I just ran across a book about the Book of Job by Michael Austin called Rereading Job: Understanding the Ancient World’s Greatest Poem from Kofford Books. 

There’s a 30-page preview hereand it was just enough to give me a sense of better ways to think about the story of Job. 

When I read the preview, I found myself nodding to myself, Yes, I’ve noticed that.  Yes, I’ve noticed that too!  In short, if you’ve ever read the Book of Job all the way through and have wondered about all that philosophical debate that goes on between Job and his friends, you’ll get some very useful perspective from this preview.

Just to give you a hint, Austin notes that Job is like a reading of the Disney story of Cinderella and halfway in, there is an enormous poem in which Cinderella laments and complains about the obnoxiousness of the patriarchy and royalty and the values that allow people to think that a prince can be in love with a girl whose face he can’t remember or that a shoe fitting can really help someone identify the right girl, and then there is a big debate between her and her stepmother and stepsisters until the fairy godmother appears and threatens to turn Cinderella into a pumpkin if she doesn’t just chill out and marry the prince.

See?  Interesting.  And helpful.  Because that stuff is in there and we totally miss it in Sunday school because we don’t spend time talking about the middle chapters!

I’m putting this book on my “to buy” list.

If you want to buy it, here’s the publisher’s page that haspaperback and ebook links.