The Book of Job

The book of Job addresses eternal questions about humanity's place in God's creation, the presence of evil in the world, God's responsibility for the existence of evil and humans' ability to understand God's ways. Scheindlin, professor of medieval Hebrew literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, offers a new translation of Job. Scheindlin writes in the introduction that he tried to let the text itself suggest its own translation and interfere as little as possible. He wanted to produce a translation that would reflect the poetic values specific to biblical Hebrew. In Scheindlin's translation, Job is an angry yet hopeful character who knows that his suffering is undeserved and demands an audience with God. Thus, Job cries, ""Let God weigh me in an honest balance/ He will have to see my innocence./ If only I had someone to hear me!"" In Scheindlin's fresh lyrical verse, we can once again feel Job's pain and distress as he attempts to understand why he is suffering. (Apr.)