I read your comment on dual endings for the Book of Job with great interest. I’ve written a one-man original drama based on Job, in which I perform the life and thoughts of Job.
In the course of writing and re-writing my text, the thought occured to me that the ending, the Biblical ending, in which Job caves in, repents, and says he’s sorry, is not the Job I came to know in reading his words and feeling his experiences. On a flight between Missouri and Arizona, I wrote a new ending. Here is an excerpt of that ending from my play “The Impatience of Job, an original adaptation of the Book of Job, by Michael Shelton”:
Lord, I know that you are all powerful, that you can do everything, anything you want. You ask how I dare question your wisdom when I am so so very ignorant. You told me listen while you spoke and to try to answer your questions. I will answer one. “Whom do you owe that you should repay since everything under Heaven is yours.”
As a parent, I owed my children all of the protection and care and instruction within my power to give. Should any less be expected from you, the parent of us all?
As a man and as a merchant, I dealt fairly, honestly, and justly for the goods bought and sold in my name, keeping my word at all cost. Aren’t you responsible for those scriptures given in your name, and for the holy men speaking in your name, to assure they are telling the truth about you and not dispensing lies?
When we call about you for comfort…
When we need protection from evil and vindication for the innocent…
When we wait for wrongs to be righted, for justice to be provided, for mercy to be flowing like a mighty river…
We are waiting for you to keep your word, to be better as the creator than we are as the created.
What do you owe? To be true to what you are. To what you call upon us to believe in. Whom do you owe? On behalf of all the peoples of all the world, on behalf of my children who died too soon, or seen evil persons live too long, for those who have suffered at the hands of man or been deceived in the name of God, I will answer your question! Whom do you owe that you should repay? From the greatest, to the smallest, you owe us. You owe me.
With that I bowed my head and closed my eyes, suspended in the nothingness of eternity, awaiting the most painful death ever conceived since the dawn of time. No one could speak that way to God and live.
This is the excerpt from my play which differs sharply from the Biblical version. When asked where did words and imagery come from, I tell the truth. I thought through what it would have been like to deal with the God of the Whirlwind and these words came to mind.