Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Job contains both poetry and prose, and the bigwigs think that the different sections may have been written at different times. What do you think? How does Job's prose frame story affect its poetic middle? And vice versa?
- The Book of Job is all about trying to translate the divine into something humans can use in everyday life. But wait—if God is so hard to understand, why do people believe in him?
- This is one of the first times we see Satan in the Hebrew Bible. What is Satan's role in the story, and how is it different than the Satan of today?
- Job's friends help him, sure, but then they go off on these long rants about the nature of life and how badly Job must have messed up. Are these real friends? What is the nature of friendship in Job?
- God actually does address Job in the end, but many scholars argue that his answer fails to tackle Job's questions. Do you buy God's argument that Job has no ability to understand the ways of the divine?
- What are some differences between Job's three friends and Elihu? Job does question God, but he never shifts into full atheist mode. Why doesn't Job ever abandon God completely?
- By the time the book ends, everything is all hunky dory, right? What does the ending of the book say about Job and God's relationship?
- One of the main questions in the Book of Job is how a just God could exist when suffering is so common on Earth. How is the book designed to appeal to a skeptical audience?
- Faith and reason have never exactly been best bros, but this story takes it to a whole new level. How does the idea of blind faith play into Job's story and claim?