About this title: A verse translation of the exemplar of human suffering, "The Book of Job", in which the moral energy, outrage and spiritual insight of the original shine through. Mitchell's previous books include a translation of "Tao Te Ching", and "Dropping Ashes on the Buddha".
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Binding: Trade Softcover
Publisher: North Point Press
Date Published: 1987
ISBN-13:9780865472709ISBN:086547270X
Description: Very Good+ Slight edge wear, else clean and tight, a nice unmarked copy. 5 X 8" Good packing, prompt shipping. Member, Florida Antiquarian Booksellers Association. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: New. Orders placed after Dec. 7 cannot be guaranteed delivery before Christmas. GREAT BUY. Brand New From US Distributor. WE ARE A 5 STAR SELLER with OVER 3, 500, 000 BOOKS SOLD. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Kyle Cathie
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9781856260039ISBN:1856260038
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Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Perennial
Date Published: 1992-08-01
ISBN-13:9780060969592ISBN:0060969598
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780060969592. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780060969592ISBN:0060969598
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Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
"The story of Job has become such a shorthand for patience in our culture that I dismissed it. In fact, though, it is an interesting piece, from a number of points of view: the hero (and presumably the author) is a Gentile, a "son of the East." How did this story ever make it into the Hebrew Bible, and why? I don't know, but now I'm curious to find out.
It is also the Sumerian (and later Hebrew) answer to the question of why bad things happen to good people--and its answer is more subtle than I was taught in school. The author goes to great pains to show us that Job is perfect. He is pure in thought and deed, a paragon who deserves grief less than anyone. His friends (who are also his accusers) are wrong when they imply that he must somehow deserve his fate. But they must think that way; otherwise, aren't they also in danger of sharing his suffering? Only by accusing him can they reassure themselves.
And what is that answer to suffering? The first answer is that the gods can play with us as they please--God and the Accusing Angle simply have a bet, and Job is the pawn.
In the final discourse between God and Job is another, more subtle answer. Here, Mitchell's interpretation (and his translation) have a Buddhist flavor: suffering is in our perception. Justice to a human is not the same as justice to the creator of the universe. Job cannot demand that a god behave like a man. Maybe the problem isn't with justice, but with our own puny perception.
I've finished a first pass through the translation, but this requires a couple of readings, and some background study. It is also inspiring me to reread The Epic of Gilgamesh. Mitchell says that the Job story has been around since the second millennium B.C.E., and it does have that "feel" in his translation. God and "The Accusing Angel" (or Satan) talk together very much like the gods in Gilgamesh (compare it to the scene of the gods in the Flood Saga, for instance), and the tone of their talk is similar: humans are part of the game, the sport of being a god.
The timelessness is also surprising. I've heard too many preachers talk about disasters being a punishment from God for immorality (both 9/11 and Katrina come to mind)to dismiss Job's "friends'" accusations as the ignorance of the ancients. Some religious do see the punishing hand of God as the explanation for suffering, even if only for extraordinary suffering. I've heard others people despair because they can't "pray away" their illnesses or depression."
"Most people only read the first two and last chapter of this book (the chapters written in prose), preferring to skip the chapters written in poetry. Doing so leaves the reader with a false impression of this book. The poetry chapters contain Job's questions, rants, and pleadings with his four "friends" and with God over the question: what is the meaning of suffering? Every possible meaning is entertained but without satisfying Job--until God himself speaks out of a whirlwind, showing Job that God's ways are mighty and incomprehensible to human kind. The book is a great marriage of theology and poetry. Even though we are not given an answer to the question of suffering, there is some comfort in the beauty of the language and the feeling of suffering that Job expresses. At some point, we all wrestle with this question, and there is comfort in knowing that we are not along as we shake our fist towards the sky."
"Mitchell made the Book of Job accessible. Wonderful, modern translation with plenty of footnotes about the original Hebrew. Foreword can be read after the text. Job was not a patient man. Worth rereading. Good book for Torah study."
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