Job is one of the most difficult, provocative, and challenging books in the Bible. The daunting questions raised by the book challenge and deepen us. For those willing to wade in, it is a feast. Few biblical texts provide as many head-snapping contradictions and interpretive challenges as the book of Job. No book is as morally and theologically maddeningly complex and legendary Jewish rabbi-scholar Martin Buber called Job "one of the special events in world literature." Like any truly transcendent work of human civilization, Job also belongs to the world. Not only rabbis, priests, theologians, philosophers, and biblical scholars who have been drawn to the book, but those who suffer, those on the margins, those ostracized, those whose faith systems and orthodox thinking have failed their real life experiences. That is why this book was written. This is the only known work on job by a Christian ethicist exploring the ethics of humans and the ethics of God--both profoundly challenged in the book of Job. And written for those on the margins who may come from orthodox traditions yet encountering real life in the embodied suffering of a particular human being. Offering insights for those marginalized by the church--particularly the post-evangelical and LGBTQ communities--this is a book for those who find themselves heirs to a tradition that they love, but now must leave.
