Job

The Book of Job tells of a blameless and wealthy man in the land of Uz. In its opening scene, the sons of God come to present themselves before the Lord, and among them is the satan, "the accuser," who suggests that Job is righteous only because he is protected. God allows him to be tested, and Job loses his property, his children and his health. Most of the book is a poetic debate between Job and his friends about why the innocent suffer, ending with God speaking from a whirlwind.

In that speech God asks where Job was when the earth's foundations were laid, "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" (Job 38:7). The site uses these passages as evidence for a heavenly council of divine beings, and for the satan as a title for an officer of that court rather than a personal name.

Scholars generally treat Job as a literary work rather than a biography, probably written in the Persian period, between about 540 and 330 BCE. Islam honors him as the prophet Ayyub.