Is Satan trying to thwart the Bi-centennial celebration of the first Vision?

[Just_A_Guy]

On 3/13/2020 at 12:21 PM, Vort said:

I believe that the book of Job gives insight into how God works with men. As Elder McConkie said, "Job is for people who like the book of Job."

I do not believe that God and Satan casually chat, as the highly formulaic retelling in Job might suggest. I don't believe that Satan goes before God to request permission to afflict people, and that God then grants that permission. I do not believe that Satan creates life or manipulates non-human life to afflict mankind. Insofar as the book of Job suggests otherwise, it's clear that the book of Job is speaking figuratively or in allusion or as a fable.

Job may well have been an actual man, and the trials that he faced in the book might well reflect actual trials faced by a real Job (and perhaps by the rest of us). But to use that to draw the conclusion that Satan bargains with God to afflict mankind is as absurd as using the Biblical account of the sun standing still during Joshua's defeat of the Amorites to draw the conclusion that the sun circles the earth.

There’s a decent chance that the Book of Job was the sixth-century-BC equivalent of “Johnny Lingo”, which folks started reading as literally true a few centuries after that.

I still gravitate towards the idea that there was a real Job, and that the sequence of events told in the book is within spitting distance of being historical.  But I don’t look to it to tell me great truths about the nature of powers of Satan.  The “story” in Job is primarily a frame in which the philosophical/theological discussions between Job and his friends can occur.  The discussion/debate that so intimidated modern readers is the real meat of the book; and fundamentally the author of the book of Job meant to ask questions, not to answer them.

Edited March 15, 2020 by Just_A_Guy

[Emmanuel Goldstein]

On 3/12/2020 at 6:53 PM, Scott said:

Satan has no body and has no creation powers.  He can't create or build physical things.  I don't think he can create viruses.

Satan doesn't for example, create or build a knife and tempt someone to take it and hurt someone.  Maybe he would if he could, but that's not how things work.

Creating a virus is a lot harder than creating something like a knife.  I don't think Satan can create things like that.

Satan can inspire evil men to create and release a virus. No, I think this may be the way the Lord gets us to finally get our food storage mindset going. Prepare, because this is just a virus, it can get much worse.