First Glance

Revered more for the profound questions it raises than for the answers it provides, the Book of Job can be intellectual quicksand for many Bible readers, trapping the unwary in the bog of seemingly endless and often obscure debates that form the bulk of the book. In “Is It Possible To Understand the Book of Job?,” David Noel Freedman smoothes the way through what he calls the “rough passages and even rougher transitions” of this parable of undeserved suffering. Freedman clearly summarizes the dramatic structure of the Book of Job—the “who says what” in the book’s complex dialogues—before taking on the thorny task of explaining God’s apparently unreasonable behavior.

As general editor of the Anchor Bible Series, Freedman has supervised the publication of texts of over a dozen books of the Bible. He is currently Arthur F. Thurnow Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Michigan. A member of BR’s editorial board, Freedman contributed several articles in 1985, our first year, including “Who Asks (or Tells) God to Repent?” BR 01:04 and “But Did King David Invent Musical Instruments?” BR 01:03.