Job: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching

Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching

by J. Gerald Janzen

In this volume, J. Gerald Janzen examines the text of the book of Job as a literary text within the context of the history of the religion of Israel and within the broader context of the universal human condition. He approaches the basic character of the book from a literary perspective which enables him to identify human existence as exemplified in Job and to expound on the mystery of good and evil, which gives human existence its experiential texture and which together drive humans to ask the same kind of questions asked by Job. This is the first full-length commentary to present Job systematically and literarily.

Genres: Religion, Biblical Studies, Theology, Nonfiction

273 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1985

Reviews

[Sagely · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a four week Season of Creation tour through the Wisdom passages of Job, I'm realizing that Job brings out the strange and odd in most commentators. Janzen's Interpretation volume is no exception.

That said, Janzen offers great interaction with the complexity of the text. This is my go-to commentary on Job. But the "ironic" reading of Job and God's speech, with a poststructuralist-ish pivot toward the reader, marked a heavy turn at the end of each section.

On the whole, I'd suggest this commentary for the sake of its interaction with the text. Next time I read it, however, I'll probably skim the hermeneutic/applicational sections.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had always had a problem with the story of Job -- I really don't like the idea of people being the butt of God's jokes, which is the way the story had always been taught. This book gives a very in-depth interpretation of the story of Job which reveals a loving God behind it and valuable lessons. I highly recommend it.

[Taylor Swift Scholar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Job: Interpretation definitely helped me make sense of a challenging text. Janzen was definitely pushing a particular interpretation, but I appreciate the insight and historical context that he added.

[Beth Peninger]

Well. Apparently this month I am not in the mindset of being terribly academic. I got to page 11, which was still the Introduction. The commentary isn't bad at all, I'm just not in a place to be academic. So I gave it up. If I didn't have to borrow it through another library system I may have tried to renew it and stick with it longer but because it comes from a different library it has to be returned. So I'm giving it up for lighter material. Someday I may pick it back up.
A note about academia: I so appreciate academics, I do. But I think that *we* have discounted the face value of text. We pick apart and dissect text until it no longer represents the literal words written. Somewhere along the way it seems *we* decided the written text wasn't true or accurate and wasn't worth taking at face value so it needed to be tilled and torn apart. Just because *we* have doubts about words written doesn't mean they don't mean exactly what they say. I feel like this has happened with the whole of the Holy Bible but especially with the Book of Job. There are so many thoughts and ideas and theories out there about this man and his trial. But what if what happened is just what is written? What if in all *our* picking and dissecting we have complicated something that is actually simple, i.e. exactly as it is written? What if?
*Because I didn't get past page 11 and I did enjoy those pages I'm not giving it any rating.

[Nathanial]

Janzen's definitely got a particular bent on the Book of Job, which takes his study out of simple scripture exegisis and into theological explorations of what it means to be human in relation to the divine. Suitably for the text, Janzen considers, weighs, and surpasses previous readings in the field. His emphasis lies on a divine-human collaboration: what if we were to take God's initial questions seriously? How can we mortals contribute to an eternal awareness? What lessons can we learn from forgiveness, and how do we accept the losses entailed with pain? While Janzen's close-ups on line-by-line analysis of translations, word choice and phrase order may be a bit too tedious or rarefied for some, his conclusions and ponderings carry beyond didactic interpretations.