Job and Socrates: Strong in Times of Struggle
...e ways of God and therefore has no right to question God. In the end, Job accepts God’s answer is assumed to go on with his life without any real justification for his troubles. On the contrary, Socrates had a very different problem than that of Job. According to The Trial and Death of Socrates by Plato, Socrates was a very poor philosopher who was on trial for corrupting the young people of Athens and for not believing in the gods. During the trial, Socrates explained that his friend Chaerephon went to Delphi to speak with an oracle who said that “no man was wiser than” him (Plato, 24). Socrates soon realized that his lot in life, appointed to him by the gods, was to investigate everyone that had a reputation for being wise and to prove that these men were actually not wise at all. Socrates, using his philosophical knowledge, showed the jurymen that he was innocent. In the end; however, Socrates is found guilty and since he has nothing of value to offer the people of Athens, he is sentenced to death. In both stories, the friends of Job and Socrates play significant roles. Following the traditional beliefs of the Hebrew culture, Job’s friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar tried to convince Job that he must have done something wrong in order to deserve his plight. On the other hand, Socrates’ good friend Crito, along with many others, supported Socrates and were willing to help him escape from prison after his conviction, but Socrates again used his philosophical skills to prove that he must follow though with his sentence. From this, one can see that the friends in both stories were necessary to emphasize the values and beliefs of each of the cultures. Another major difference between the lives Job and Socrates is the punishment that each of them went through. Though both men were pious men and lived their lives in a manner that their gods wanted them to, they both seemed to be punished for no reason at all. God took everything away form from Job as if to test his faith, where as the Athenians took the life of Socrates because his knowledge put them to shame. Both men had to suffer great misfortunes, yet they both remained strong in their struggles and did not lose faith in their beliefs. Throughout the Book of Job, Job never seems to realize until the end why he is so unfortunate, but on the other hand, Socrates is able to understand why he is being punished. In the beginning of the Book of Job, Job says to his friends, “Teach me and I will be silent; make me understand how I have erred.” (Drake, 58). Socrates knew the entire time that he would p...