JOB AND HIS MODERN INTERPRETERS

McCormick Theological Seminary

B 431, Spring 2016, Thursday, 9:00-11:50 am

Theodore Hiebert, , Office 316, Phone 773-947-6341

“Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, ‘when I looked for light, then came darkness.’ Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.”

--Barak Obama, Tucson, Arizona

“the most controversial, irreverent, and daringly subversive pages of the Bible”

–William Safire

“There is only one question which really matters: why do bad things happen to good people? All other theological conversation is intellectually diverting; . . . Virtually every meaningful conversation I have ever had with people on the subject of God and religion has either started with this question, or gotten around to it before long.”

–Harold Kushner

Aim of the Course

The aim of this course is to understand the book of Job and its lasting significance. In order to accomplish this aim, the course will include two parts: a study of the book of Job in the context of the biblical world, and an examination of responses to Job by contemporary writers.

Textbooks

I. The Bible:

I recommend that you use one of the common contemporary translations, such as the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the New International Version (NIV) or the King James Version (KJV), whichever you and your community are most familiar with, together with the new Common English Bible.

II. ONE commentary on the book of Job selected from the following:

Habel, Norman C. The Book of Job. Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985. [ISBN 0664218318]

Hartley, John E. The Book of Job. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1988. [ISBN 0802823627]

Janzen, J. Gerald. Job. Interpretation. Atlanta: John Knox, 1985. [ISBN 0804231141]

Newsom, Carol A. “The Book of Job.” In The New Interpreter’s Bible, 4:317-637. Nashville: Abingdon, 1996. [ISBN 0687278171]

Pope, Marvin H. Job. The Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 1965. [ISBN 0385008945]

III. Job’s Interpreters:

MacLeish, Archibald. J.B.: A Play in Verse. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958. [ISBN 0395083532]

Safire, William. The First Dissident: The Book of Job in Today’s Politics. New York: Random House, 1992. [ISBN 067974858X]

Gutierrez, Gustavo. On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent. Translated by Matthew J. O’Connell. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1987. [ISBN 0883445522]

McKibben, Bill. The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation. Cowley Publications, 2005. [ISBN-13: 9781561012343]

Kushner, Harold S. When Bad Things Happen to Good People. New York: Avon Books, 1983. [ISBN 0380603926]

Wimberly, Edward P. Claiming God: Reclaiming Dignity—African American Pastoral Care. Nashville: Abingdon, 2003. [ISBN 0687030536]

Course Schedule

Introduction to the Course and to the Book of Job (February 4)

I. The Book of Job: Explanations for Job’s Suffering

  1. The Prologue and Epilogue: The Narrator’s Explanation (February 11)
  2. Job’s Friends’ Speeches: Job’s Friends’ Explanation (February 18)
  3. Job’s Speeches: Job’s Own Explanation (February 25)
  4. The Voice from the Whirlwind: God’s Explanation (March 3)
  5. The Book of Job: The Book’s Explanation (March 10)

Reading Week: No Class (March 17)

Holy Thursday: No Class (March 24)

II. Job’s Interpreters

  1. Archibald MacLeish’s J.B.: Job in America (March 31)
  2. William Safire’s First Dissident: Job and Politics (March 31)
  3. Gustavo Gutierrez’s Innocent Sufferers: Job and Liberation Theology (April 7)
  4. Bill McKibben’s Whirlwind: Job and Environmental Ethics (April 14)
  5. Kushner’s Personal Tragedy: Job, Doubt, and Faith (April 21)

F. Wimberly’s Reclaiming Dignity: Job and Pastoral Care (April 28)

Preparation for Class

The course will be conducted as a seminar, with significant time for discussion and interaction among class members. The first half of each class session will be a discussion of the results of the reading and research students have completed the previous week. The second half of each class will include a summary of this discussion and an introduction to the topic of the following class. The value of the course to individuals and to the class as a whole will depend heavily on careful preparation for each class session and on active participation in the class sessions themselves. Class attendance and preparation for class are therefore both requirements for the course.

I. The Book of Job: Explanations for Job’s Suffering

For each of the four class sessions of the book of Job, follow these steps in preparation for our analysis and discussions in class:

1. Read and study the relevant section of the book of Job.

2. Decide what you believe to be the explanation for Job’s suffering provided by this section of the book of Job.

3. Select a text of a verse or two that you think clearly articulates the explanation for Job’s suffering within this section of the book of Job.

4. Identify a question that this section of the book raises for you: either a question about its interpretation and meaning, or a question about its theology.

5. Read your commentator’s analysis of the relevant section of the book of Job.

6. Determine what your commentator believes to be the explanation for Job’s suffering provided by this section of the book of Job. Select a sentence or two from your commentator that expresses his or her opinion clearly.

7. Compare your opinion with your commentator’s opinion about the explanation for Job’s suffering in this part of the book of Job. Did your commentator agree with you, disagree with your, or teach you anything new? Read your commentator not so much to learn every detail but to discover his/her perspective on this question. You will want to survey the commentator’s introduction to the book and those parts of the commentary dealing with the relevant section of Job.

8. Describe how the explanation for Job’s suffering in this section of the book is similar to or different from the explanation in other sections of the book.

9. Identify any other places in the Bible—Old and New Testaments—where this explanation for suffering is expressed.

10. Explain how this explanation for suffering would be received in your own church.

11. Say whether this is an adequate explanation for your own Job-like experience? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this explanation for suffering and evil in light of your own experience?

12. Explain whether you think this explanation for suffering would be effective or not in a pastoral care situation when dealing with people in crisis.

II. Job’s Interpreters

Preparation for the six class sessions on Job’s interpreters will be completing the writing assignments responding to these interpreters. Be prepared to discuss your responses in your writing assignment to the following topics:

  1. The interpreter’s thesis about Job and the problem of suffering.
  2. The way in which the interpreter builds on the biblical book of Job and takes it in new directions.
  3. New insights you gained into Job and/or the problem of suffering.
  4. Whether this interpreter helped you think about your own experience in new ways.

Writing Assignments

Your analysis of the theological issues which Job and his modern interpreters raise will be developed in the following essays.

I. Personal Experience

Describe an experience of loss or suffering that has happened to you, or to someone you know, an experience that, like Job’s, raised questions about God. Choose an experience that caused you to feel God’s absence or injustice, or that led you to question God’s existence or fairness. Describe what happened, how you reacted, and how you explained it or came to terms with it. Write what you feel comfortable sharing with the class. Your essay should be 2 pages and will be due February 8.

II. The Book of Job

The goal of this writing assignment is to give you the opportunity to compare and contrast the different explanations for suffering in the book of Job, weigh them in relation to one another, consider whether any one of them is privileged in the book of Job, and decide which you personally are most drawn to as helpful responses to suffering.

In order to do this, write a critical analysis of the book of Job in response to the question, “What did Job learn?” Your essay should describe and defend your own answer to the question, “What did Job learn?” as you think the author of Job intended it to be answered. Since the book of Job has various viewpoints within it, your task is to decide which viewpoint you think emerges as the most persuasive viewpoint in the book as a whole. Different opinions are possible about who put the book together in its final form and which answer this final author/editor intended to communicate most forcefully to Job’s readers. There may be no single correct answer to the question of the final intent of the book, so your aim is to describe the perspective you think is most persuasive and explain how you think it emerges, in relation to the other answers, as the single most important answer to the question “What did Job learn?” within the book as a whole.

Your analysis should include both general and specific approaches. On the general level, it should take into consideration the entire book and the various perspectives in it, explaining which explanation dominates the book. Here you will draw on all of your work on the book in the first class sessions. On the specific level, your essay should focus on a particular text which you believe to be crucial for answering the question, “What did Job learn?”

In defense of your answer, keep two things in mind. First, support your answer by referring to concrete details in the text of the book of Job. Second, while supporting your own answer, you should recognize the viewpoint of your commentator and show how it supports your position or differs from it.

Conclude your essay with a page explaining how the book’s answer to the question “What did Job learn?” influences the way you now think about your personal experience of loss or suffering described in your first paper. Do you find that “What Job learned” in the book provides a helpful response to your own experience of suffering? Why or why not? Do any of the other responses to suffering in the book of Job seem more helpful to you?

Your essay should be 8 double-spaced pages and will be due on March 10.

III. Responses to Job’s Interpreters

Compose responses to each of the six interpreters of Job. Three of these responses should be three pages in length and will be graded. Three of these responses should be one page in length and will be given credit (graded on a pass/fail basis, though the quality of the work will be noted). You may decide which three interpreters to respond to with extended essays.

In each response, whether long or short, you should:

1. Describe the writer’s thesis and illustrate it with a key quotation or two. The aim here is to describe the way in which the author of the book interprets Job and deals with the problem of suffering.

2. Describe the ways in which this author’s response to the problem of suffering is similar to or different from the response to suffering in the biblical book of Job. The aim here is to identify the way in which an interpreter of Job builds on the biblical book and takes it in new directions.

3. Identify new insights into the biblical book of Job and/or the problem of suffering which occurred to you as a result of reading this book.

4. Explain whether you think this book helped you to see your own experience, described in your first paper, in any new way.

These essays are due on the day the interpretation is discussed in class.