Introduction to Job and Book of job

The Nineteenth Century romantic writer Victor Hugo, in his 1864 tribute to William Shakespeare, listed fourteen works or authors who were, in his judgment, the nonpareils of Western literature. From the ancient Greeks he gave us Homer and Aeschylus; from the Bible he listed Job, Isaiah, Ezekiel, John and Paul; from ancient Rome he cited Lucretius and Juvenal. Finally, from more "contemporary" authors, he listed Dante, Cervantes, Racine, Rabelais and Shakespeare.

Hugo also narrowed down that list by giving us those he considered to be the six greatest Western authors, in no order of precedence: (1) Homer; (2) Aeschylus; (3) Isaiah; (4) Job; (5) Dante; and (6) Shakespeare. You can find references on the Web that appear to quote Hugo saying something to the effect that if he only had one book to choose from, he would choose the Book of Job, but I could not find that quotation anywhere in his writing. Nevertheless, his love for Job is quite evident.

The purpose of these pages is to explore the depths of the Book of Job with you. The Book of Job is a most profound exploration of human loss and hope. Rather than focusing on Hugo's interest in Job, which was to show the "grandeur" of Job in the midst of great suffering, my interest is to discover the way that Job's experience of loss and hope mirrors our own struggles to understand the pains of life and to construct hope in the midst of those pains.

More specifically, the chief purpose of the dozens of attached pages on Job is to do two things: (1) to provide an overview of the flow of the Book of Job through "Basic Essays," and (2) to give a number of "Advanced" mini-essays which either explore themes cutting across several chapters or explore very small passages in greater detail. The latter are intended to keep the power of the poetic language and Job's ideas fully before our eyes. I do not treat the standard "commentary issues," such as the debate over date or authorship of the book. You may consult the commentaries, such as David Clines two-volume work simply titled Job (Word Biblical Commentary, 1989 and 2004) for that. An excellent recent studying using contemporary literary theory to read Job is Carol Newsom's The Book of Job (Oxford, 2003).

My goal behind the concept of the mini-essay is that you can read each essay in five minutes, take the major thought with you and reflect on it during the day. Please click one of the links to begin our joint journey in understanding this unparalleled treatment of loss and hope.

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