Human Consciousness Of God In The Book Of Job

Human Consciousness of God is the first commentary on the book of Job to trace Job's relationship with God in a work of universal sprituality. The most important - and unique - element in Jeffrey Boss' approach is his examination of Job from a psychological perspective. However the work also takes into account the history of interpretation of the book, giving due attention to questions surrounding the text's coherence, authorship and provenance. It is, at the same time, a valuable new commentary on the Hebrew Masoretic Text of Job. The book opens with an introduction enabling those unfamiliar with the book of Job, or with recent scholarship to appreciate it and engage with it. Then follows the full commentary which draws attention to the development of Job's character and his relationship with God. Finally the author presents his conclusions following the work together with a detailed bibliography.

This study offers a reading that avoids both literalism and sociological reductionism through a study of the Bible's intricate patterns of imagery. It will appeal to thoughtful people dissatisfied with the religious status quo and looking for a new intellectual starting point.

As a Holocaust survivor, neurologist and psychiatrist Dr Viktor E. Frankl had a personal stake in the effectiveness of his approach to psychology: he lived the suffering about which he wrote. With this new reading of the Book of Job, Lewis further develops Frankl’s concept of Logotherapy as a literary hermeneutic, presenting readers with the opportunity to discover unique meanings and clarify their attitudes toward pain, guilt, and death. Key issues emerge from the discussion of three different movements, which address Frankl’s concept of the feeling of meaninglessness and his rejection of reductionism and nihilism, the dual nature of meaning, and his ideas of ultimate meaning and self-transcendence. Discovering meaning through participation with the text enables us to see that Job’s final response can become a site for transcending suffering.

Humanity’s biggest problem may be its least recognized: the tendency to imagine God as an extraordinarily good version of ourselves. If we fail to properly understand our Maker’s nature, we have the potential to do many things wrong. When we picture God as merely a really good human, we become less concerned about our sinful habits and more likely to doubt or malign him in the face of seemingly undeserved suffering. And when we fashion God in our image instead of the other way around, our theology in general and the counsel we extend to those who suffer becomes weak. We naturally have a diluted view of God’s deity. The Book of Job not only traces a great man’s struggle to overcome this problem in his own life, but also beckons us to join in the fray to defeat this faulty and extremely dangerous vestige of fallen human consciousness.

The life and times of this iconic and enduring biblical book The book of Job raises stark questions about the meaning of innocent suffering and the relationship of the human to the divine, yet it is also one of the Bible's most obscure and paradoxical books. Mark Larrimore provides a panoramic history of this remarkable book, traversing centuries and traditions to examine how Job's trials and his challenge to God have been used and understood in diverse contexts, from commentary and liturgy to philosophy and art. Larrimore traces Job's reception by figures such as Gregory the Great, William Blake, and Elie Wiesel, and reveals how Job has come to be viewed as the Bible's answer to the problem of evil and the perennial question of why a God who supposedly loves justice permits bad things to happen to good people.

Just as there was no man on earth like Job, there is no book on earth like the book of Job. In this new commentary, biblical scholar Michael Brown brings Job to life for the twenty-first-century reader, exploring the raw spirituality of Job, his extraordinary faith, his friends’ theological errors, the mysteries of God’s speeches, and the unique answers to the problem of suffering offered in the book of Job. Undergirded by solid Hebrew scholarship but written with clarity for all serious students of Scripture, the commentary provides an important introduction to the study of Job, a new translation, a series of theological reflections, and additional exegetical essays providing in-depth discussion of key passages. Additional topics covered in the theological reflections include: • Challenging God as an Act of Faith • How Would Job Comfort a Sufferer? • Who Was the Satan? • Job and Jesus • Job and the New Atheists

As a Holocaust survivor, neurologist and psychiatrist Dr Viktor E. Frankl had a personal stake in the effectiveness of his approach to psychology: he lived the suffering about which he wrote. With this new reading of the Book of Job, Lewis further develops Frankl's concept of Logotherapy as a literary hermeneutic, presenting readers with the opportunity to discover unique meanings and clarify their attitudes toward pain, guilt, and death. Key issues emerge from the discussion of three different movements, which address Frankl's concept of the feeling of meaninglessness and his rejection of reductionism and nihilism, the dual nature of meaning, and his ideas of ultimate meaning and self-transcendence. Discovering meaning through participation with the text enables us to see that Job's final response can become a site for transcending suffering.