JOB AND HIS MODERN INTERPRETERS
Theodore Hiebert, thiebert@mccormick.edu
McCormick Theological Seminary, Winter 2003

"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

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. A commentary on the book of Job selected from the following:
Habel, Norman C. The Book of Job. Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985.
Janzen, J. Gerald. Job. Interpretation. Atlanta: John Knox, 1985.
Newsom, Carol A. "The Book of Job." In The New Interpreter’s Bible, 4:317-637. Nashville: Abingdon, 1996.
Pope, Marvin H. Job. The Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 1965.

II. Contemporary Responses to Job:
MacLeish, Archibald. J.B.: A Play in Verse. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958.
Safire, William. The First Dissident: The Book of Job in Today’s Politics. New York: Random House, 1992.
Gutierrez, Gustavo. On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent. Translated by Matthew J. O’Connell. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1987.
McKibben, Bill. The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994.
Kushner, Harold S. When Bad Things Happen to Good People. New York: Avon Books, 1983.