system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV the story of Job teaches no valuable lessons, other than God is a jerk.

My view is that the Book of Job doesn't have much to teach its religious audience. By this I mean that the book doesn't contain any notable insights nor does it resolve any interesting theological questions, albeit I personally love it as a piece of absurdist fiction. Worse than that, it seems to be undermining the very religion of whose holy text it belongs to.

The book revolves a lot about theodicy; the problem of evil in the world. How can bad things happen to good people, and vice-versa? The closest thing the book gives to an answer, is that we puny mortals can't grasp it. The Israelites are taught time and again, that the reason they're getting slaughtered by Fillistines or robbed and exiled is because they have turned away from God and sinned. They are led to believe, convinced by prophets send by God, that their actions have consequences corresponding to their sins. Obviously when Job suddenly gets hit by outrageous misfortune, his friends believe him to have committed some secret sin to cause it. We know however, that no such cause exists, and that God just wanted to prove a point to a buddy. God even scolds the friends for assuming that Jobs misfortunes were caused by sin, like they have been repeatedly taught by him. All through the Bible people are *explicitly* being punished or provided for according to their sins. By punishing Job he is undermining the coherency of his followers, by denying them the belief that has kept them together through suffering and exile; that their suffering isn't pointless, and that it's all just and right. Even if Job gets richer in the end, how about his original sons and daughters who died horrible deaths for no reason? Seems to me that in the end, God just gave Job all that wealth to get him to shut up.

In the book Satan raises the question of the possibility of selfless righteousness. God wants to prove that Job is righteous, not because he's rich, but just because he is. However, the book gives no reason as to why one should be righteous for no other reason than being righteous (like Platons Republic for example). Some people are righteous whilst reaping no benefit whatsoever. The problem of unpunished evil goes completely unanswered. Also, whether Job even remains faithful is, in my opinion, up to debate. Is it faith to maintain that God is injust and unfair? He repents at the end, but I would say Satan won the bet here.

Furthermore, Job is obviously right in saying that he is punished through no fault of his own, and therefore unfairly. Even at the end God provides him with absolutely no explanation other than a Beauty-and-the-Beast-Gastonesque 'Might is Right' speech about all the shit he can do. He never explains how his action was fair, apparently because 'God Works in Mysterious Ways'^TM and no human could ever understand. Except we can, it's right there, black-on-white, in the beginning: God punished Job to prove a point to Satan, and if people can't grasp the reasons for their suffering, they are probably either nonexisting or preposterous (as they are in the case of Job). From a religious perspective, this doesn't seem like a valuable lesson at all. Basically the take-away seems to be that sometimes, God is just a bully.

Phew, sorry about the rant, really needed to get this off my chest. Anyways, I know that there are much more knowledgeable people than me in this sub, so I hope you can show me where I've completely missed the point (which is probably the case) and tell me why I'm wrong!

EDIT: Thanks for all the answers, really unexpected! However true though, the notion that sometimes bad things happen to good people, touted by lots of comments here, won't change my view. That's a valuable lesson for people now, but it doesn't really fit into the other beliefs espoused by the bible. God leads his people to believe, that they will be punished and rewarded according to their actions. God sent the Fillistines, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians after the Israelites, because they turned away from Him. The Book of Job rightfully tears down the Just World fallacy, unfortunately that just doesn't seem to be in keeping with the rest of the Bible, ie not a valuable lesson for the intended audience.
gpt
You explained the "valuable lesson" perfectly, apparently without even realizing it.

If everyone is taught the just world hypothesis, where the good are immediately rewarded and the evil are punished, then there is no reason for charity because all misfortune is deserved.

So you need to give people a bit of doubt.  Not all victims are to be blamed.  Some are just pawns is a bigger game.  So, with one story, you can promote compassion without hypocrisy.