Book Review: Job for Everyone

I continue to be grateful for, and enjoy reading, the two Testament streams of SPCK's "For Everyone" commentary series. With the formidable N.T.Wright providing the New Testament (and spin offs the 'For Everyone Bible Study Guides', 'Prayer', and 'Wisdom'), well known Old Testament Scholar John Goldingay is providing the other half of the Bible in FE form. Much of what I have said in previous reviews of the volumes for 1 and 2 Chronicles and Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther still applies, but as I have a rather better working knowledge of Job, this review will be slightly different.

In common with previous examples of these, Goldingay's short introduction is very helpful, providing a good amount of relevant information to aid the reader in understanding the text. I was grateful for the author's observation about reading a commentary - even such a 'small' one as this; "my hesitation is that you may read me instead of the Scriptures. Don't fall into that trap". Before we launch into a specific introduction to Job there is a helpful rough timeline of Old Testament History, from Moses to Rome. Context set, we move into Goldingay's helpful discussion of the board themes of Job. Helpful notes about the age, type and form of the book as a piece of writing are helpful for those new to the Biblical text.

Having studied Job at university, and had occasion to draw on what Goldingay identifies as an "experience that doesn't fit the rules by telling the story about a man who was totally committed to God yet whose life fell apart", I was keen to see where Goldingay went with a few specific pieces of interpretation. For me, one of the most interesting things about Job is where God talks back, and questions Job's own ability to understand. Two of the examples are 'behemoth', in Job 40:15-24, and 'leviathan', in Job 41, two great creatures that God uses to point to his own greatness. Goldingay's interpretation is interesting here. For leviathan Goldingay observes, helpfully I believe, that "references to Leviathan help us to get the kind of complex picture that we need of God's sovereignty over evil", whilst his interpretation of behemoth echoes this idea, as he observes that "its significance is as an embodiment or symbol of massive strength". I think these interpretations are helpful here, and reinforce the need to carefully examine the text, as I pointed out in 'A Theology of Unicorns'.

Job is often used, or misused, in Christian circles as providing resources for engaging with human suffering. I personally believe that this is one of the most helpful books in the bible for engaging with the full gamut of human experience, along with the psalms. I think Goldingay is helpful when he observes that "it has incorporated the urgings of Yahweh to accept the limits to our understanding and power and to trust God even when we cannot understand what God is doing". This appeal to faith may irritate some - but I think it is a valid part of any authentically Christian response to suffering.

I enjoyed revisiting Job whilst reading this book. It is a helpful mini-commentary on one of the trickier books in the bible. My previous criticisms of Goldingay's use of anecdote occasionally reappear, but for the most part this is a helpful and useful introduction to one of the most powerful and complex books of the bible.