When I was eight I asked my father about the devil. I had three friends over for a sleepover and one said she had seen the devil in the loft where we were planning to sleep.
Our old house had an overhead platform all down its length. Half was a loft, open to the rooms below, and half was closed up as an attic for storage. The loft half was made of heavy black wood. The attic half went above my room.
The devil peeked out of the attic door, Cindy told us.
We had a big argument about it. Cindy couldn’t explain what the devil looked like. She ran away too fast.
Can we sleep downstairs in your office, I asked my father.
Sure, he said.
But no one wanted to stay. They wanted my dad to drive them home. The devil could do anything, they said. What if he followed us downstairs?
Can you tell them something, I asked him. They say the devil is in the Bible. I told them you know all about the Bible.
He told us the guy was called the Accuser and he was like an undercover detective who works for God. People got him wrong all the time. They called him the devil, and thought he was against God.
CINDY: He’s a detective working for God?
MY FATHER: You know those expensive Gucci purses?
We didn’t.
MY FATHER: Ask your mothers. People make cheap imitations that look like Gucci, and have the Gucci name and design on them. Instead of five hundred dollars or something, the imitations sell for fifty.
Mary knew. Her father worked for ICE and he caught people trying bring in boatloads of fake purses.
MY FATHER: Right, yes. The Accuser or the Tempter has that same kind of job, working for God. Except he catches people who put God’s name on things.
CINDY: People call him the devil?
MY FATHER: Well, he has to be sneaky to catch the bad guys. He goes undercover.
MARY: Yes, where you wear a disguise so you can mix with those guys and find out all about them.
MY FATHER: So at first you look like one of the bad guys, right?
That got everyone calm enough to stay and sleep the night.
Later I wanted to hear more.
He said The Accuser shows up in two places he knew about.
The first was The Book of Job.
The Book of Job was like our favorite movie, My Cousin Vinny. You know the two boys didn’t murder the guy, so it’s the court on trial, to see if the court can get this right. Can the court stop the murders or will it cause two more? Will the court spread what it’s trying to stop?
You know Job did nothing wrong. Why is God punishing him, Job and his friends want to know.
But this was all The Accuser’s idea. The Accuser went to God with the idea for this sting, and God was like the judge who signs the search warrant.
Job accuses God of injustice. Job obeyed God in every way, all his life, and now God is punishing him.
MY FATHER: Is he right?
ME: Job’s troubles are not a punishment?
MY FATHER: Exactly! God doesn’t reward us with wealth and good fortune either.
ME: OK, but where’s the fake Gucci bags, with God’s name on them?
MY FATHER: Our laws. Don’t put my name on your laws, God says. You’re responsible. They don’t come from me.
He explained with another of our favorite movies.
MY FATHER: Remember Jurassic Park? How well did those fences work?
ME: For beans.
MY FATHER: The T Rex uses them like a fishing net, fishing for humans.
We laughed.
MY FATHER: Job’s friends aren’t friends. They came to comfort themselves, not Job. Job’s troubles terrify them. What if that could happen to anyone?
ME: They want to blame him.
MY FATHER: Right. They’re more like jurors. Like a grand jury. They want him to confess to some sin, some way he disobeyed God. Then they have a way to avoid his troubles.
ME: If they avoid his sin.
MY FATHER: Right. Will that work?
ME: No. Because his troubles aren’t from God. They aren’t punishment.
MY FATHER: God laughs at them. I’m not your landlord, he says, don’t wave your lease at me. You’re my adult children. I don’t make your rules for you.
ME: They expect him to protect them?
MY FATHER: They wish. The way the fences at Jurassic Park are supposed to protect against the T Rex. They call their T Rex Leviathan. They want to catch Leviathan and put him on show. Good luck with that, God laughs. Those aren’t my fences, he says. Your laws are your problem, not mine. By the end Job understands. His friends never do. The ZEBs. Zophar, Eliphaz, Bildad.
ME: The ZEBs! Cool!
I stopped and thought.
ME: Leviathan is like a T Rex?
MY FATHER: I think of Leviathan as ICHTA. The scariest monster of all.
ME: ICHTA?
MY FATHER: It Could Happen to Anyone.
We laughed.
ME: That goat they lower over the fence for the T Rex?
MY FATHER: Yeah?
ME: That’s Job. That’s the ZEB’s handing him over so the T Rex will leave them in peace.
MY FATHER (laughing): Good, yeah.
ME: Or that girl the natives tie up for King Kong.
He nodded and laughed.
ME: At least they didn’t tell her she deserved it.
ME: Where’s the other place? With the devil?
MY FATHER: The Accuser?
ME: OK, yeah.
MY FATHER: Just before Yeshua hits the road to teach people. The Accuser interviews him, to see if he has learned what Job learned.
ME: The same guy?
MY FATHER: I think so. The Tempter. Yeshua went off by himself for a while, to think. Away from everyone.
ME: The Tempter works for God?
MY FATHER: He’s interviewing Yeshua for God’s work. That’s my guess. The Tempter offers him three deals. Remember Jack and the Beanstalk?
ME: Jack trades his mother’s cow for some magic beans?
MY FATHER: Right. The Tempter offers Yeshua laws in place of his teachings.
ME: Laws are the magic beans?
MY FATHER: He tells Yeshua laws are faster. Teaching takes too long.
ME: You can’t always teach people.
MY FATHER: Right. Yeshua says No Deal. Kindly step aside please. Why?
ME: You have to try teaching people or you’re treating them like cattle. Like sheep or cows or oxen, where you can steer them with a stick or a rope or a ring in the nose.
MY FATHER: Doesn’t that work better?
ME: Sure, once you give up on people being people.
HIM: Being adult sons and daughters of the creator, his heirs and apprentices, taking up his work.
ME: Instead you just get more cattle.