While this novel came about in response to political threats of the modern period, there are a number of important parallels in terms of Job and the biblical issue of blessings and curses. Like Josef K, Job is a normal man living a very unremarkable but happy life. He has an occupation, family, friends, and a strong sense of right and wrong. He is also very loyal to God. While Josef K and his religious are not discussed in the book, the law and his strong belief in what it should do and its ultimate function in society can be equated with a kind of religious faith.

Even though God is not directly involved in the life of Josef K, the point here is that we see how his faith in the law as the ultimate power is the same as Job’s unshakable belief in the power of God. Both of these men are loyal to these ideas, but loyalty is useless in the face of a curse bestowed by the selfsame powers that they claimed the highest faith in. At the beginning of the accusations from the unknowable court, the narrator describes K’s confusion as it relates to this by,  “What sort of men were they? What were they talking about? What office did they represent? After all, K. lived in a state governed by law, there was universal peace, all the statutes were in force; who dared assault him in his own lodgings” (The Trial 6). If this same narration were to be carried over to Job in the Old Testament, it might have gone much the same way, except Job would insist he “lived in a state governed by God, with universal peace, and with all of God’s grace in force.” Unlike K though, Job takes God’s curses in stride and passes the test, whereas K, in the end, loses his faith in his almighty (the law) and is murdered by officers of this absurd court.

One of the most striking lines in the Book Job is, “By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed” (Job 4:9). This seems like the most adequate and powerful way of attempting to explain God’s whims and their subsequent wake of destruction (or alternately, grace in the form of blessing). God’s blessings and curses are, perhaps simply because their extremity, very much absurd. In fact, the whole issue of how he chooses those to be affected seems almost arbitrary. Just as in the case of Noah, there is little explanatory rhetoric given to justify his choice of subjects of curses or blessings, aside from the fact that they are humble and good servants (although one must wonder how many thousands of other equally good servants there were to choose from). The rhetoric is simple, but the curses and blessings associated with it are not. It was a blessing that Noah was chosen to live. It was a complete curse that Job’s life was completely destroyed on the basis of what seems more like “God’s whim” than “God’s will. What is this mysterious process of selection? Josef K. is also sucked into the absurdity of curses and “divine” choice as a subject and like Job, his life is destroyed.

The theme of blessings and curses throughout the Old Testament is explored by the rhetorical questions posed by the subjects of God’s targets. For example, much like Josef K, in his final moments before being executed for the absurd whims of his god, the law, wonders frantically, “What sort of men were they? What were they talking about? What office did they represent? After all, K. lived in a state governed by law, there was universal peace, all the statutes were in force; who dared assault him in his own lodgings” (The Trial 6). This same sort of circular question and posing of rhetorical questions is also present in the Book of Job, when Job, in trying to justify his curse wonders, “Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? Or loweth the ox over his fodder? Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?” (Job 6:6-7). Job’s questions, like those of Josef K, cannot be answered and more asked for the purposes of the text rather than in a quest for answers. There is no justification for the curses and both of these characters are unable to accept that there might not be an answer to the destructive whims of God (or the more secular god, law). In the face of the absurdity of the curses and blessings, all except God himself, are left to engage in unending circular debate and rhetorical questioning.

In the two cases of the Old Testament that have been discussed already, both with Noah’s Flood and the story Job, there is the underlying issue of absurdity. Although there are numerous attempts by God and those he has a direct effect on to rationalize and justify, there isn’t a always a clear answer or reason for the action. One of the few cases in the Old Testament where there is a clear case of God being driven to direct action for an immediately identifiable reason (and one that is perhaps a little clearer for the modern reader to accept and understand) is with the punishment of Cain after his cold-blooded murder of his brother Abel out of sheer jealousy, a feeling that spawned due to Abel’s favor in God’s eyes.  “And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering” (Gen. 4:1). God decides to punish able by causing him to become a wanderer and an outcast among men, provoking Cain to utter, “My punishment is greater than I can bear (4:14). For Cain, being cast out of God’s kingdom is one of the worst punishments possible but one could question whether or not this might have been, in some ways, a reward for Cain since it would free him from God’s constant watch and judgment while granting him everlasting life.

If one reads the Old Testament strictly as literature, there seems to be an inherent flaw in character representation. Cain is capable of committing murder for the basest purposes (mere jealousy) thus proving him to be hard-hearted and cold-blooded killer. The fact the laments so much and seems so greatly affected by God’s punishment seems not to fit with the base character we were presented with earlier in the text, one who could murder without a second thought. The question of what determines sin or crime and its corresponding punishment is an issue that is repeatedly explored throughout the Old Testament. Since it is God that makes up the rules for everyone to follow via the Ten Commandments, it is clear that since he is the creator, there is no need for him to abide by them (since one can argue that even though it served a utilitarian purpose, in the end, the act of destroying all of mankind in the flood was nothing if not murder). Therefore, the only thing to think is that God is something of a hypocrite, that at once he punishes murder while at the same time considering himself immune from the rules he set forth to prevent such action.

What God seems to punish most is not just basic sin, but instances where the subject of punishment has no faith. Conversely, he rewards those who will go to any length to prove their faith by bestowing blessings upon them. Aside from this being an issue of worship and faith, this is also seems to be a societal code that God is setting forth. He wants there to be uniformity among his human subjects, thus requires that they all believe (and prove it by adhering to the Commandments and other statements he makes regarding what is right and wrong). Perhaps, if looked at from a sociological viewpoint, the worst punishment God can think of for non-believers or true sinners is to set them apart from the rest of society. He punishes those who exhibit anti-social behavior (jealous rages such as Cain’s) thus forces them out of society. They thus become monsters roaming the earth, condemned for their behavior, simply because they do not conform to God’s ideal. In the modern and more secular sense, society itself is God—or at least the greatest manifestation thereof. In this paradigm, the people pass the judgment in earthly affairs and leave the afterlife and its rewards or punishments up to God (since unlike in the days of the Old Testament, there is less of the idea that God has a such a direct and visible hand in the affairs of common people). Therefore, it is the people that decide who has stepped out of favor with God, not necessarily God himself.

One of the best examples in literature that highlights this idea and serves as a more modern mirror to the story of Cain and Abel is Albert Camus’ The Stranger. The central character, Mersault, seems completely immune to normal human feelings, which after he commits a senseless and (somewhat) accidental murder, leads the jury of his peers to declare that he is a monster. Mersault, much like Raskolnikov and God, still feels that he was right, since after al, he didn’t intend to commit the murder and had his own reasons for what he did—reasons that did not hold up to public scrutiny. Near the ending of the book, Mersault, near the death he has been sentenced to, wonders about the nature of humanity and how it has the ability or right to determine what a crime is and how it should be punished. As he states in one of the important quotes from “The Stranger” by Albert Camus, “What did other people’s deaths or a mother’s love matter to me; what did his [the priest’s] God or the lives people chose choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we’re all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also call themselves my brothers? Couldn’t he see? Couldn’t he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day.” The privileged he speaks of are those that have a relationship with God or something higher to believe in and hold them fast to their society. Mersault’s only crime is that he doesn’t fit in God’s society, which is eventually punished by death (not so much because of the murder, but because he didn’t show any emotion when his mother died). Much like Cain, he is a wanderer, outcast because he refused to live within the bounds set up by society or God. He remarks on the hypocrisy of those condemning him and one must wonder whether Cain or other characters of the Old Testament ever noticed the hypocrisy of their own God. What makes a monster then in God’s eyes? One who commits murder or lives outside of his ideal of perfection? If this is so, how does the Almighty’s rhetoric apply to himself? It would seem that, as discussed in the section regarding the “superman” idea, that God is outside all boundaries, thus he is not subject to any laws, which would, one would suppose, make him free from any accusations of hypocrisy. However, he condemns a man to walk about the earth forever without the company of other men, which does at least show that he puts some stock in the idea that society is good and worthy (otherwise, why would it be a punishment to take someone out of it).

In greater terms, the Old Testament stands as a symbol of God’s power for great good or massive destruction, depending on his whims. This is a very frightening and unpredictable God—one who is prone to the very same fits of anger and subsequent destruction as Cain. In many ways, the Old Testament, while still full of instructional stories about how to live a life that is right by God, is very useful, it nonetheless would instill great fear in the people that read it as a religious text only. In this book the reader sees that God has a direct hand in human affairs and he creates his own justifications for the interferences made upon his people. While this shows him to be capable of anything—perhaps it is just that fact that makes him such a scary figure. By putting the Old Testament up to scrutiny against these three more modern and essentially misanthropic texts, we can see the ways in which God is very much like these literary villains in the sense that he is a strong believer in violent action, he can justify anything he does, and he has the ultimate authority to determine what crime is and how to punish it. Whether or not the Old Testament is a misanthropic text can be debated, but there are certainly parallels in the art of the modern times and its reflection of the sad state of humanity and that which is expressed by God in the Old Testament. In the end, it might be safer to conclude with the idea that God is the symbol of all power—legal, moral, spiritual—but one the other hand; one cannot ignore the inherent misanthropy and carelessness of God.

Other essays and articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include : Comparison Essay on Like Water for Chocolate and The Stranger (Esquivel & Camus)   •   Genesis (Old Testament) and the Role of Magic and the Supernatural