/ CULTURE

Reflections on the Book of Job

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Check out Dan Sheffler’s deep thoughts on one of the Holy Bible’s deepest* books: Job.

Dr. Sheffler maintains that the book is not about evil but about suffering. In this light, he offers a thorough and (to my mind) persuasive account of how to interpret the internal dynamics of this bewildering book.

If you want more reflections on the book of Job, watch or re-watch Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life. The opening marquee quotes from Job, making the whole film a response to (or summary of?) Job’s questions to God.

*How to compare depths? If all the books of the Bible are limitless, can they be ranked along those lines? I would suggest that the they can be so ranked. The deepest books, as it seems to me, are books such as Genesis, Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, John, Revelation. While all the sacred scrolls reward intense and repeated study, these six or so (among others) seem the most unlikely to ever become transparent and comprehensible, even to experts or saints.