Term Paper on "Book of Job"

Term Paper 3 pages (1097 words) Sources: 1 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Life is not fair. How often have we been told this, after we have worked hard, yet not been rewarded with what we desire? It is not fair that some children get cars on their 16th birthday, while other children in the world do not have enough to eat. Yet, too often, we expect religion to provide easy answers to difficult questions about the nature of justice in the world. We as humans try to create fair systems where justice is blind to govern our own societies. We expect God to reward the good, and punish the evil. But the world that God created, and that human beings live in, does not work that way, despite our best efforts, for reasons that are not immediately obvious, even to devout believers.

The lesson of "The Book of Job" is not simply that suffering is everywhere and can be inflicted upon anyone, but that quite often in the moral economy of the world, the good are punished and evil is not punished in kind. Still, suffering must be endured because there is nothing else a sufferer can do. This lesson is seen, not simply in the example of Job, a good man deprived of his children, wealth, and health, but in the contemporary examples of Hurricane Katrina, children suffering from cancer, or people who lose their homes in an unexpected whirlwind of a tornado. People take the good with the bad, and sometimes a person wins the lottery, even though they are ordinary, and sometimes one home is destroyed in a natural disaster and another home is not. This is the nature of life, and there is no bargaining the universe, just as there is no bargaining with God. Perhaps the most striking images of "The Book of Job" are those in which God is compared to the impersonal forces of nature, like fires or the ocea
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n, which cannot be reasoned with, merely endured. "Speak up: Where is the road to light? Where does darkness live...you have been there and are older than all creation" (70). Only God knows these answers, because God is older than creation.

Yes, Job gets back what he has lost. But it would be mistaken to read this as a reward for his fortitude in the face of adversity. Rather, it is evidence of the arbitrary nature of God's justice. God decides to test Job, because Job has many emotional and financial riches, even though Job is not the richest, or the happiest man in the world. The test happens by chance, and the return happens by chance. It might seem as though Job has a good reason to curse God, but although Job wails and regrets his fate he does not turn against the Lord, although at first he cannot understand why his suffering has occurred.

Job attempts to look back, and wonder if blasphemous thoughts are the reason, if not actions. But he always knows it is useless to curse God, because God is so powerful, as God reminds Job and his friends at the end of the tale, and also, as the translator Stephen Mitchell suggests in his preface, perhaps because Job is so shell-shocked by what has occurred, he does not have the energy to curse God. Instead, Job… READ MORE

Quoted Instructions for "Book of Job" Assignment:

This courss is religion course and the paper due date is tomorrow by midnight. This paper is Reflection paper not a book report so please consider it and the title of book is "The Book of Job". trans. Stephen Mitchell, North Point Press. He mentiones that In the paper, be alert for moments that strike you in some fashion, and make marginal notes of these moments. Why do ring a bell or jump out at you(for good or ill)? What triggers your imagination-- heart and mind? and before your first paragraph begins, set out in bold the sentences from the text that contain the images, descriptions, phrases, actions, or situations that grab you. That's the focus.The paper then becomes an elaboration, exploration, and clarification of that focus. You'll find yourself drwing on your owm momories and experience in this elaboration, exploration, and clarification. And you will find yourself remembering other passages or moments in the text work in tadmen with whatever you put in focus in your opening sentences. Don't forget, if noting grabs you, you'll have nothing to say. You can, of course, use the first person. And please, avoid anything that reads like a book report. The paper shows you-your response. I should learn something about how your mind and imagination work as I read it. Let your voice and personality come out. The human condition, after all, is your condition.

How to Reference "Book of Job" Term Paper in a Bibliography

Book of Job.” A1-TermPaper.com, 2007, https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/life-fair/2514387. Accessed 5 Oct 2024.

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[1] ”Book of Job”, A1-TermPaper.com, 2007. [Online]. Available: https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/life-fair/2514387. [Accessed: 5-Oct-2024].
1. Book of Job [Internet]. A1-TermPaper.com. 2007 [cited 5 October 2024]. Available from: https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/life-fair/2514387
1. Book of Job. A1-TermPaper.com. https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/life-fair/2514387. Published 2007. Accessed October 5, 2024.

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