The solutions which have been proposed neglect one or the other of the attributes of God: tacitly or otherwise either his infinite power or his infinite love is denied. [p214] In the Old Testament, at least in the older parts of it, the power of God is exalted at the expense of his goodness. For it is simply impossible by any human standard and within any intelligible meaning of the words to regard Yahveh as wholly good. His cruelty is notorious and his capriciousness is that of an Oriental despot. It is admitted, I believe, by all but the most literally-minded of the fundamentalists that there are innumerable incidents in the Old Testament which have to be expurgated if the Bible is to be used as a source book of conduct for impressionable children. Now for the ancient Hebrews who conceived God in their fashion, the problem of evil did not exist because it had not occurred to them that a ruler should be just and good as well as great and powerful. As men came to believe that God must be just, beneficent, and loving, the problem soon presented itself. And in the Book of Job, which is supposed to date from the Fifth or Fourth Century B.C., we have a poignant effort to solve it. Job’s conclusion is that the goodness of Jehovah is among the “things too wonderful for me.” He accepts the judgments of God, and acknowledges their goodness by attributing to God a kind of goodness which is unlike the human conception of goodness. He holds fast to the premise that God is omnipotent—“I know that thou canst do all things”—and the other premise that God is beneficent he redefines. Job’s mind was satisfied, and it is reported that he prospered greatly thereafter. What had really happened was that Job gave up the attempt to prove that God was like Job, that the world was as Job wished it to be, and so piously and with his mind at [p215] rest he made the best of things, and went about his affairs.