The book of Job is a beautiful and inspirational book of scripture with some of the clearest teachings on God's power, the nature of life, the beauty and worth of the Earth, and other important doctrines.
One thing I thought of recently, though, is that Job's friends say things that are more or less against Job, and at the end, God says that only Job spake right.
Are there any denominations that have officially marked the words of Job's friends as doctrinal or not doctrinal?
I've been taught (Reformed Presbyterian) that Job's first three friends did some things right (e.g., wait until Job spoke first), but mostly they did things wrong (applied generally good theology incorrectly to the situation at hand). Elihu was not commenting on the previous history and whether Job had sinned before all the catastrophe; Elihu was commenting on what was happening with all the talking that takes up most of the book. For, while Job did not sin initially, he did sin later: that is what Elihu condemned. Elihu also condemned the inability of the first three friends correctly to see what Job's problem was.
