Wrestling With Job Frances Carden2024-07-21T12:30:24-07:00
Rating:
A Basic Look at the Book of Job
Authors: Bill Kynes and Will Kynes
Job is one of the more difficult books of the Bible. In it, an innocent man suffers as the result of a bet between God and Satan. Job’s family is slaughtered. He loses all his wealth and his position in society. He even contracts a hideous disease that leaves him untouchable, isolated, sitting in an ash heap in extreme pain. The question that arises during this onslaught of escalating events is why do good people suffer? Why does God allow it? The answer: there isn’t one, seemingly. Readers are encouraged to rely on their faith in God’s goodness and wisdom, to embrace the seeming paradox between a good God and an evil world, and to acknowledge that God’s sovereignty trumps our ability to comprehend. Ultimately, God doesn’t owe us an answer, even though in the end, He does respond to Job. His answer isn’t the one that we want. In many ways, the answer highlights God’s glory while also leaving readers with more questions, ostensibly working towards making us comfortable with not having answers, at least on this side of eternity.
This has long been a bitter pill to swallow, and I was excited when I began reading Wrestling with Job, which was written by a father-son duo. Bill Kynes (the father) writes the main chapters, which function as mini-sermons, commentaries, and cliff notes rolled into one. Will Kynes (the son) provides a scholarly portion at the end of each chapter that digs a little deeper, and ultimately proves more satisfying to readers, or at least to this reader.
I was honestly disappointed with this book. Each chapter is a recap of what happens in a chapter or set of chapters of Job. Bill Kynes quotes the text and then gives a cliff notes version of what we just read, adding very little. Presumably readers who come to this book will already have read Job . . . we don’t need a plot summary but are looking for something deeper. We’re coming with hard questions, not a basic lack of understand of the flow of the story. The scholarly portions at the end of each chapter, brief as they are, provide more, but it’s still very summary and basic.
John Linnell, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Job is a difficult book, and it’s not entirely fair, I know, to expect a commentary to answer all our questions. The point of the Book of Job, as Kynes points out (again and again and again) is that God is open to questioning and there is a righteous way to seek relationship with God and even demand justice. After a few chapters of having this point made, and remade, in several different ways, however, readers are long since over it. We get it. God’s ok with our negativity, even or accusations. The Psalms themselves prove this, and Biblical reading makes it evident that God wants to engage with us, even at our grittiest, even when we are doubting and angry. There is, then, a righteous way in which to question, in which to even express anguish and feelings of abandonment. Kynes does note, usefully, that this parallels Jesus own story, when on the cross He quotes David, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Kynes also gives us some interesting information, in between the repetition and less than stellar recapping, about ancient ideas of legal proceedings and how Job is drawing on a familiar trope that readers at the time understood. This trope, Kynes argues, gives us insight into the workings of justice and how’s God’s responsiveness indicates His allegiance with justice and Job’s own righteousness.
Wrestling With Job ends stronger than it began, making a statement about what God’s response, which is a non-answer, effectively means for our own faith and how we are to read Job. The ending almost redeems the middle portion of the book, where everything drags. In the end, this book was an ok albeit basic exegesis with some new ideas. It gets tedious at times, and I doubt it is a book I will recommend to others, but it is not without worth, and it did leave me with some interesting thoughts and ideas to consider. Do I better understand the Book of Job after reading this – probably. Do I have an answer to the Book of Job now . . . nope. And, perhaps, that’s as it should be, and maybe my own dispassion over this ambitious book is not entirely fair considering the nature of Job itself. I struggled with this review, dear reader, and hope that you find some worth in my ramblings.
Frances has a Masters in Fiction Writing from Johns Hopkins and works as a technical writer during the day, where she attempts to make software exciting.
A Basic Look at the Book of Job
Authors: Bill Kynes and Will Kynes
Job is one of the more difficult books of the Bible. In it, an innocent man suffers as the result of a bet between God and Satan. Job’s family is slaughtered. He loses all his wealth and his position in society. He even contracts a hideous disease that leaves him untouchable, isolated, sitting in an ash heap in extreme pain. The question that arises during this onslaught of escalating events is why do good people suffer? Why does God allow it? The answer: there isn’t one, seemingly. Readers are encouraged to rely on their faith in God’s goodness and wisdom, to embrace the seeming paradox between a good God and an evil world, and to acknowledge that God’s sovereignty trumps our ability to comprehend. Ultimately, God doesn’t owe us an answer, even though in the end, He does respond to Job. His answer isn’t the one that we want. In many ways, the answer highlights God’s glory while also leaving readers with more questions, ostensibly working towards making us comfortable with not having answers, at least on this side of eternity.
This has long been a bitter pill to swallow, and I was excited when I began reading Wrestling with Job, which was written by a father-son duo. Bill Kynes (the father) writes the main chapters, which function as mini-sermons, commentaries, and cliff notes rolled into one. Will Kynes (the son) provides a scholarly portion at the end of each chapter that digs a little deeper, and ultimately proves more satisfying to readers, or at least to this reader.
I was honestly disappointed with this book. Each chapter is a recap of what happens in a chapter or set of chapters of Job. Bill Kynes quotes the text and then gives a cliff notes version of what we just read, adding very little. Presumably readers who come to this book will already have read Job . . . we don’t need a plot summary but are looking for something deeper. We’re coming with hard questions, not a basic lack of understand of the flow of the story. The scholarly portions at the end of each chapter, brief as they are, provide more, but it’s still very summary and basic.
John Linnell, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Job is a difficult book, and it’s not entirely fair, I know, to expect a commentary to answer all our questions. The point of the Book of Job, as Kynes points out (again and again and again) is that God is open to questioning and there is a righteous way to seek relationship with God and even demand justice. After a few chapters of having this point made, and remade, in several different ways, however, readers are long since over it. We get it. God’s ok with our negativity, even or accusations. The Psalms themselves prove this, and Biblical reading makes it evident that God wants to engage with us, even at our grittiest, even when we are doubting and angry. There is, then, a righteous way in which to question, in which to even express anguish and feelings of abandonment. Kynes does note, usefully, that this parallels Jesus own story, when on the cross He quotes David, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Kynes also gives us some interesting information, in between the repetition and less than stellar recapping, about ancient ideas of legal proceedings and how Job is drawing on a familiar trope that readers at the time understood. This trope, Kynes argues, gives us insight into the workings of justice and how’s God’s responsiveness indicates His allegiance with justice and Job’s own righteousness.
Wrestling With Job ends stronger than it began, making a statement about what God’s response, which is a non-answer, effectively means for our own faith and how we are to read Job. The ending almost redeems the middle portion of the book, where everything drags. In the end, this book was an ok albeit basic exegesis with some new ideas. It gets tedious at times, and I doubt it is a book I will recommend to others, but it is not without worth, and it did leave me with some interesting thoughts and ideas to consider. Do I better understand the Book of Job after reading this – probably. Do I have an answer to the Book of Job now . . . nope. And, perhaps, that’s as it should be, and maybe my own dispassion over this ambitious book is not entirely fair considering the nature of Job itself. I struggled with this review, dear reader, and hope that you find some worth in my ramblings.
– Frances Carden
Follow my reviews on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/xombie_mistress
Follow my reviews on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/FrancesReviews