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Is Job a Suffering Just?

우상혁 1

1안양대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

There have been many commentaries on the book of Job. The studies which have been done until now mostly have focused their attentions on the reception history of text or redactional history, etc. In this paper, exploiting the narrative analyse that is already used successfully in the field of biblical study, we try to uncover the message of the book of Job which might be delivered to the reader. F. de Saussure, the linguist, makes a difference between signifiant and signifié. The second one is concept and the first one is the sign that conveys the concept with sound; a concept cannot exist without sound. This theory may apply to narrative analyse. It is initially important to know how a story is made to find out a meaning of the story in the narrative analyse. The plan of a writer appears in the structure of a story is called plot, which determines how a story is to develop. According to our examination, the plot of the book of Job consists of five steps: background - development - conflict - climax - conclusion. Each step enter into a connection with one another tightly. Without difficulty, a reader can detect a stream of story which pass through all of steps; that can be called a logic of narrative which gives the story a coherence and a cohesion. In the background, a narrator introduces Job who is blameless, upright, fearing God, and turing away from evil. A development of story of Job begins in the council of God and Satan where the reason for suffering of Job is originated. In the conflict Job and his friends debate why Job is in distress. But they do not agree with one another. Soon afterward God speaks Job. The key to solve the complicated story of Job lies in the discours of God. Though God did not explain the content of the council of heaven, Job could realize something finally. A human cannot understand the plan of God. That might be what the readers can obtain.

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