, there being only an extra shell within. Like those Star Trek aliens who bored through solid rock—not a problem if you are rock-based yourself—to attack humans who had mistaken their eggs for bowling balls or some such thing.

Look, they’re all great guys and all. I wish them well—well, I guess I don’t—but it doesn’t matter if I do or don’t. They are impossible to discourage. Every match that doesn’t burn their fingers is the one they are convinced will light the next rocket ship to Mars. (and yes, there is also an hypothesis that life originated on Mars and came here via asteroid.) Well into the course, after he has discussed hypothesis after hypothesis and found them all wanting, he doesn’t conclude what anyone of common sense would conclude, that they’re all wrong. Bizarrely, he concludes that they are probably all right and all that is needed is further experimentation to corroborate them!

Tell me this fellow hasn’t drunk too much of his own Kool Aid:

“Look, I understand it may seem a little frustrating to have so many scientific cliffhangers but by the time you're through with this lecture series you'll be poised to share in all the incredible discoveries that are about to come, and I absolutely guarantee there will be exciting discoveries in the quest for life's origins!” Tell me a guy like this can be discouraged.

Still, greatly thrilled at all the “incredible discoveries that are about to come,” I checked out from the library the most recent origin-of-life book I could find, a top choice of the nasa.gov list of life-emergence works: The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life, by Nick Lane, published in 2015, ten years more recent than Hazen’s lecture series. Had any of the “incredible discoveries that are about to come” come? Not as far as I could see.

*Urey was the overseeing professor to Stanley Miller, then a graduate student. Bucking conventional practice, he graciously withdrew his name from the paper because he, a former Nobel Prize winner, knew if his name was mentioned, people would forget all about Miller, who had come up with the idea and done the work, to heap all honors on him. You can almost picture the My Fair Lady song sung by atheists, praising scientists “who, when you win, will always give your back a pat. Well, why can’t a deist be like that?”

******  The bookstore

Why do I think of that Billie Halliday song”

‘And when you’ve got money, you’ve got lots of friends, crowding round your door. When the money’s gone, and all your spending ends, they won’t be round anymore.’

It’s a lot worse than that for Job. They do come around—to spit on him. What is it with people who take delight in another’s downfall?

“They mock me even in their songs; I have become an object of scorn to them.  They detest me and keep their distance from me; They do not hesitate to spit in my face.  Because God has disarmed me and humbled me, They throw off all restraint in my presence. On my right they rise up like a mob; They put me to flight And put up barriers of destruction in my path. They tear up my roadways And make my calamity worse, Without anyone to stop them.  (Job 30:10-13)

Not like in the old days at all when Job “used to go out to the city gate And take my seat in the public square, The young men would see me and step aside, And even the old men would rise and remain standing. Princes refrained from speaking; They would put their hand over their mouth. The voices of the prominent men were silenced; Their tongue was stuck to the roof of their mouth. Whoever heard me would speak well of me, And those who saw me would testify for me. For I would rescue the poor who cried for help, (29:7-12)

It was a big deal to be at the city gate. Here the JW Library footnote links to Insight Book coverage:

“Because of the important usages of the city’s gateway, it was a high honor to sit down with the older men of the land in the gates.” The point is then illustrated with several references to scripture:

The capable wife’s husband “is well-known in the city gates, Where he sits among the elders of the land,” (Proverbs 31:23) which is no place for a fool: “True wisdom is unattainable for a fool [who] has nothing to say in the city gate.” (Proverbs 24:7)

David, when he is on the run, frets over being the “talk of those sitting in the city gate.” (Psalm 69:12)

To ‘crush the afflicted one in the gate’ meant judicial corruption: legal cases were handled there: “Do not rob the poor man because he is poor, And do not crush the lowly man in the city gate,” (Proverbs 22:22) something Job never did (see above). “For I know how many your revolts are And how great your sins are,” said Amos to a later people: “You harass the righteous, You take bribes, And you deny the rights of the poor in the city gate.”

and several others.

Cheering over a respected one’s downfall. What’s with that? I think of Davey the Kid’s talk, many years ago, on how love does not rejoice over unrighteous (1 Corinthians 13:6) No, it does not. But, he asked, might we even take a secret delight in the troubles of another? Then he illustrated, with ‘So and so was reproved,’ (hooking his thumb in his belt and thrusting himself forward—it was a memorable gesture) ‘But I wasn’t!’

******  The bookstore

My first thought upon hearing the Update was that my on-again, off-again Bible study with Santa Claus might once more be on-again. He was doing so well until he saw that magazine equating a shortening beard to spiritual progress. Now, maybe, just maybe, he will resume his study. Of course, I’ll still have to help him with the holiday thing, but at least the beard thing is no more.

If an entire Update dedicated to beards now being okay seems like overkill, one might recall that the Governing Body tried underkill and it didn’t work. From the September 2016 Watchtower: “Does Your Style of Dress Glorify God?”

What about the propriety of brothers wearing a beard? The Mosaic Law required men to wear a beard. However, Christians are not under the Mosaic Law, nor are they obliged to observe it. (Lev. 19:27; 21:5; Gal. 3:24, 25) In some cultures, a neatly trimmed beard may be acceptable and respectable, and it may not detract at all from the Kingdom message. In fact, some appointed brothers have beards. Even so, some brothers might decide not to wear a beard. (1 Cor. 8:9, 13; 10:32) In other cultures or localities, beards are not the custom and are not considered acceptable for Christian ministers. In fact, having one may hinder a brother from bringing glory to God by his dress and grooming and his being irreprehensible.—Rom. 15:1-3; 1 Tim. 3:2, 7.

This paragraph was a big deal at the time, at least in my area. Brothers were talking about it seemingly the day after it was written. When that Watchtower Study finally came, that paragraph was like the elephant in the room that everyone was awaiting, and then Yessss! paragraph 17 finally arrived and you could talk about it. Some congregations spent extra time to ‘explain’ it.

I thought that would be the end of it. I thought at long last the issue had been laid to rest. I thought beards would soon be showing up—at first in publishers and then in MS and elders. Instead, it seemed like congregations doubled-down, as if with the attitude: ‘Well, okay, 'weak' publishers can wear beards if they insist, but no way will they ever be appointed.’ A few publishers grew beards, but beyond that--nothing.

’Look, we don’t have an issue with it,’ is what the GB finally said in this latest Update. It’s not new. It’s what they said 7 years ago only it didn’t take. This time, to make sure it wasn’t another misfire that didn’t take, they made it a big production, brought in bells and whistles, the chariot, and disclaimers for guys who say, ‘It’s about time!’ and for the more rigid guys who drew a line in the sand and are now aghast to see it erased. Old habits die hard. This one certainly did.

For me, it is like when the man who invented autocorrect died. ‘Restaurant in peace’ the obits read, though there were a few harsher ones that said, ‘May he rot in hello.’

On the one hand, it all seems pretty silly. The greater world solved this beard issue decades ago:

And the sign said, "Long-haired freaky people, need not apply" So I tucked my hair up under my hat, and I went in to ask him why. He said, "You look like a fine upstandin' young man, I think you'll do" So I took off my hat and said, "Imagine that, Huh, me workin' for you."

There. Done. Settled. Back in 1990. Whereas, we don’t settle it till 2023. But, in fairness, it ought be remembered that the overall world is going down the toilet and Jehovah’s organization is not.

More than once the Bible says that those drawn to the Lord must become like young children. And indeed, they have proved to be that way, not just in the good ways but also the not-so-good. Paul said: “Brothers, do not become young children in your understanding, but be young children as to badness.” (1 Cor 14:20) Why did he say this—because they never became young children in their understanding?

So it has proved today, with issues taking longer to resolve than you might think would be the case. Those the Lord can work with are like ‘young children.’ Those whom he cannot are ones too insistent upon their rights to be molded. They are left to the reward of whatever their discord can produce. In short, “they are having their reward in full.”

It was not in the Bible. It never appeared in Watchtower print. (other than many examples of ‘shaving one’s beard’ listed in the changes made on the road to baptism) The reasons for it, association with beatniks and hippies, disappeared decades ago. We’ve had articles to the effect that we don’t do rules, but primarily principles. And yet, no rule was more firmly enforced than the unwritten no-beard rule.

If you want to blame someone, blame God. He’s the one who created the paradigm of ‘We have this treasure in earthen vessels.’ (2 Corinthians 4:7) The treasure is the ministry and the earthen vessels is us, with all of our petty flaws, mild hypocrisies, stubbornnesses, obtusenesses, insensitivities, and idiosyncrasies. Blame Jehovah for arranging it that way and not handing the whole assignment over to angels.

Believe me, I am sensitive to this issue. Years ago, I went to bat for a youngster being drummed out solely for not shaving a beard. I learned later he had a very atypical reason, unknown to me at the time, but all the brothers could see was obstinacy and standing upon ‘his rights.’ ‘Before this is all done, I’m going to grow a beard!’ I told certain elders. ‘It’s one thing to shove around a youngster. Try doing it with an adult.’ Trouble is, I didn’t want one. It’s too easy to get food caught there.

It is fixed now. It’s about time, but it is done. If Jehovah is going to permit earthen vessels to have the treasure, you cannot be shocked if they behave earthenly. It’s his doing. Earthen is as earthen does.

Are the brothers conservative? Things don’t have to conform to my taste. It is absolutely shocking to look around the world and see how people misuse their ‘freedom.’ I’m not a fan of authoritarian countries, but I can see how they might look at what happens in the West when all restraints are removed and say, ‘Whoa! We don’t want any part of that!”

The reason for the change came out in the update itself:

“A number of branch offices around the world have written to us, indicating that there continues to be question about whether or not it is proper for a brother in an appointed position to wear a beard. . . . The Governing Body has concluded that there is a need for clarification.”

Translation: “There continues to be a question.” There should not be by now. We keep getting letters. We’re tired of it. “There is a need for clarification. Nothing new, here. Just restatement of the old.

“The Governing Body does not have an issue with brothers wearing beards.” Got it? We don’t. To prove it, we’re now pulling out all the stops, employing all the bells and whistles, even hauling out the chariot, because when we first indicated it was a non-issue, no one took us up on it. So now, let us repeat…..(drum roll, please)….. We. Don’t. Care.

“We thought sending a message 7 years ago was enough:

“What about the propriety of brothers wearing a beard? The Mosaic Law required men to wear a beard. However, Christians are not under the Mosaic Law, nor are they obliged to observe it. (Lev. 19:27; 21:5; Gal. 3:24, 25) In some cultures, a neatly trimmed beard may be acceptable and respectable, and it may not detract at all from the Kingdom message. In fact, some appointed brothers have beards. Even so, some brothers might decide not to wear a beard. (1 Cor. 8:9, 13; 10:32) In other cultures or localities, beards are not the custom and are not considered acceptable for Christian ministers. In fact, having one may hinder a brother from bringing glory to God by his dress and grooming and his being irreprehensible. —Rom. 15:1-3; 1 Tim. 3:2, 7.” (Watchtower, Sept 2016)

“We thought that would do the trick. “In some cultures, a neatly trimmed beard may be acceptable and respectable,” we said. “Near as we can tell, we live in one of those cultures,” we figured elder bodies would say. They didn’t. So now we’re saying it so emphatically that nobody could possibly misunderstand it.”

It may well be that Witnesses back in the day disliked beards but so did everyone else of their time and well after. Look at television shows of that time. Count up the beards. Maynard G Krebs the beatnik had one. Beyond that, nearly zilch. I barely recall seeing any beards at all during by non-Witness youth, certainly not among my parents’ generation.

Witnesses were just the last (by far) to notice the world had moved on from no-beards. They missed it because they were ‘insular,’ a problem more difficult to remedy than one might think because it is the flipside of the ‘no part of the world’ coin. If you are no part of the world, you are almost by definition ‘insular’ to a certain extent. That’s what insulation is—something that keeps two things that should not mix separate.

After that 2016 Watchtower, bodies of elders considered its local applicability. Some began to not fuss over beards for appointed servants, but most continued to. Some of those that did fretted that beards among servants would stumble congregation members, completely missing the point that Paul’s counsel about stumbling (over eating meat) was out of concern for new ones or nonbelievers. In the case of beards, these ones had no issue with it, but only some ‘veterans’ who had made it a virtue in itself to be beardless and who you’d think would have moved on by now. Old habits die hard, especially when you are insular.

At long last, the mess is resolved. It looks a little silly the way it happens, but it is resolved. It comes close on the heels of another irritant being resolved—the matter of ‘counting time’—applicable at one time, but less so with passing years, as it introduces curious and crippling notions of being ‘on duty’ and ‘off duty.’ It was a relic of guys raised from the factory era in which, even when there was nothing to do, you’d better look busy to avoid the boss’s displeasure. Times change. God is not like that. It has been discarded. Two nettlesome things resolved in fairly short order.

It makes for unity to do things like #8. It also looks a little silly to those who have acquiesced to a disunited world, who consider that normal, and who grumble when anyone actually seeks unity not done their way, unity not achieved by waiting for all “the brokenhearted people living in the world [to] agree”—the way that history has demonstrated they never have or will.

JWs in the United States are almost exactly 1/3 white, 1/3 black, and 1/3 Hispanic, says Pew Research, also with about 5% Asian. Meaning? They have solved racism, an issue that tears the greater world apart. Though, at first glance, it seems not the same thing, if you want unity, you have to oil the cogs every once it a while, maybe even give it a good whack with a hammer. and Update 8 is an example of that on a lesser issue that unexpectedly became large.

Any criticism or ridicule of such ‘oiling’ is only valid if it comes from ones who themselves enjoy unity. Otherwise, it is little more than sour grapes. Some have simply acquiesced to a world without unity as ‘normal.’ Their criticisms don’t count. If you have long ago become part of the world, you can’t criticize the travails of those who haven’t.

***Xero is “not privy to the GB's private thoughts, but “I can imagine them being frustrated at) some who have the desire to worship the organization,” he says.

He cites a scripture: "...But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they ripped their outer garments and leaped out into the crowd, crying out and saying: 'Men, why are you doing these things? We too are humans having the same infirmities as you have. " Acts 14:8-18

He cites another: "On hearing this, they began to glorify God, but they said to him: 'You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the Law.'" (Acts 21:20)

It is last batter of the last inning (there are only three) of speeches meanmouthing Job. Bildad’s up. After that, Elihu enters as sort of a self-appointed ref. Then—gasp!—an unexpected appearance from the Great Ref follows.

What’s with Bildad? Cat got his tongue? His speech is by far the shortest. Let us analyze:

“Rulership and fearsome might are [God’s]; He establishes peace in heaven. Can his troops be numbered? Upon whom does his light not rise?” (Job 25:2-3)

Synopsis: Lofty praise of God—his power and place! What pious fellow would not swell to have uttered such remarks himself? Now—what comes next?

“So how can mortal man be righteous before God, Or how can one born of a woman be innocent?  Even the moon is not bright And the stars are not pure in his eyes, How much less so mortal man, who is a maggot, And a son of man, who is a worm!” (3-5)

Translation: He treats us like dirt but we’re used to it.

Sheesh! Who is this character, spouting his mangy ‘theology’ as though it were good news gospel? It is so lacking that Job all but says, ‘Where did you get this crap?’ “Who inspired you to say such things?” is what he does say. (26:4)

‘You’re going to teach me about God? I’ll teach you about God!’ Job retorts, (27:11) and then, even half-dead as he is, he bests Bildad’s praise of God, such as it is, by a factor of ten. It is like one brother I knew who, if you said to him something witty, he instantly came back with something ten times as witty. I was almost afraid of him, though he gave no reason to be other than breathtaking proficiency—instantly mastering anything he set his mind on.

Some of Job’s remarks blow one away, being far ahead of their time. If you want to back your claim that you think the Bible is inspired, you head directly to 26:7-10:

“He stretches out the northern sky over empty space, Suspending the earth upon nothing; . . . He marks out the horizon on the surface of the waters; He makes a boundary between light and darkness.”

He suspends it on nothing? It’s not exactly ‘turtles all the way down,’ is it? Similarly, it is hardly to reconcile a boundary between light and darkness as revealing anything other than knowing how the spinning planet works. We are not speaking of Columbus’s men here, ever fearful that they might sail off the edge of the earth.

“Look! These are just the fringes of his ways,” he says, to round out the chapter. (vs 14) Little did he know then that there would emerge future wise men who would explore the fringes and find them so weird as to break from the pattern of Galileo, of Newton, of Kepler, and others. These ones took for granted that to discern laws of physics was to understand and thereby give praise to God for his handiwork, but they would give way to a later generation of science who would bizzarely concoct the view that the fringes are so hard for them to understand—and their goal is to understand everything—that there must not be a God.

******  The bookstore

The man answered the door and wasn’t thrilled to see us. I understand the feeling. I take cover myself when I spot unknown persons heading up the driveway. But often you can defuse any anxiety if you are not too weird.

My companion said something about the Bible and the man replied that he was not much of a Bible reader. ‘Have you always felt that way?’ the companion said. It is sort of the latest pick-up line, uttered in the belief that it may spur on conversation which, depending upon the person, it often does. No dice with this fellow, though. He told us a big problem in his eyes was Christians who carried a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other. A jab directed at us, I thought, as I played with his two large poodles which had bounded from the house to jump all over me. “Did I ever tell you how much I like dogs?’ I said to one of them.

“Here’s something you may not know about Jehovah’s Witnesses—which we are,” I interjected. “They are absolutely apolitical and none of them carry guns. Their weapons are words only. Tell them no and they go away. And they don’t afterward go to some congressperson to urge passage of a law to make others do what they say. “At first glance, they are the most intrusive people on earth. At second glance, they are the least. They say what they have to say, but otherwise they are completely live and let live.”

When you interrupt your companion, you don’t do it permanently. You inject a thought and then hand it right back to her. You usually don’t do it at all, so as not to derail her train of thought. But I have thirty years on my companion, so I can do it a little. Not much, usually not all, but a little if the situation calls for it.

She went back to reading and commenting on a certain verse. It engaged her, and the man, if not warming up to the message, was warming up to us. The call concluded as most of them do—he had had no use for religion and still didn’t—but just as we were leaving, I thought to extend to this fellow a contact card featuring the Bible study program. “Most church teachings are not found in the Bible,” I told him. “It is the attempt to read them in that makes people pull out their hair and say, ‘Nobody can make sense of this book!’”

Look at it if you like, I told him. I’ll never know if you do or not. You may still not agree with it; most likely you won’t, but there is a big difference between a book that makes sense and one that doesn’t.

I always write a number to text on these cards and even observe how it has “one of these computer things that you can scan”—overplaying the tech-inept hand, but I still didn’t want to do with them as I had done with ‘crosstags.’ “They’re hashtags, Dad, not crosstags,” my daughter had told me about this other digital innovation, which had occurred recently by human standards but ice-ages ago by digital standards.

The home was on top of a hill. Descending the long winding driveway opened up a magnificent vista. We had already commented on how smart someone must have been to build up there. “Don’t worry about the dogs!” the man said, now quite friendly, as we were taking our leave. “They’ll chase you down the drive and bark like mad but once they reach the invisible fence they’ll stop.” And that is exactly what happened.

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These brothers who say how prayer is communication with God and you never get a busy signal, to modest chuckling from the audience?

Job keeps getting a busy signal!! That’s what he can’t understand. He’s heard those talks, most likely, and even joined in applause at the end. But now he keeps getting a busy signal!

He does express confidence in God—if only he could get through to him:

“Would [God] contend with me using his great power? No, surely he would give me a hearing,” he says. (Job 22:6) If only he could get through. Why does he want to get through? Because his life has devolved into a pile of you-know-what, that’s why, and he wants to fill God’s ear about it!

And then Eliphaz comes around—man, these guys are obnoxious! to say:

“Get to know Him, and you will be at peace; Then good things will come your way. . . If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored.”

‘Why why why doesn’t God hear me? Job cries. ‘I cry out to him day and night, but all I get is a busy signal!’

‘Well, if you weren’t so wicked, it wouldn’t happen,’ is Eliphaz’s answer, and that of the two other companions.

It is only Eliphaz and crew who feel this way? There was a flood of preachers post-Katrina in New Orleans to say the cities ruination was its own fault. God destroyed New Orleans, Pat Robertson declared, because of abortion and homosexuality. But the mayor, Ray Nagin, disagreed. Sharply. At his own news conference, he set the record straight. God did not destroy his town because of abortion and homosexuality.

He destroyed it because of war in Iraq and disunity among black residents!

The reasons differed, according to individual and political peeves. But the common ground was that God did it!

And here are these three frauds advancing that ‘theology’ with Job—God did it! For what reason? Listen to Eliphaz carry on: (22:6-9)

“You strip people of their garments, leaving them naked. You do not give the tired one a drink of water, And you hold back food from the hungry. The land belongs to the powerful man, And the favored one dwells in it. But you sent away widows empty-handed, And you crushed the arms of fatherless children!”

He’s made the point before, more gently, but been rebuffed. He does not like to be contradicted, and so juices up his charge of what Job ‘must have’ done to be suffering so!

Furthermore, to distill his remarks, ‘God could care less if you’re good—what’s that to him? But he sure does care if you’re bad, ever eager to dish out the punishment in that event. No wonder people say the God of the Old Testament is mean! If we are to listen to Pat Robertson and Ray Nagin, the God of the New Testament is, too! And don’t get me going on how when a tiny child dies, it’s because God needed another flower in his perfect heavenly garden; these preachers make a god-awful mess when they try to extract themselves from the corners their wrong doctrines unfailingly paint them into! (in this case, not only the doctrine that the soul can never die, but that all good souls go straight to heaven upon doing so):

Eliphaz the Temanite said in reply: “Can a man be of use to God? Can anyone with insight be of benefit to him? Does the Almighty care that you are righteous, Or does he gain anything because you follow the course of integrity?” (22:1-3) He could care less, is the charge, whereas Santa Claus at least doesn’t give you coal when you’re ’been nice!’

Job is not going to let these guys gaslight him; that’s why he wants his hearing before God—but he keeps getting a busy signal! If he could only argue out his case, he knows God would listen.

“If only I knew where to find God! I would go to his place of dwelling. I would present my case before him And fill my mouth with arguments; I would learn how he would answer me And take note of what he says to me. Would he contend with me using his great power? No, surely he would give me a hearing. There the upright one could set matters straight with him, And I would be acquitted once and for all by my Judge.” (23:3-7)

“But if I go east, he is not there; And I return and I cannot find him. When he is working on the left, I cannot look upon him; Then he turns to the right, but I still do not see him.” (8-9) A busy signal!

Whereupon Job expands on, not just his own suffering, but all the rotten things God puts up with:

“People move boundary markers; They carry off flocks for their own pasture. They drive away the donkey of fatherless children And seize the widow’s bull as security for a loan. They force the poor off the road; The helpless of the earth must hide from them. The poor forage for food like wild donkeys in the wilderness; They seek food in the desert for their children. They must harvest in another’s field And glean from the vineyard of the wicked. They spend the night naked, without clothing; They have no covering for the cold. They are drenched by the mountain rains; They cling to the rocks for lack of shelter. The fatherless child is snatched away from the breast; And the garments of the poor are taken as security for a loan, Forcing them to go about naked, without clothing, And hungry, as they carry the sheaves of grain. They toil among the terrace walls in the heat of the day; They tread the winepresses, yet they go thirsty. The dying keep groaning in the city; The fatally wounded cry for help, But God does not regard this as improper. (24:2-12)

God will fix it; Job does not doubt he will—but it would sure be nice if He would step on it a little. He will fix it in the long run, but as John Kenneth Galbraith said, ‘In the long run we’re all dead,’ and Job’s faith in a resurrection for himself is not so ironclad as some suppose.

“God will use his strength to do away with the powerful; Though they may rise up, they have no assurance of life. God lets them become confident and secure, But his eyes are on everything they do. They are exalted for a little while, then they are no more. They are brought low and gathered like everyone else; They are cut off like heads of grain.” (24: 22-24)

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For best results, see Part 1:

If you venture beyond the purely material realm to peer into the spiritual, if you venture there WITHOUT EVIDENCE, and so the scientism/atheist/philosopher/cheerleaders will forbid that course, but if you tell them to kiss off and do it anyway, you will discover a prime reason for worshipping God.

“You are worthy, Jehovah our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, because you created all things, and because of your will they came into existence and were created,” says Revelation 4:11.

What if you could demonstrate that God did not create all things? What if you could demonstrate that he actually caused nothing at all to come into existence, that it all happened by itself? Wouldn’t the prime reason for giving God the glory and the honor and the power vanish? Can we think of anyone in the supernatural realm who would love for that to happen? (Hint: he has horns.)

No, he doesn’t have horns. It’s an image from medieval times, if not before; no where does the Bible depict him with horns. But as an opponent of God? Oh, yeah. Satan is a word that literally means ‘resister.’ Its Greek derivative ‘devil’ literally means ‘slanderer.’ He, the one who noted the glory and honor and power going to God, said, ‘Hey, I’d like me some of that,’ and maneuvered events in the garden to lay his claim. James 1:14 tells the power of each one being drawn out and enticed by their own desire.

Granted that the origin-of-life scientists are good and honorable people, or at least they have the same mix of traits that typify the general population. They are not evil incarnate. Don’t go taking any nasty shots at them. But that does not mean they might not be pawns in a game much greater than they consciously play—the game that the Great Unhorned One cheers from his easy chair every bit as much as you cheer for the area sports team.

Who are these origin-of-life scientists? Are they easy to track? Are there a lot of them? Surprisingly, no. In a move that is reassuring for the reputation of science as a reasonable endeavor, the Great Courses lecturer says they number only about 500. Why reassuring? Because it suggests that the vast majority of scientists are not comfortable holding Cool Hand Luke’s 4, 10, and deuce of clubs, jack of hearts, and 9 of diamonds, let alone try to bluff themselves and others that they really hold something. They stick to areas more amenable to the scientific method.

“It's actually pretty easy to keep track of the origins of life community because there's one principle scientific society: the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life. Or ISSOL.” Of that tiny number of scientists belonging to the society, worrisomely, by far the largest contingent is the United States, contributing over half the membership. Why worrisomely? It is in the same vein as what was said early on about Jesus: “Can anything good come out of Nazarus?” Of course, iPads come out of the United States, as well as Teslas—they’re certainly good—but this is applied science. When we get into pipe-dream science, watch out! as the ‘land of the free’ is also the land of the free thinkers, even the unhinged free thinkers who are the ones quickest to overturn the traces, convinced something better will emerge on the other side.

“Most scientific societies have open memberships. but not ISSOL,” Dr. Hazen tells us. “Early on, when the society was small, there was a real concern that the membership could be taken over by crackpots and fringe scientists with their own agendas,” (as though the mainline itself has none) “The origins of life field has from time to time attracted people with ideas that are, to say the least, a bit odd.” (as though the mainstream one isn’t). “There's one contingent, for example, that's convinced that life on earth was planted by aliens and that we’re all just one big experiment.” Well, yeah, that is a little odd, but no odder than cutting-edge notions that currently permeate atheist society. For example, maybe we and all that we think we experience are merely bits on the hard drive of a superior intelligence! Hmm, yes, indeed plausible, nod the atheists—it comes from outer space—whereas if you mentioned anything about God to them, they’d hurl. The Matrix movies inspire them just as much as Star Trek did their forebears.

Every year and a half for these 500 luminaries, there is the Gordon Research Conference to look forward to, apparently as Hollywood looks forward to the Emmys. Yet, says the professor, “these week-long meetings are restricted to about 120 scientists and they're quite unusual in that everything said is strictly off the record. You actually have to sign a statement that you won't reveal what was discussed.” Not even all 500 get in, only the elite 120! And once in, their doings are as hush-hush as a meeting of top Masons. (one of whom once confided to me what the G in the central figure stands for. It stands for—gasp!—God)

“Our understanding of life's origins and evolution probably has a better chance of getting into these journals [Nature and Science] than almost any other topic,” says Dr. Hazen in Lecture 1. Imagine! There’s only 500 of them at the time of the lecture series. Only 500! I have to refrain from calling them a cult. Yet they beat out all the rest of the world’s two million scientists when it comes to prestigious publication!

They’ve just got a good gig going, they know it, and they’re plugging away at what they love to do—experiments and test tubes. No agenda beyond that, most likely. But a person could be forgiven for supposing they are tools of a Greater One, evil indeed, who does have an Agenda: prove God unnecessary and thereby his own claim to invisible godship is enhanced. I would never go there, of course, because I need EVIDENCE. But I could understand if you did.

To be continued: here

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It’s Zophar’s turn to package a nastigram. He rises to the occasion. He is the guy who visits a fellow dying in the hospital, under excruciating pain and so says something rash, who responds: “I have heard a reproof that insults me.” (Job 20:3) What next, challenge him to a duel?

Almost as bad: “My understanding impels me to reply,” he follows up. Job, you lost your money and everything else because of your wickedness, he charges:

“The joyful cry of the wicked is brief And the rejoicing of the godless one is for a moment. . . . He will perish forever like his own dung; Those who used to see him will say, ‘Where is he?’  (20:5-7)

“He has swallowed down wealth, but he will vomit it up; God will empty it out of his belly. . . . He will give back his goods without consuming them; He will not enjoy the wealth from his trade. For he has crushed and abandoned the poor; He has seized a house that he did not build.  . . . His wealth will not help him escape. There is nothing left for him to devour; That is why his prosperity will not last. (15-20)

“When his wealth reaches its peak, anxiety will overtake him; The full force of misfortune will come against him. . . . God will send his burning anger upon him, Raining it down upon him into his bowels. . . . A flood will sweep his house away; It will be a heavy torrent on the day of God’s anger. This is the wicked man’s share from God, The inheritance that God has decreed for him.” (22-29)

Tell me about it! There’s no connection! is Job’s response, as though rebuking a prosperity preacher. The wicked do just fine these days. Is it just me that imagines he hurls this reply with some heat and sarcasm?

Their houses are secure, they are free from fear, And God does not punish them with his rod. Their bulls breed without failure; Their cows give birth and do not miscarry. Their boys run outside just like a flock, And their children skip about. They sing accompanied by tambourine and harp And rejoice at the sound of the flute. They spend their days in contentment And go down peacefully to the Grave. But they say to the true God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. . . . How often is the lamp of the wicked extinguished? How often does disaster come upon them? (9-17)

Job is on to these shallow theologians with their sham holiness, these ones who equate money to God’s favor:

“Look! I know exactly what you are thinking,” he says. “And the schemes you devise to wrong me. For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prominent man [himself], And where is the tent in which the wicked one lived?’” (27-28)

All they have to do, he says, is expand their narrow horizons a little, and they’ll see it is not that way. “Have you not questioned travelers? Do you not carefully study their observations, . . . an evil person is spared on the day of disaster . . . And rescued on the day of fury?  . . . Who will repay him for what he has done? . . . When he is carried to the graveyard, A vigil will be kept over his tomb. The clods of earth of the valley will be sweet to him, And all mankind follows after him. . . . So why offer me meaningless comfort? There is nothing but deceit in your answers!” (29-34)

The sanctimonious blowhards, descending with their gospel of prosperity! How much dough did Jesus have? You don’t think God could have arranged for his son to be born at the Jerusalem Hyatt instead of the Bethlehem Manger? He knows a lot of people. He would have chosen the former were he one to slobber over wealth.

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