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The Book of "Job": A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books) Hardcover – September 29, 2013

by Mark Larrimore (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 21 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Series: Lives of Great Religious Books
  • Hardcover: 296 pages
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press (September 29, 2013)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0691147590
  • ISBN-13: 978-0691147598
  • Product Dimensions: 1 x 4.8 x 7.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #561,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsA Common Lesson for Those Who Listen
By John Bird on October 24, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition
"Keeping company with Job, as friend or interpreter, is a worthy activity," says Mark Larrimore. In his Book of Job: a Biography, Larrimore traces the history of thought surrounding Job from ancient to modern times. Larrimore's intention is to show why and how we should learn "to listen to every part of the text, and perhaps also to every serious past attempt to enter the argument" of this "unfinalizable" book.

Why does Larrimore call Job "unfinalizable?" Because, as even scholars admit, it is difficult, having "more puzzles than any other book of the Bible."

Larrimore shows that the dialogue and narrative recorded in Job, if taken out of context, can be used to support any theology or idea: "Job legitimated critics of religion as well as its defenders." But, when taken as a whole, interpreters have more difficulty. "The book of Job would never allow itself to be fit into a larger interpretive claim for long; eventually some part of it always pushed against the proffered reading."

That we should approach the text with humility is what I take from this book. "We would do well to assume that all interpreters of Job come to the story as Job's friends do. We are not Job, and we do not know the mind of God or what goes on in his court." And we should approach the application of the text with equal humility. John Calvin believed that the friends of Job were right in what they said about God, but their "mechanical application of general biblical truth to the case of Job is misguided." Even though their doctrine was true, their use of it was evil in that they drove their friend closer to despair. We should learn from them how not to help our friends.

Larrimore is thorough in his research and, at least to the lay reader, in his arguments and examples.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsFull of stimulating insights
By John L Murphy TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on December 14, 2013
Format: Hardcover
This biblical story's always troubled me, so Mark Larrimore's energetic and pithy survey of its "multiplicity of voices" and the puzzles this oddly edited text generates is a welcome introduction. The complex history of how interpreters (starting with the book's own Elihu and Job's friends who try to counsel him) have reacted to the legend, in Larrimore's understanding, resists "closure" no less than the themes it raises, of "providence and evil, the meaning of innocent suffering, the nature of God and humanity's place in creation." Rabbinical, early Christian, medieval, Reformation, Enlightenment, Romantic, fundamentalist, New Critical, and post-Holocaust readings of the text all gain attention, as well as how the book is "performed" in liturgy.

Chapter 1 looks at ancient interpretations--oral and legendary--and Larrimore wonders if Job himself is Jewish or a Gentile, for instance, another complication for a text with such obscure characters. Chapter 2 looks at disputations, the medieval debates where philosophers (especially Maimonides but also Aquinas and Calvin) followed the example of Job and his friends as they disputed among themselves. Chapter 3 takes on the medieval burials of the dead and how the book of Job "enacted" itself beyond the text itself in liturgy and in a French mystery play, "La Pacience de Job."

Theodicy may not be as popular as it once was, but for centuries, Job's predicament allowed a confrontation with belief as "the model of an anguished but fervent modern religiosity." As the professor's previous book dealt with the problem of evil, Chapter 4 fits Larrimore's expertise.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsA very good explanation of various interpretations of the book Job
By Israel Drazin TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on January 6, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
Mark Larrimore offers readers a clear presentation of the views of many well-respected interpreters of the difficult to understand biblical book Job. Job, as he shows, raises many problems. Most interpreters understand that it addresses “why God causes good people to suffer?” It quotes the replies of several of Job’s friends; it depicts God saying that the friends are wrong, but most commentators say God does not explain why people suffer. Larrimore clarifies the insights of thinkers who addressed this book, such as Thomas Aquinas, Leo Baeck, William Blake, Boethius, John Calvin, Chaucer, Hermann Cohen, Robert Frost, Pope Gregory, Thomas Hobbes, C. J. Jung, Franz Kafka, Immanuel Kant, Soren Kierkegaard, C. S. Lewis, Martin Luther, Milton, Rudolf Otto, Saadiah Gaon, Baruch Spinoza, Voltaire, Elie Wiesel, Julius Wellhausen, the Targums, the Talmuds, Midrashim, and Maimonides. He discusses ancient perceptions of evil contained in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and others. He explains the book and analyses many seeming inconsistencies in it, such as its prologue, which pictures a deity who allows a divine adversary to inflict innocent Job with enormous pain simply to prove to the adversary that he knows Job’s nature better than him, while the rest of the book portrays God differently.

Larrimore shows how people read Job in different ways. Some, for example, felt the book was true history; others, like Maimonides (1138-1204), Judaism’s greatest thinker, called it a parable. Some thought Job was a Jew, others denied this. Some felt the book states explicitly what it wants people to understand and it should be interpreted literally; others, like Maimonides, insisted that Job contains deeper meaning.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Very good book

Published 2 months ago by tom mey
5.0 out of 5 starsA joy. Thank you

Very well done. Comprehensive for a short book. Learned but accessible. Scrupulously fair and respectful to all viewpoints and beliefs.also very well written. A joy. Thank you.

Published 2 months ago by Fred
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Happy with the purchase.

Published 4 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsCHECK OUT LARRIMORE ON JOB

An exceptionally thorough and readable analysis of the Book of Job. Deserves to become a classic.

Published 14 months ago by James F., Johnson
4.0 out of 5 starsA Captivating Tour

A captivating tour along the startling path of the Bible's most profound reflections on faith, suffering, and friendship. Read more

Published 16 months ago by JTE
5.0 out of 5 starsThe Hermeneutics of Reading Job

The Book of Job is the most contentious of the books contained in the Hebrew Bible. Larrimore presents a brief, well-written accounting of how the Book of Job has been variously... Read more

Published 18 months ago by Plato
4.0 out of 5 starsOne of the highlights of Princeton's series

The PUP series on the Lives of Great Religious Books continues to produce outstanding work. This is a concise history of Job and its interpretation. Read more

Published 20 months ago by Blair Hodges
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

good insights...well written.

Published 21 months ago by Dr. M. E. Adams
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

hard to understand

Published 23 months ago by samuel black
5.0 out of 5 starsJob Lives

No one knows who wrote the Book of Job, whether it was the work of one or several authors, or even where it was written. Read more

Published on August 1, 2014 by Vince Leo

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