Job
Aug 11, 2010 Old Testament Book Summaries
Over a year ago, I was blogging my way through the Old Testament and I stopped. I figure I will periodically pick it up again as we encounter various books in the Text Project. Since we are reading through Job right now, I figured I’d start here.
Job
Author
Nobody, this side of heaven, can identify the author of this book.
Date
Experts are all over on this one, just like with the Authorship. Some place Job way back to 2000BC, some in the 6th century BC, and some in the 3rd century BC. The only thing for certain is that you can’t be dogmatic on your view.
Theme
You think you know suffering? You know nothing of suffering. Job was just about as close to perfect as a man can get. He was a moral, upstanding, godly individual and his life fell apart. In the matter of minutes, he loses a huge fortune and a large loving family.
His response is to ask God “why?” This is a good thing. Then he eventually turns to demanding an answer from God. This is not a good thing. God sets him straight.
There’s also a great set of dialogue between Job and his wife, as well as Job and his friends. Pretty much everyone blames Job or God, but he won’t go there.
What this book teaches me about Jesus
Like Jesus himself said, “God sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous alike.” Suffering happens to all of us, no matter of “good” we think we are. But Jesus came and suffered the most, even though he deserved it the least.
Random Thoughts
Job is a masterpiece of literature. The author is a literary genius, he is well versed in science and human nature as well. If you can pull it off, sit down and read it straight through in one sitting.
Tags: bible, job, old testament, suffering
