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Did anyone watch or listen to it. I actually forgot about it. If you did, please share. I didn’t watch, my wife went to the church, But there are summaries on the LDS.org homepage and it looks like some of the videos are there already. Nopes. Mostly, I took a step back and just enjoyed the time with my daughter. I thought about my mom and all my old friends. I loved singing How Firm a Foundation. There was a good, down to earth video of members worldwide. I can’t put my finger on what leaves me so uninspired by the rest of it. I know some will react to the emphasis on the Proclamation, but it was the overall grim mood, not that they emphasized the Proclamation. If I were younger, especially, I don’t know how this would all look to me. So much talk about defending, counter-attack, building the kingdom, back-up plans. Sounds….appealing?
There was a moment I couldn’t have scripted better. President Eyring was talking about Job being ultimately rewarded for his faith, (“I know that my redeemer liveth”) and I looked down at the book in my lap, “Re-reading Job” by Michael Austin. I scooted it over to my daughter and she read the passage that Eyring referred to with a completely different explanation from Austin. She whispered, “Interesting,” and I was glad we were there.
I remembered this morning that conference was tonight, then completely forgot until an hour after it finished. Strangely, my mother also forgot, and our family instead watched a few historical documentaries on various things, since we’re all geeks like that. I’m debating now if I want to look things up so I have some vague idea of what’s going on in RS tomorrow, or if I’m even up to going to RS. I’m interested in the mood you mention, though, Ann. Also, do you mind sharing more about that passage and the interpretations from Job?
West wrote:I remembered this morning that conference was tonight, then completely forgot until an hour after it finished. Strangely, my mother also forgot, and our family instead watched a few historical documentaries on various things, since we’re all geeks like that. I’m debating now if I want to look things up so I have some vague idea of what’s going on in RS tomorrow, or if I’m even up to going to RS.
I’m interested in the mood you mention, though, Ann. Also, do you mind sharing more about that passage and the interpretations from Job?
Staying home and being geeky with your family is good, too.
:thumbup: Here are two pages from the first chapter of the Austin book. (Sorry, everyone.) His “frame” is the first two chapters and the very end of the Book of Job. The “poem” is everything in between.
Quote:When Job speaks of a “Redeemer,” he is not prophesying of Christ. He is invoking his right to an avenger.In every Church lesson that I have ever had about the Book of Job we have read the twenty-fifth verse of chapter 19: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.” What clearer evidence could we have of Job’s faith, not just in God, but in Jesus Christ, who would not be born for at least another 500 years? Samuel Medley’s 1775 poem “I Know that My Redeemer Lives” has been set to music many times and is, in one of its versions, one of the most cherished songs in the LDS hymnal….
Unfortunately, there is no way to read the original text as a prophecy of Christ. The Hebrew root word that Job uses here, and which Christian translators have long translated as “Redeemer,” is ga’al, which means something more like “avenger” or “reputation fixer.” This was someone who had the charge to preserve the reputation of a deceased family member. The role of a ga’al varied widely depending on the circumstances. It could require someone to avenge a death with bloodshed or to provide evidence exonerating somebody who died under a cloud of suspicion. But it could also include marrying a deceased man’s wife and siring children in his name – as Boaz did with Ruth, acting in his role as ga’al.
It is possible, of course, to see in the Hebrew ga’al figuration of the role of Jesus Christ. It is not possible, however, to actually agree with Job in thinking that a ga’al, or redeemer, will some day confront God and prove his innocence. This would require us to accept the proposition that Job’s suffering is connected to his behavior – that God is actually punishing him for supposedly doing something wrong. And this is precisely the proposition that the whole poem is trying to convince us to reject. The fact that Job believes that his “Redeemer lives” shows us that, at this point in the poem, he has no more ability than his friends to comprehend a God who does not operate on a straightforward principle of rewards and punishments.
The finale of Job, in which he is richly rewarded for his faithfulness, is part of the frame, not the poem, which means that it is part of what the author is trying to undercut.The traditional Job story ends with God restoring Job’s health and doubling his property. If we take this as the ultimate meaning of the Book of Job, we will end up reinstating all of the assumptions about rewards and punishments that the poet worked so hard to get us to reject. It is crucial, therefore that we understand that this final scene is part of the frame tale, not the poem, and that one of the most important functions of the poem is to question the ideology of the frame.
Keep in mind that most of the original readers would have known the Job story and would be expecting the big reward at the end. If the poet has done his job, however, the ending should fall flat. We should realize that the version of God that we see in the frame is nothing like the version that we see in the poem, and that the idea of rewarding somebody who has suffered patiently (or even impatiently) flies in the face of the poem’s more nuanced and spiritually mature understanding of God. We should, in other words, read the final verses of Job ironically.
Let me be very clear about what I am not saying. I do not suggest that some hapless editor joined the frame and the poem together because he did not understand how different they were. Nor do I think (as some have argued) that a pious redactor, centuries after the poem was written, clapped on the last few verses to blunt the original critique. Rather, I accept what has become the predominant (but by no means unanimous) view of scholars: the author of the Book of Job knew exactly what he was doing when he juxtaposed the frame and the poem, and he clearly intended us to read the frame, including the final scene, ironically.
The author talks about an accurate reading of Job challenging “assumptions about God, mortality, and justice that have been central to religious thought for millennia…”
All I can really say is that I felt like crap afterwards. I will sum up a story very quickly. There was a woman who had heard about joseph being a fraud. (1890 or so). She was bothered by what she heard but then had a dream that she saw joseph and Moroni on a hill. She then went to the salt lake temple dedication and saw the same picture she saw in her dream in a stained glass window. It was all fixed. I’m sorry, does anyone else hate these dreams?? How is that supposed to make people who are struggling feel? Well, I am so happy that everything was fixed for her overnight in a dream. That definitely hasn’t happened for me. Still waiting for my dream. Then there was a soda can analogy. I don’t want to write it out. But anyway, after those two things I kind of turned off my brain. I agree with Ann, it was a pretty gloomy conference.
A young woman I know asked me, “When will we stop beating dead horses?” She was talking about traditional marriage. Another woman I know loved it. She said there were multiple things she needed to hear.
I am fascinated by how very intelligent people experience things so differently.
Of most interest to me, and having nothing to do with the overall tone of the meeting, apparently there was a story about Marie Cardon standing up to a mob in 1850 in Italy in order to protect the missionaries in her home. Regardless of how the story was used, there is a good chance that some of the members in her home were John Daniel Malan and his family. Brother Malan is my wife’s third-great grandfather, and he baptized Phillipe Cardon.
I love to hear Michael Austin quoted! I’ll pass that on to him. He will be pleased. The way the story of Job is taught in our culture and church has always appalled me. All his children died. All of them. He lost his health, his wealth, his children. And in the end, his health is restored, he gets his wealth back. But how does one replace children? You can have more children .. But they do not replace the ones who died. He also lost his sense of community. How do you trust when your support system has failed you in your time of need. He lost his sense of community too.
When I hear the statement “And ALL was restored to him,” it feels like I’m a well-trained rottweiller and the secret phrase for ATTACK has just been spoken. When I resist the primal desire to rip into someone , my emotions move to feeling violated, offended, and betrayed. I have just been told that the deaths of my children didn’t matter, because I have achieved personal health and financial success.
For me, so much of Job is a story of community dynamics. How do a community decide who to support and who to abandon. Who gets to decide? And does that decision have anything to do with personal righteousness.
My wife who is as TBM as they come said it was “ok”. She said she didnt really connect with it. I half listened to it as I was doing chores around the house. I did hear the dream resolution to doubting Joeshp Smith and I thought that wouldn’t work for me. I also heard the can anology and didnt mjnd it as much. I do think if we are filled with something good we are stronger than if we are emotionally empty. Didn’t hear Pres Eyring.
amateurparent wrote:The way the story of Job is taught in our culture and church has always appalled me. All his children died. All of them. He lost his health, his wealth, his children. And in the end, his health is restored, he gets his wealth back. But how does one replace children? You can have more children .. But they do not replace the ones who died.
The institute manual makes note that Job gained double of all the possesions he had lost. When it came to his children he gained an equal amount. The institute manual suggests that this is a hint at the eternal nature of family relationships and that the children that had died were not truly lost to him.
I only bring this up to point out that there is a TBM response to your question… even if it doesn’t work for you and me.
The more I learn about the bible the more I feel that my entire LDS understanding of it was based upon proof texting. (I am aware that other churches do the same. It just takes on a new level when we use quotes from LDS GA’s to give context to bible verses.)
I shall have to look up this soda can analogy. You all have piqued my curiosity.
I didn’t even know the women’s session was last night until I stumbled across a news story on ksl. I was not inspired by what the story had to say, seemed like a lot of re emphasis on traditional marriage. Of course this is a news story so it’s very condensed. I’m curious to see what others on here got out of it. Thanks very much, Ann! The story of Job has never quite sit right with me, and it seems people use it a lot around here. One of my favorite things about this forum is learning new perspectives on things I’ve heard a dozen times before. ^^ I have a wonderful friend who is 100% faithful but heterodox who loves the story of Job because, in her words: Quote:It says it is okay to complain to God.
There is no one true meaning to scriptural stories, even ones outside the Bible.
Old-Timer wrote:I have a wonderful friend who is 100% faithful but heterodox who loves the story of Job because, in her words:
Quote:It says it is okay to complain to God.
There is no one true meaning to scriptural stories, even ones outside the Bible.
For me I just tell myself that Job is just a story, that’s all, just a story. Now back to our original thread.
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