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Franciscan Spirituality Center
920 Market Street
La Crosse, WI 54601
608-791-5295

https://www.fscenter.org

Steve Spilde: Today, I am pleased to introduce Peter Watkins, a Spiritual Director and Retreat Leader from the Twin Cities. Peter has been a teacher of religion and theology at the high school, college, and graduate levels. On February 18th and 19th, we will be honored to welcome him at the Franciscan Spirituality Center when he presents a retreat called, “When Bad Things Happen: The Book of Job for Troubled Times.” Welcome, Peter.

Peter Watkins: Thanks. Good to be with you.

Steve: When you come in February to talk about Job, let’s figure out today first of all what the Book of Job is. My understanding at a basic level – at least this is the understanding for many people who know about the Bible – Job was this character in the Old Testament. At the beginning of the story, Job is very rich, and then he loses all his wealth and his family to a terrible tragedy. For a long time, he didn’t complain or curse God. And then at the end of the story, because he didn’t curse God he gets all his wealth and his family back. At least that’s the understanding a lot of people have, which I think is, at best, really an oversimplification, and at worst is really a twisting of the story and missing the most important points. Tell us about the Book of Job from your understanding.

Peter: Your explanation, your kind of synopsis there, was kind of the original story. It was an oral tradition – it was kind of a folk tale – and it was, bad things happened to him, Job remained faithful; therefore, God rewarded him. It was kind of a superficial story that was taught: Make sure you remain faithful to God, even in the midst of suffering. Which is fine, except a wise rabbi, or a group of them, took that story and just, like, sliced it in half. And what they did was … It’s kind of a ____ story, so you have the folk tale on either side, but in the middle you have this really amazing, poetic, very deep theology, this dialogue, this conversation among Job and his three friends. And that’s really where so much of this story happens.

Steve: In your sense, how old is the Book of Job that we find in the Bible? Are we talking 3,000 years old?

Peter: I don’t know. It’s part of wisdom literature. We do know that the author had some understanding of the Book of Isaiah [and] probably studied some Egyptian mythology. He knew the prophets. He was just brilliant, this author. I can’t remember the dates offhand, but certainly it was a later book that was written.