Did you ever tell your doctor about the talking ferret, the evil overlord and the Dalek's pickles?

The poem is an old attempt at coming to terms with the great theological problem of why good people suffer. Did a man named Job exist who suffered horrible calamities? Probably not.

But people did go through horrible things. That's a given, people do lose their entire families in disasters. Job was written at a time when people really did think that gods were responsible for calamities, disasters and good fortunes.

Those two factors really need to be considered in every 'how could G-d do this?' critique of this and other ancient texts. Bad things happen. We try to figure out why in order to reduce the chance of them happening again.

Many Jewish texts come from a period of transition from the idea that gods were more or less out to get us and very fickle to the idea that G-d wants us to thrive and is fair. (All of us too, not just Jews.) So we have a collection of texts that range from G-d ordering the destruction of a group or the great flood, to psalms imploring people to not seek revenge and leave it to G-d instead, and poems like Job that are struggling with some of the questions this new way of looking at things raise. Job is just one layer in a very long conversation trying to figure out how the world works.

We now understand that floods and tornadoes and epidemics come about through the interplay of natural forces, some of which we can influence, much of which we can't. So we read the texts more in terms of what they can help us understood about psychology and social justice and other aspects of life that are under our control. For those who aren't interested in being part of that conversation, why not read it as literature and accept the OTT plot devices as part of its age?

You'll lose it as a weapon of ridicule, but is that really so bad? Those of you who insist on reading ancient poetry in a strictly literal fashion are losing out as much as those who insist on reading it strictly literally for religious reasons.

The Job story would have people believe that god actually converses with the devil, and makes deals with him that involves the devil destroying property and killing people, and while doing that, inflicting great suffering and sorrow on poor old Job, who is simply going about his business being a good guy. Does that make sense, to ANYONE?

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.