book of job research paper

Search Menu
Browse content in Arts and Humanities
Browse content in Archaeology
Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
Archaeology by Region
Archaeology of Religion
Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
Biblical Archaeology
Contemporary and Public Archaeology
Environmental Archaeology
Historical Archaeology
History and Theory of Archaeology
Industrial Archaeology
Landscape Archaeology
Mortuary Archaeology
Prehistoric Archaeology
Underwater Archaeology
Urban Archaeology
Zooarchaeology
Browse content in Architecture
Architectural Structure and Design
History of Architecture
Residential and Domestic Buildings
Theory of Architecture
Browse content in Art
Art Subjects and Themes
History of Art
Industrial and Commercial Art
Theory of Art
Biographical Studies
Byzantine Studies
Browse content in Classical Studies
Classical History
Classical Philosophy
Classical Mythology
Classical Literature
Classical Reception
Classical Art and Architecture
Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
Greek and Roman Epigraphy
Greek and Roman Law
Greek and Roman Papyrology
Greek and Roman Archaeology
Late Antiquity
Religion in the Ancient World
Digital Humanities
Browse content in History
Colonialism and Imperialism
Diplomatic History
Environmental History
Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
Historical Geography
History by Period
History of Emotions
History of Agriculture
History of Education
History of Gender and Sexuality
Industrial History
Intellectual History
International History
Labour History
Legal and Constitutional History
Local and Family History
Maritime History
Military History
National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
Oral History
Political History
Public History
Regional and National History
Revolutions and Rebellions
Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
Social and Cultural History
Theory, Methods, and Historiography
Urban History
World History
Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
Language Learning (Specific Skills)
Language Teaching Theory and Methods
Browse content in Linguistics
Applied Linguistics
Cognitive Linguistics
Computational Linguistics
Forensic Linguistics
Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
History of English
Language Acquisition
Language Evolution
Language Reference
Language Variation
Language Families
Lexicography
Linguistic Anthropology
Linguistic Theories
Linguistic Typology
Phonetics and Phonology
Psycholinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Translation and Interpretation
Writing Systems
Browse content in Literature
Bibliography
Children's Literature Studies
Literary Studies (Asian)
Literary Studies (European)
Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
Literary Studies (Romanticism)
Literary Studies (American)
Literary Studies (Modernism)
Literary Studies - World
Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
Literary Studies (19th Century)
Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
Literary Studies (African American Literature)
Literary Studies (British and Irish)
Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
Literary Studies (History of the Book)
Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
Literary Studies (War Literature)
Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
Mythology and Folklore
Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
Browse content in Media Studies
Browse content in Music
Applied Music
Dance and Music
Ethics in Music
Ethnomusicology
Gender and Sexuality in Music
Medicine and Music
Music Cultures
Music and Religion
Music and Media
Music and Culture
Music Education and Pedagogy
Music Theory and Analysis
Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
Musicology and Music History
Performance Practice and Studies
Race and Ethnicity in Music
Sound Studies
Browse content in Performing Arts
Browse content in Philosophy
Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
Epistemology
Feminist Philosophy
History of Western Philosophy
Metaphysics
Moral Philosophy
Non-Western Philosophy
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Language
Philosophy of Mind
Philosophy of Perception
Philosophy of Action
Philosophy of Law
Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
Practical Ethics
Social and Political Philosophy
Browse content in Religion
Biblical Studies
Christianity
East Asian Religions
History of Religion
Judaism and Jewish Studies
Qumran Studies
Religion and Education
Religion and Health
Religion and Politics
Religion and Science
Religion and Law
Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
Religious Studies
Browse content in Society and Culture
Cookery, Food, and Drink
Cultural Studies
Customs and Traditions
Ethical Issues and Debates
Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
Sports and Outdoor Recreation
Technology and Society
Travel and Holiday
Visual Culture
Browse content in Law
Arbitration
Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
Commercial Law
Company Law
Browse content in Comparative Law
Systems of Law
Competition Law
Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
Government Powers
Judicial Review
Local Government Law
Military and Defence Law
Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
Construction Law
Contract Law
Browse content in Criminal Law
Criminal Procedure
Criminal Evidence Law
Sentencing and Punishment
Employment and Labour Law
Environment and Energy Law
Browse content in Financial Law
Banking Law
Insolvency Law
History of Law
Human Rights and Immigration
Intellectual Property Law
Browse content in International Law
Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
Public International Law
IT and Communications Law
Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
Law and Politics
Law and Society
Browse content in Legal System and Practice
Courts and Procedure
Legal Skills and Practice
Primary Sources of Law
Regulation of Legal Profession
Medical and Healthcare Law
Browse content in Policing
Criminal Investigation and Detection
Police and Security Services
Police Procedure and Law
Police Regional Planning
Browse content in Property Law
Personal Property Law
Study and Revision
Terrorism and National Security Law
Browse content in Trusts Law
Wills and Probate or Succession
Browse content in Medicine and Health
Browse content in Allied Health Professions
Arts Therapies
Clinical Science
Dietetics and Nutrition
Occupational Therapy
Operating Department Practice
Physiotherapy
Radiography
Speech and Language Therapy
Browse content in Anaesthetics
General Anaesthesia
Neuroanaesthesia
Browse content in Clinical Medicine
Acute Medicine
Cardiovascular Medicine
Clinical Genetics
Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Dermatology
Endocrinology and Diabetes
Gastroenterology
Genito-urinary Medicine
Geriatric Medicine
Infectious Diseases
Medical Toxicology
Medical Oncology
Pain Medicine
Palliative Medicine
Rehabilitation Medicine
Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
Rheumatology
Sleep Medicine
Sports and Exercise Medicine
Clinical Neuroscience
Community Medical Services
Critical Care
Emergency Medicine
Forensic Medicine
Haematology
History of Medicine
Browse content in Medical Dentistry
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
Paediatric Dentistry
Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
Surgical Dentistry
Browse content in Medical Skills
Clinical Skills
Communication Skills
Nursing Skills
Surgical Skills
Medical Ethics
Medical Statistics and Methodology
Browse content in Neurology
Clinical Neurophysiology
Neuropathology
Nursing Studies
Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
Gynaecology
Occupational Medicine
Ophthalmology
Otolaryngology (ENT)
Browse content in Paediatrics
Neonatology
Browse content in Pathology
Chemical Pathology
Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
Histopathology
Medical Microbiology and Virology
Patient Education and Information
Browse content in Pharmacology
Psychopharmacology
Browse content in Popular Health
Caring for Others
Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Self-help and Personal Development
Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
Cell Biology
Molecular Biology and Genetics
Reproduction, Growth and Development
Primary Care
Professional Development in Medicine
Browse content in Psychiatry
Addiction Medicine
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Forensic Psychiatry
Learning Disabilities
Old Age Psychiatry
Psychotherapy
Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
Epidemiology
Public Health
Browse content in Radiology
Clinical Radiology
Interventional Radiology
Nuclear Medicine
Radiation Oncology
Reproductive Medicine
Browse content in Surgery
Cardiothoracic Surgery
Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
General Surgery
Neurosurgery
Paediatric Surgery
Peri-operative Care
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
Surgical Oncology
Transplant Surgery
Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
Vascular Surgery
Browse content in Science and Mathematics
Browse content in Biological Sciences
Aquatic Biology
Biochemistry
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
Developmental Biology
Ecology and Conservation
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics and Genomics
Microbiology
Molecular and Cell Biology
Natural History
Plant Sciences and Forestry
Research Methods in Life Sciences
Structural Biology
Systems Biology
Zoology and Animal Sciences
Browse content in Chemistry
Analytical Chemistry
Computational Chemistry
Crystallography
Environmental Chemistry
Industrial Chemistry
Inorganic Chemistry
Materials Chemistry
Medicinal Chemistry
Mineralogy and Gems
Organic Chemistry
Physical Chemistry
Polymer Chemistry
Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
Theoretical Chemistry
Browse content in Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Architecture and Logic Design
Game Studies
Human-Computer Interaction
Mathematical Theory of Computation
Programming Languages
Software Engineering
Systems Analysis and Design
Virtual Reality
Browse content in Computing
Business Applications
Computer Security
Computer Games
Computer Networking and Communications
Digital Lifestyle
Graphical and Digital Media Applications
Operating Systems
Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
Atmospheric Sciences
Environmental Geography
Geology and the Lithosphere
Maps and Map-making
Meteorology and Climatology
Oceanography and Hydrology
Palaeontology
Physical Geography and Topography
Regional Geography
Soil Science
Urban Geography
Browse content in Engineering and Technology
Agriculture and Farming
Biological Engineering
Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
Electronics and Communications Engineering
Energy Technology
Engineering (General)
Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
History of Engineering and Technology
Mechanical Engineering and Materials
Technology of Industrial Chemistry
Transport Technology and Trades
Browse content in Environmental Science
Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
Environmental Sustainability
Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
History of Science and Technology
Browse content in Materials Science
Ceramics and Glasses
Composite Materials
Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
Nanotechnology
Browse content in Mathematics
Applied Mathematics
Biomathematics and Statistics
History of Mathematics
Mathematical Education
Mathematical Finance
Mathematical Analysis
Numerical and Computational Mathematics
Probability and Statistics
Pure Mathematics
Browse content in Neuroscience
Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
Development of the Nervous System
Disorders of the Nervous System
History of Neuroscience
Invertebrate Neurobiology
Molecular and Cellular Systems
Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
Neuroscientific Techniques
Sensory and Motor Systems
Browse content in Physics
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Biological and Medical Physics
Classical Mechanics
Computational Physics
Condensed Matter Physics
Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
History of Physics
Mathematical and Statistical Physics
Measurement Science
Nuclear Physics
Particles and Fields
Plasma Physics
Quantum Physics
Relativity and Gravitation
Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
Browse content in Psychology
Affective Sciences
Clinical Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive Neuroscience
Criminal and Forensic Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Educational Psychology
Evolutionary Psychology
Health Psychology
History and Systems in Psychology
Music Psychology
Neuropsychology
Organizational Psychology
Psychological Assessment and Testing
Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
Psychology Professional Development and Training
Research Methods in Psychology
Social Psychology
Browse content in Social Sciences
Browse content in Anthropology
Anthropology of Religion
Human Evolution
Medical Anthropology
Physical Anthropology
Regional Anthropology
Social and Cultural Anthropology
Theory and Practice of Anthropology
Browse content in Business and Management
Business Strategy
Business Ethics
Business History
Business and Government
Business and Technology
Business and the Environment
Comparative Management
Corporate Governance
Corporate Social Responsibility
Entrepreneurship
Health Management
Human Resource Management
Industrial and Employment Relations
Industry Studies
Information and Communication Technologies
International Business
Knowledge Management
Management and Management Techniques
Operations Management
Organizational Theory and Behaviour
Pensions and Pension Management
Public and Nonprofit Management
Strategic Management
Supply Chain Management
Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
Criminal Justice
Criminology
Forms of Crime
International and Comparative Criminology
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
Development Studies
Browse content in Economics
Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
Asian Economics
Behavioural Finance
Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
Economic Systems
Economic History
Economic Methodology
Economic Development and Growth
Financial Markets
Financial Institutions and Services
General Economics and Teaching
Health, Education, and Welfare
History of Economic Thought
International Economics
Labour and Demographic Economics
Law and Economics
Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
Microeconomics
Public Economics
Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
Welfare Economics
Browse content in Education
Adult Education and Continuous Learning
Care and Counselling of Students
Early Childhood and Elementary Education
Educational Equipment and Technology
Educational Strategies and Policy
Higher and Further Education
Organization and Management of Education
Philosophy and Theory of Education
Schools Studies
Secondary Education
Teaching of a Specific Subject
Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
Teaching Skills and Techniques
Browse content in Environment
Applied Ecology (Social Science)
Climate Change
Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
Natural Disasters (Environment)
Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
Browse content in Human Geography
Cultural Geography
Economic Geography
Political Geography
Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
Communication Studies
Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
Browse content in Politics
African Politics
Asian Politics
Chinese Politics
Comparative Politics
Conflict Politics
Elections and Electoral Studies
Environmental Politics
European Union
Foreign Policy
Gender and Politics
Human Rights and Politics
Indian Politics
International Relations
International Organization (Politics)
International Political Economy
Irish Politics
Latin American Politics
Middle Eastern Politics
Political Methodology
Political Communication
Political Philosophy
Political Sociology
Political Behaviour
Political Economy
Political Institutions
Political Theory
Politics and Law
Public Administration
Public Policy
Quantitative Political Methodology
Regional Political Studies
Russian Politics
Security Studies
State and Local Government
UK Politics
US Politics
Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
African Studies
Asian Studies
East Asian Studies
Japanese Studies
Latin American Studies
Middle Eastern Studies
Native American Studies
Scottish Studies
Browse content in Research and Information
Research Methods
Browse content in Social Work
Addictions and Substance Misuse
Adoption and Fostering
Care of the Elderly
Child and Adolescent Social Work
Couple and Family Social Work
Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
Emergency Services
Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
International and Global Issues in Social Work
Mental and Behavioural Health
Social Justice and Human Rights
Social Policy and Advocacy
Social Work and Crime and Justice
Social Work Macro Practice
Social Work Practice Settings
Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
Welfare and Benefit Systems
Browse content in Sociology
Childhood Studies
Community Development
Comparative and Historical Sociology
Economic Sociology
Gender and Sexuality
Gerontology and Ageing
Health, Illness, and Medicine
Marriage and the Family
Migration Studies
Occupations, Professions, and Work
Organizations
Population and Demography
Race and Ethnicity
Social Theory
Social Movements and Social Change
Social Research and Statistics
Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
Sociology of Religion
Sociology of Education
Sport and Leisure
Urban and Rural Studies
Browse content in Warfare and Defence
Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
Land Forces and Warfare
Military Administration
Military Life and Institutions
Naval Forces and Warfare
Other Warfare and Defence Issues
Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
Weapons and Equipment

The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and Ecology

< Previous chapter
Next chapter >

13 The Book of Job

Rev. Kathryn Schifferdecker, ThD, is Professor and Elva B. Lovell Chair of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Published: 20 April 2022
Cite Icon Cite
Permissions Icon Permissions

The whirlwind speeches at the end of the book of Job (38–41) provide an essential “voice” in the conversation about Bible and ecology. Job asks the question, “What are human beings?” (Job 7:17), and the voice from the whirlwind answers the question with a resounding silence about humanity. Nevertheless, humanity (in the person of Job) plays an important role in the whirlwind speeches, as the sole passenger on God’s tour of the cosmos. Those speeches call human beings to humility—to know their place in the world but also to wonder and to justice. These biblical texts are particularly pertinent for us today, as we wrestle with the effects of human activity on the earth’s climate and ecosystems.

In any discussion of Bible and ecology, the Book of Job has a vital part to play. In particular, the whirlwind speeches at the end of the book (Job 38–41) constitute an essential voice in the discussion. At first reading, God’s speeches from the whirlwind seem to have little to do with the rest of the book, which has been chiefly concerned with undeserved suffering and divine justice. Job, a righteous and blameless man, has watched his ordered world crumble around him. Three companions attempt to blame his sufferings on some secret sin he has committed, while Job maintains his innocence and calls on God to answer him. Finally, when all the human beings have had their say, God answers from a whirlwind, but God does not speak of Job’s suffering; instead, God takes Job on a tour of creation. 1 The first speech (chs. 38–39) touches on cosmology, meteorology, and zoology. The second speech (chs. 40–41) moves into the realm of mythology, as God describes the fearsome creature Behemoth and the primordial sea dragon Leviathan.

These whirlwind speeches of Job are the longest sustained biblical meditation on creation outside of Genesis. They are also particularly relevant for the age in which we find ourselves, as we recognize the toll that human activity has taken and continues to take on the earth’s climate and ecosystems. The question that Job hurls at God in one of his speeches—“What are human beings?” (7:17)—is a question with which we must continue to struggle as we learn our place in this complex creation of which we are a part. The whirlwind speeches offer a profound answer to that question.

Job and Ecology in Scholarship

While commentators have long recognized the central role that creation plays in the book of Job ( Gordis 1978 ; Habel 1985 ; Janzen 1985 ; Newsom 1996 ), three of the earliest works to explicitly link Job to environmental concerns were by two biblical scholars, Robert Gordis and Gene Tucker, and an activist and environmentalist, Bill McKibben.

Robert Gordis, in an article titled “Job and Ecology (And the Significance of Job 40:15),” characterizes the author of Job as “viewing the world in theocentric and not anthropocentric terms” ( Gordis 1985 :200). The whirlwind speeches, argues Gordis, provide a biblical basis for environmental ethics, particularly in terms of humanity’s treatment of animals. “Man takes his place among the other living creatures, all of whom are the handiwork of God and have an equal right to live on His earth. Man, therefore, surely has no inherent right to abuse or exploit the living creatures or the natural resources to be found in a world not of his making, nor intended for his exclusive habitation” (1985:199).

Bill McKibben, writing not for the scholarly guild but for a popular audience, published The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job and the Scale of Creation in 1994. Putting his reading of Job into conversation with the findings of environmental science, McKibben echoes Gordis’s conclusions by highlighting the “anthropocentric bias” of humanity and arguing that the book of Job challenges that bias (2005 [1994]:32). McKibben goes on to assert that the two great imperatives of the whirlwind speeches are a call to humility and a call to joy. Together, humility and joy are “powerful enough, perhaps, to start changing some of the deep-seated behaviors that are driving our environmental destruction” (2005 [1994]:47).

Gene Tucker, in his 1996 presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature, asks the question, “What, according to the Hebrew Bible, is the place of human beings in the natural order?” ( Tucker 1997 :6). He then explores a number of biblical texts to begin to address that question and asserts that, while “No anthropocentric perspective goes unchallenged or unchastened in the biblical tradition …The most forceful and compelling critique of the idea that humanity is the pinnacle of the natural order appears in the Lord’s address in Job 38–39” (1997:12, 13).

In the past twenty years, the book of Job has continued to enter into conversations about Bible and ecology. Of particular note is the Earth Bible volume dedicated to biblical Wisdom literature, which devotes six of its thirteen chapters to Job ( Habel and Wurst, 2001 ). In another important work, The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder , William Brown speaks of the whirlwind speeches as a “Copernican revolution”—“Job comes to realize that the world does not revolve around himself, not even around humanity” ( Brown 2010 :133). Job is also made to realize his interconnectedness with other creatures: “The bond forged in creation between Job and Behemoth … requires Job to affirm his own life in extremis, to embrace his identity as Homo alienus and his connection with all aliens … and to step lightly on God’s beloved, vibrant Earth” (2010:140).

This brief survey of scholarship on Job and ecology serves to highlight a common thread; all of these scholars have noted that the whirlwind speeches are radically nonanthropocentric. The world, according to these speeches, does not revolve around humanity. Humanity is only one part of a complex creation.

This understanding contrasts with other biblical creation theologies, notably those of Genesis 1 and Psalm 8, where humanity is given “dominion” over the natural world (Gen 1:26–28; Ps 8:6–8). Historically speaking, the creation account of Genesis 1 has had a much greater influence on Christian theology and practice than the account in Job. In this age of environmental crisis, however, the voice from the whirlwind can teach us some important things about our place in creation.

A Crucial Question

“What are human beings?”— mâ ʾĕnôš —the writer of Psalm 8 asks the question as he gazes up at the night sky ablaze with countless stars. Then he answers, in wonder and astonishment, that human beings are made just a little lower than God, and that God has given them “dominion over the works of [God’s] hands” (Ps 8:4–6).

Job, in what is probably a parody of the psalm, asks the same question— mâ ʾĕnôš . But he answers it in an entirely different way:

What are human beings, that you magnify them, that you pay attention to them, That you visit them every morning, test them every moment? 2 (Job 7:17–18)

For the psalmist, human beings are made to have dominion over the other creatures. For Job, human beings are the objects of God’s unwanted attention. While Job’s answer to the question is different from the psalmist’s, they have this in common: For both figures, humanity occupies a central position in the world, whether as the crown of creation or as the chief object of God’s overzealous attention. 3

The psalmist and Job ask the question, “What are human beings?” primarily as it pertains to humanity’s relationship with God, but in our age, it is also a crucial question to ask about humanity’s relationship with the rest of creation. The question was a significant one for the ancient Israelite authors. It is perhaps even more significant for us today, as we understand the role humanity has played in environmental degradation. Indeed, given the effects of human activity on the earth’s climate and ecosystems, many scientists argue that we now live in a new geological epoch—the Anthropocene. In this epoch, our answer to Job’s and the psalmist’s question is essential to ponder for our sake and for the sake of future generations.

In the Bible, there are differing responses to the question, “What are human beings?” Most of them, however, like Genesis 1 and Psalm 8, subscribe to a certain assumption about humanity’s place in the created order. For good or for ill, according to most biblical creation theologies, humanity occupies a central position in creation and is the primary focus of God’s attention. Given the prevalence of this assumption in the Bible, it is all the more striking that the voice from the whirlwind calls it into question.

A Call to Humility

The whirlwind speeches answer Job’s question—“What are human beings?”—with a resounding silence about humanity. The speeches cover a vast swath of creation, but in the long catalog of creatures, celestial and terrestrial, that constitutes the whirlwind speeches, there is one glaring omission. There is one creature that is conspicuous only by its absence. God says to Job:

Who has cut a channel for the flood, and a way for the thunderbolt, to cause it to rain upon the uninhabited land, the wilderness where no person lives; to satisfy the waste and desolate land and to cause the parched land to sprout grass? (Job 38:25–27)

In the Hebrew, the point is even more explicit. Translated literally, the phrases in verse 26 are “land with no-human [ ʾereṣ lōʾ-ʾîš ]” and “wilderness with no-man [ midbār lōʾ-ʾādām ].” The very common Hebrew words meaning “human,” “man,” “person” ( ʾîš and ʾādām ) are used virtually nowhere else in the whirlwind speeches. 4 And here, in their only appearance in the speeches, they are negated: no -human [ lōʾ-ʾîš ], no -man [ lōʾ-ʾādām ]. This is a radically nonanthropocentric vision of creation.

In Psalm 8 and in the related text of Genesis 1, God gives humanity dominion over every living creature on earth, both domestic animals and wild animals (Gen 1:26–28; Ps 8:6–8). Job, in the prologue, does indeed have dominion over many creatures. He owns, among other things, 1,000 oxen and 500 donkeys (1:3). In the whirlwind speeches, however, Job has dominion over nothing. He cannot control the wild donkey or the wild ox, cousins of his domestic livestock (39:5–12). And he most certainly cannot control the mythological creatures Behemoth and Leviathan.

This point is brought home in the second whirlwind speech (chs. 40–41). Psalm 8 includes under human dominion “whatever passes through the paths of the seas” (Ps 8:8). In the second speech to Job, God challenges Job to control Leviathan, the most fearsome creature to pass “through the paths of the seas”:

Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook? Can you press down his tongue with rope? … Can you play with him as with a bird? Will you leash him for your girls? Will traders bargain over him? Will they divide him up among merchants? Can you fill his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? Lay your hand upon him; imagine the battle. You will not do it again! (Job 41:1, 5–8 [Eng]; 40:25, 29–32 [Heb])

God challenges Job to use Leviathan in any of the ways that human beings use animals—for labor, for companionship, for sport, for food—and shows any such plans to be ludicrous: “Lay your hand upon him; imagine the battle. You will not do it again!” Leviathan is fierce and wild and utterly unapproachable, a creature who laughs at paltry human weapons (Job 41:26–29). In contrast to the claims of the psalmist, this particular sea creature is not under human dominion. As if to drive the point home, while Job had likened himself in an earlier speech to a king ( melek ) (29:25), the whirlwind speeches end by calling Leviathan, “king ( melek ) over all who are proud” (41:34 [Eng]; 41:26 [Heb]).

The creation theology of the whirlwind speeches calls humanity to a place of humility in relationship to the natural world. Creation is made not for the sake of humanity; it comes into being for the delight of its Creator, and it cannot be controlled by human beings.

Ellen Davis puts the issue this way: “The great question that God’s speech out of the whirlwind poses for Job and every other person of integrity is this: Can you love what you do not control?” ( Davis 2001 :140). Can you love what you do not control—the wild animals, the Sea, Leviathan—not because of any profit you may gain from them but because they are fellow-creatures with you?

The vision of creation in the whirlwind speeches can fruitfully be used as a corrective to a consumerist view of the natural world, which values the nonhuman creation primarily in terms of how it can be exploited by human beings. To that culture, the speeches proclaim that the world is not created for the sake of humanity, that there exist creatures and places that have an intrinsic value quite apart from their usefulness to human beings. God sends rain on the wilderness where no person lives. The wild donkey and the wild ox will not serve Job. Leviathan cannot be used by Job in any of the ways that humanity uses animals.

In other words, in the whirlwind speeches, Job learns his place, and it is a place radically different from the position he occupied in the prologue (Job 1–2). In that world, Job was at the center, surrounded by concentric circles of society: first his family and household (29:1–5), then civic society—his companions and peers (29:7–10), and finally, the poor and the needy to whom Job owed benevolence (29:11–16), and to whom Job showed compassion ( Newsom 2003 :187–190). Outside these circles of Job’s influence was the “waste and desolate land” ( šôʾâ ûmĕšōâ ; 30:3).

In the whirlwind speeches, the boundaries of this ordered world are blown apart, and Job is taken out to where the wild things are. 5 Job is decentered from the position of authority he held in his former life. He is transported to the wasteland and there he learns that the world is more vast, varied, and wild than he had ever imagined.

It is striking that the whirlwind speeches celebrate exactly those places and creatures that are outside human control, that are indifferent to, and therefore dangerous to human beings: the Sea, the meteorological forces, the wild animals. The whirlwind speeches assert that no creature or land can properly be called “godforsaken,” not even the “waste and desolate land” ( šôʾâ ûmĕšōâ ) that Job scorned (30:3). These places may be human-forsaken, but they are not God-forsaken ( Newsom 2003 : 240). Indeed, in what is likely a direct reference to Job’s final speech, the whirlwind speeches assert that God sustains the “waste and desolate land” ( šôʾâ ûmĕšōâ ) (38:27; cf. 30:3). God is profligate with the rain—that most precious of resources—in that God sends it on what is, from the perspective of humans, a wasteland, unused and unusable by human beings. God sends rain on the wilderness where no person lives and causes the desert to flower though no human eyes will see it.

The whirlwind speeches put Job in his place; or, more accurately, they teach Job his place in the cosmos. Job learns humility. He learns his place in the world which God created, which God sustains, and in which God delights.

Having said all this, it must also be said that while the whirlwind speeches are radically nonanthropocentric, they are addressed to an anthropos . Job is the only passenger on this tour of the cosmos. While there is a deafening silence in the speeches concerning human beings, it is to a human being that they are spoken. God puts Job in his place, but it is not a place of abject humiliation. Instead, God grants Job a God’s-eye view of the cosmos, and thereby places him in a position of some privilege. God indeed calls Job to humility but God also calls him to wonder. It is to this point that we turn next.

A Call to Wonder

The whirlwind speeches teach Job his place in creation. They call him to humility. As McKibben has shown, however, they also call him to joy ( McKibben 2005 [1994] :40) and to wonder. God does not beat Job over the head with creation. God invites Job to wonder at the beauty of God’s creation—the sudden blossoming of the desert after rain (38:27), the magnificence of celestial constellations (38:31–32), the fierceness of the war horse (39:19–25), the soaring of the hawk (39:26), the armor-like scales of Leviathan (41:15–17). God lingers over the details and invites Job to do the same.

The wonder of creation takes center stage from the very beginning of the first speech from the whirlwind. God describes to Job the creation of the cosmos, “When the morning stars sang together, and all the angels shouted for joy!” (Job 38:7).

The celestial beings, both stars and angels, sing for joy at the creation of the earth, and as the speeches progress, it seems clear that the wild creatures themselves join in that chorus. The wild donkey laughs ( yiśḥaq ) at the “tumult of the city,” that quintessential human habitation. It does not hear the “shouts of the taskmaster” as it roams over the mountains (39:7–8). In like fashion, the ostrich laughs ( tiśḥaq ) at the horse and its rider (38:18). The horse itself “rejoices greatly as he goes out to meet the battle” (39:21). He laughs ( yiśḥaq ) at fear itself as he “swallows the ground” (39:22–24). The wild beasts of the field play ( yĕśaḥăqû ) in the mountains (40:20). Leviathan, that fiercest of creatures, laughs ( yiśḥaq ) as well, at the paltry human weapons that bounce off its impenetrable skin (41:29 [Eng]; 41:21 [Heb]).

The laughter ( śḥq ) of some of these wild creatures is directed at human beings and their inventions. It could be argued, then, that theirs is a scornful laughter. Scorn, however, is not the primary impression left by the text. These wild creatures are exulting not just in their freedom from human control but in freedom itself, the freedom to roam in the wilderness, to play in the mountains, and the freedom (on the part of the ostrich and the horse) simply to run. The joy of the morning stars at the dawn of creation echoes through the rest of the whirlwind speeches, especially in the unfettered abandon of the wild creatures at play. God shows Job a world characterized by freedom and joy. And, indeed, joy characterizes the divine being as well, as God also rejoices in the wildness of creation. The description of Leviathan demonstrates this divine delight and pride:

I will not be silent about its limbs, or its great strength, or its magnificent frame. … Its back is made up of rows of shields, closed with a tight seal. One is pressed to another so that no air can come between them. Each is joined to the next; they cling together and cannot be separated. Its sneezes flash forth light; and its eyes are like the eyelids of dawn. (41:12, 15–18 [Eng]; 41:4, 7–10 [Heb])

The whirlwind speeches celebrate the fierceness of Leviathan and the fecundity of mountain goats alike. They display God’s delight in creation and they invite Job (and generations of readers) to wonder at the works of God’s hands.

The speeches open with the image of God as the master builder, digging the foundation of the earth, using a plumb line to make sure the walls are straight, and laying the cornerstone (38:4–7). And then, in a striking change of metaphor, God the master builder becomes God the midwife, attending the birth of the Sea:

Who fenced in the Sea with doors when it came bursting out from the womb, When I made a cloud its clothing and thick darkness its swaddling clothes? (Job 38:8–9)

The Sea, that ancient symbol of chaos, becomes in the whirlwind speeches a newborn infant, albeit an enormous and rambunctious infant. God does not destroy the Sea, as in all the other ancient Near Eastern creation myths (cf. Job 9:8). Instead, God here attends the birth of the Sea and swaddles it in shadows.

This description of the Sea is just one example of a recurrent theme in the whirlwind speeches, that of birth. Many of the animals in the speeches are described in their parental roles. The mountain goats give birth (39:1–4). The ostrich, lacking wisdom, leaves her eggs on the ground (39:13–18) while eagles feed their young with the blood of slain warriors (39:30; cf. 38:41). Even inanimate parts of the natural world are described in terms of fecundity (38:28–29).

This theme of birth connects the whirlwind speeches with earlier and later parts of the book. In the prologue, Job’s wealth is measured according to the number of his livestock and his blessings according to the number of his children. When Job loses everything, his first response is couched in the language of birth (1:21). After seven days of silence, he curses the day of his birth and the night of his conception (3:1–10).

In that first lament, Job wishes not just for death but that he had never been born in the first place. In his cursing of the day of his birth, Job attempts to undo creation itself. His language echoes that of Genesis 1. Job, however, seeks to reverse God’s first act of creation: Whereas God decreed, “Let there be light!” ( yĕhî ʾôr —Gen. 1:3), Job curses the day of his birth with the command “Let it be darkness!” ( yĕhî ḥōšek —Job 3:4). As Michael Fishbane has demonstrated, Job’s curse mirrors the sequence of events described in Genesis 1. Job begins his speech with the malediction, “Let there be darkness,” and ends it with an extended meditation on “rest.” The rest that Job hopes to find, however, is not in Sabbath but in death. In the extended curse on the day of his birth, Job articulates “an absolute and unrestrained death wish for himself and the entire creation” ( Fishbane 1971 :154).

Such a curse is a challenge to the Creator in whose hand is “the life of every living creature and the breath of every human being” (12:10). God in the whirlwind speeches responds to Job’s curse by describing not only the initial act of creation but also the ongoing life force that is the power of procreation. The blessing of birth is not about Job or any other human being. It is the means by which God ensures that life, in all its beauty and complexity, will continue.

Again, while Job learns humility in this encounter with God, he also learns wonder. Life continues despite Job’s maledictions. Life continues despite Job’s suffering. Life continues not just for human beings, but for all the creatures that inhabit this planet. The whirlwind speeches challenge Job’s initial curse in Job 3 and they invite him to wonder at the inexorable life force that animates creation.

The epilogue (ch. 42) provides perhaps the best evidence that Job has learned to delight in creation’s freedom as God does. Here, the theme of parenting continues. Job and his wife have ten more children. This time, the daughters (the most beautiful women in the land) are given names, and sensual names at that: Dove ( yĕmîmâ ), Cinnamon-Stick ( qĕṣîꜤâ ), and Horn-of-Eyeshadow ( qeren-hapûk ) (42:14). They are also given an inheritance along with their brothers, a practice unparalleled in ancient Israel.

Though the replacement of children with more children strikes the modern reader as troubling, Ellen Davis reads these details differently: “It is useless to ask how much (or how little) it costs God to give more children. The real question is how much it costs Job to become a father again” ( Davis 2001 :142).

Davis contrasts this style of parenting to the careful Job of the prologue, who offered sacrifices for his children just in case they sinned as they feasted together (1:5). “And now [in the epilogue] Job loves with the abandon characteristic of God’s love—revolutionary in seeking our freedom, reveling in the untamed beauty of every child” ( Davis 2001 :143).

This reading of the epilogue confirms the themes of freedom, joy, and wonder that characterize the whirlwind speeches. The speeches, though not conventionally comforting, move Job out of his endless cycle of grief into life again. They enable him to bring children again into a world where he risks losing them. They enable him to live freely in a world full of heartbreaking suffering and heart-stopping beauty, and to do so with a kind of abandon and delight that reflects God’s own way of being in the world. Job has learned from the whirlwind speeches something about the fundamental nature of God, God as the Creator who delights in wildness and beauty and invites Job to do the same: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,” says Job to God, “but now my eye sees you” (42:5).

“What are human beings?” asks the psalmist, gazing up at the night sky in awe. “What are human beings?” asks Job, so burdened with grief that he curls in on himself and cannot see beyond his own pain. And God answers by taking Job to where the wild things live, far outside the bounds of human control. God invites Job to humility, to learn his place in God’s world; and then God invites Job to wonder, to delight in the world with a measure of God’s own joy.

Humility and wonder. The vision of creation God gives to Job moves him to look beyond his pain and grief, moves him to life again, even after great pain. Humility—learning our place in this world—and wonder—delighting with God’s delight in the beauty and wildness of creation—have the potential to move us, too, to life again, in a world where we are too often the instruments of death and destruction.

A Call to Justice

The whirlwind speeches call humanity to humility and to wonder. They also call human beings—in their relationship with the natural world—to justice.

Justice is a primary concern in the earlier parts of the Book of Job. Repeatedly in the poetic dialogue, Job wishes for justice. “See, I cry out ‘violence!’ but receive no answer. I cry for help, but there is no justice ( mišpāṭ )” (19:7). Job accuses God of perverting the order not only of the moral realm (9:22–24) but also of the natural world (9:5–7).

Job’s companions espouse the orthodox view that God upholds justice, by which they mean retributive justice. The righteous will be rewarded and the wicked punished. God designs and governs the world in such a way that both the moral order and the natural order are firmly established (5:9–16). Bildad chastises Job for doubting God’s justice: “Does God pervert justice ( mišpāṭ )? Or does the Almighty pervert the right?” (8:3).

Job and his companions have a fairly simplistic understanding of God’s mišpāṭ , God’s justice. God will reward the righteous and punish the wicked. When Job’s suffering proves otherwise, he accuses God of injustice. Job demands his day in court; he defends his integrity and calls on God to answer him (chs. 9; 13; 23; 29–31).

This theme of justice, then, permeates the poetic dialogue; and the word mišpāṭ is often used to articulate that theme (8:3; 9:19, 32; 13:18; 14:3; 19:7; 23:4; 31:13). Given the prevalence of mišpāṭ in the dialogue, it is striking that in the whirlwind speeches, it appears only once:

Will you even annul my mišpāṭ ? Will you condemn me in order that you might be justified? (40:8)

This verse is part of a passage in which God moves briefly from the world of creation to the world of moral order, challenging Job to punish the wicked (40:8–14). God accuses Job of annulling God’s mišpāṭ . In doing so, God expands the meaning of the word. Job and his companions used mišpāṭ primarily as a juridical term. God speaks of mišpāṭ as something more fundamental, having to do not only with humanity and the moral order with which humanity is so concerned but also with the natural order. In doing so, God answers Job’s earlier charges. Job impugned God’s mišpāṭ in terms of God’s justice but he also criticized God’s mišpāṭ in terms of the order God built into creation.

This issue of God’s ordering of the world (both moral and natural) can be explored in a number of ways, but I do so here by describing briefly the usage in the book of Job of the verb śûk and its by-form sûk , “to fence in.” The verb is used only three times in Job. The first time is at 1:10, when the Satan says to God, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence ( śaktā ) around him and his house and all his possessions on every side?” Job uses the verb in 3:23. He wonders why light is given “to a man whose way is hidden, / whom God has fenced in ( wayāsek ).” The third and final occurrence of the verb is in the whirlwind speeches, when God asks, “Who fenced in ( wayāsek ) the Sea with doors / when it came bursting out from the womb?” (38:8).

These three occurrences of the word śûk/sûk illustrate three different viewpoints about God’s ordering of the world. The Satan asserts that God orders the world in such a way that the righteous are protected from all harm (1:10). The three companions share this worldview. Job, in the midst of profound suffering, argues that God does not put a protective fence around the righteous but pens them in and allows the world around them to descend into chaos (3:23).

Though the Satan and Job envision the “fencing” in different ways, the object of the verb in both cases is humanity. God is either—in the Satan’s view—protecting righteous human beings or—in Job’s view—suffocating them with overweening attention, waiting for them to sin (cf. Job 7:12–19).

In the third and final usage of the word ś ûk/sûk , God also speaks of fencing in, but redefines both the object and the scope of that action. God is concerned in the whirlwind speeches not with building a fence, whether protective or restrictive, around humanity. God’s action is cosmic in scope. God fences in the Sea and prescribes boundaries for it: “Thus far you shall come and no farther. / Here shall your proud waves be stopped” (38:11).

There is a tension here. The Sea, that primordial force of chaos, is fenced in so that it does not have free rein over the earth, but it is also given a place in creation. There is order to the world, contrary to Job’s accusations, but it is an order that—contrary to the Satan’s assertion—does not exclude all things wild and dangerous. The Sea, the snow, the wild animals, Leviathan—all these forces are given a place in creation. They are outside of humanity’s control and potentially dangerous to human beings. But they are also a vital part of God’s order, God’s mišpāṭ . The creation would be diminished without these wild creatures; its glory dimmed, its life-force faded.

It is in this larger sense of mišpāṭ that the whirlwind speeches issue a call to justice. If God’s order includes creatures and forces quite outside the realm of human existence, then humanity has the responsibility to live in such a way that that order is maintained.

The concept of “justice” is associated in biblical interpretation more often with prophetic texts than with creation texts. The key term for describing the biblical understanding of humanity’s relationship with creation is more often “stewardship.” And “stewardship” is indeed a useful way of thinking about that relationship (see Chapter 22 in this volume). It implies that we do not own what we have. It implies that we are merely caretakers on behalf of the true owner. It implies that we use what we need and conserve the gift for those who come after us. These are all good biblical insights (Gen 2:15; Exod 23:10–11; Lev 25:23).

The concept of “stewardship” has its critics among scholars of ecology and theology. Some argue that it relies too much on an understanding of humanity as separate from the rest of the earth ( Berry et al. 2006 :108). Others assert that it is too hierarchical, making God into an “absentee landlord” and consigning the natural world to the lowest end of the hierarchy (2006:68). Many scholars, however, still claim stewardship as a helpful concept for speaking about humanity’s place in creation (2006:7–12), and one that is rooted in biblical traditions.

“Stewardship” with all its complexities can indeed be a good way of thinking about humanity’s relationship with the rest of creation, but it is not the only way. It does not, for instance, fit the context of the whirlwind speeches:

Who lets the wild ass go free? … It scoffs at the tumult of the city; it does not hear the shouts of the taskmaster. … Will the wild ox be willing to serve you? Will it spend the night at your feeding-trough? (Job 39:5,7, 9)

In the prologue, as already noted, Job was the owner of 500 donkeys and 1,000 oxen (1:3). In the whirlwind speeches, God introduces Job to the wild cousins of his domesticated livestock. The wild donkey and ox will have nothing to do with human beings. Their existence is one of unfettered freedom.

How much more is this the case for the creatures God describes in the second speech. Behemoth is a primeval land creature with bones like bronze and limbs like iron (40:18). Leviathan, that legendary sea dragon, is so fierce that no mere human can stand against it (41:10). These creatures will not serve humanity. Behemoth is made “with Job” or just in the way that Job was made (40:15). Job and Behemoth have the same Creator. Even more radically, Leviathan, not Job, is “king over all who are proud,” a creature not to be trifled with (41:34; cf. 29:25).

The wild creatures of the first whirlwind speech and the two mythological creatures of the second speech inhabit a world quite outside human civilization and completely beyond the sphere of human influence. To speak of Job’s relationship to these wild creatures in terms of “stewardship” simply misses the point. How can he be a “steward” of something over which he has no control? How can he take care of creatures who neither need nor desire such care, creatures who scorn humanity and its inventions?

The operative word, again, for talking about humanity’s relationship to the wild creatures in the whirlwind speeches is “justice.” The speeches describe a world in which humanity does not occupy the central position. Humanity has a place in that world, to be sure. Job, again, is the only passenger on this tour of the cosmos. That place, however, is not what Job thought it was. The world does not revolve around humanity. The world instead is made for the delight of its Creator, and it is full of wild, strange, and fierce creatures, creatures who live their whole lives oblivious to human beings and their daily concerns.

It is worth noting in this respect that “wilderness” in the ancient world did not evoke the same feelings of appreciation and awe (or sentimentality?) that it does for many people today. In the ancient world, wilderness and the wild animals that inhabit it were “the Other against which human culture defined itself” ( Newsom 2003 :245). In the whirlwind speeches, then, it is all the more compelling that the wilderness, that which was alien and terrifying to Job, is described in great detail, and with attention to its beauty. Job is not in any way a “steward” of the wilderness; he encounters it only as an observer. But once he encounters it, he comes to know both his own place in the larger world and the place of the wild creatures who share it with him. In God’s ordering of the world, in God’s mišpāṭ , Job is a part of creation, but so are the Sea, the lion, the ostrich, Behemoth, and Leviathan. They have an integral part to play in the whole, and justice demands that they be allowed to play that part.

Today, too, justice demands that we live in such a way that the other creatures God has created “with us” are allowed to be who God created them to be. Justice demands that we honor the right of our fellow creatures to live and move and have their being, not because they are useful to us, but because they are precious to God. Pope Francis, in Laudato Si , cites German bishops on this point: “[W]here other creatures are concerned, ‘we can speak of the priority of being over that of being useful ’ ” ( Francis 2015 :51, author’s emphasis).

The two concepts of stewardship and justice are not mutually exclusive, and both are needed today. According to Genesis 2:15 and similar texts, humanity is given responsibility for the earth, serving ( ʿabād ) it and keeping ( šamār ) it. We must exercise that responsibility with care. According to the whirlwind speeches, humanity is only one part of creation and should therefore live with humility on this earth. We must tread lightly.

It is worth noting that many of the questions God addresses to Job can be answered in the affirmative today. We do know when the mountain goats give birth (39:1). We have some understanding of how rain and snow are formed (38:28–29), and we have entered into the depths of the sea (38:16). The growth in our knowledge, however, has not resulted in an increase in wisdom. Wisdom does not necessarily correspond to advancements in knowledge or technical ability (cf. Job 28). To gain wisdom, we must learn our place in God’s world and live accordingly, with humility, with wonder, and with justice. Our lives, the lives of those we love, and the lives of all the creatures on this planet depend on it.

The question that Job and the psalmist both ask—“What are human beings?”—is a question that continues to haunt us today. Many different biblical voices speak to this question and they contribute important insights to the conversation about Bible and ecology. In this age of climate change, however, when the biodiversity of the world is under threat, the voice from the whirlwind is particularly pertinent. The world of the whirlwind speeches is a world of dazzling diversity and stunning beauty. It is a world outside the bounds of human culture and outside the reach of human activity. It is a world that exists not for humanity, but for itself, and for God.

That wilderness today looks like the plains of the Serengeti, the mountains of the Himalayas, the ice sheets of Antarctica, the sands of the Sahara, and the depths of the oceans. There still exist those places and creatures that are outside the bounds of human culture, but we understand now that they are not outside the reach and influence of human activity. They are more fragile than we realized.

“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,” says Job to God at the end of the book, “But now my own eyes have seen you” (Job 42:5). Job sees God somehow in the vision of the whirlwind speeches, in the wild, fierce, beautiful world God has made. For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, those same speeches can reveal also to us this same Creator and the wonder of the world that believers recognize not just as “nature” but as “creation.” The voice from the whirlwind can teach us wisdom—so that we might know our place in the world and learn to live in it with humility, with wonder, and with justice.

Alter, R. ( 2011 ), The Art of Biblical Poetry . Rev. ed. New York: Basic Books.

Google Scholar

Google Preview

Berry, R. J. , ed. ( 2006 ), Environmental Stewardship: Critical Perspectives—Past and Present . London: T&T Clark.

Brown, W. ( 2010 ), The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Davis, E. ( 2001 ), Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament . Cambridge, MA: Cowley.

Fishbane, M. ( 1971 ), “ Jeremiah IV 23–26 and Job III 3–13: A Recovered Use of the Creation Pattern, ” VT 21:151–167.

Francis. ( 2015 ) Laudato Sí: Encyclical Letter of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home . Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, see also http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html (accessed 10/8/20).

Gordis, R. ( 1978 ), The Book of Job . New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Gordis, R. ( 1985 ), “ Job and Ecology (and the Significance of Job 40:15), ” HAR 9:189–202.

Habel, N. ( 1985 ), The Book of Job . Philadelphia, Penn: Westminster Press.

Habel, N. , and S. Wurst (eds.) ( 2001 ), The Earth Story in Wisdom Traditions . Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Janzen, J. G. ( 1985 ), Job . Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press.

McKibben, B. (1994), The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job and the Scale of Creation . Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Repr., Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 2005 .

Newsom, C. ( 1996 ), “The Book of Job: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections.” In Terence E. Fretheim and Daniel J. Simundson , vol. 4 of The New Interpreter’s Bible. 12 vols, 31–637. Nashville: Abingdon.

Newsom, C. ( 2003 ), The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schifferdecker, K. ( 2008 ), Out of the Whirlwind: Creation Theology in the Book of Job . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Tucker, G. ( 1997 ), “ Rain on a Land Where No One Lives: The Hebrew Bible on the Environment, ” JBL , 116/1: 3–17.

Solomon Freehof describes the reaction of many readers of Job: “Job cries, ‘I am innocent.’ And God responds, ‘You are ignorant.’ The answer seems not only irrelevant but even unfeeling and heartless” [ Book of Job (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1958) 236].

Author’s translation. All biblical quotations are the author’s translation unless otherwise noted.

It could be argued that the Sabbath, rather than human beings, is the “crown of creation.” The Sabbath is established on the seventh day, but it is not a creature—a physical, sentient being. Human beings are created last; they are the only creatures made in the image of God; and they are the only creatures given dominion over the rest of the created order. All of these details support the claim that they are understood in Genesis 1 as the “crown of creation.”

The word ʾîš is used also in 41:17 (Heb 41:9), but there it refers to the scales of Leviathan, not to a human being.

To borrow the title from Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s story ( Where the Wild Things Are . New York: Harper & Row, 1963).

About Oxford Academic
Publish journals with us
University press partners
What we publish
New features
Open access
Institutional account management
Rights and permissions
Get help with access
Accessibility
Advertising
Media enquiries
Oxford University Press
Oxford Languages
University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
Cookie settings
Cookie policy
Privacy policy
Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Undergraduate
High School
Architecture
American History
Asian History
Antique Literature
American Literature
Asian Literature
Classic English Literature
World Literature
Creative Writing
Linguistics
Criminal Justice
Legal Issues
Anthropology
Archaeology
Political Science
World Affairs
African-American Studies
East European Studies
Latin-American Studies
Native-American Studies
West European Studies
Family and Consumer Science
Social Issues
Women and Gender Studies
Social Work
Natural Sciences
Pharmacology
Earth science
Agriculture
Agricultural Studies
Computer Science
IT Management
Mathematics
Investments
Engineering and Technology
Engineering
Aeronautics
Medicine and Health
Alternative Medicine
Communications and Media
Advertising
Communication Strategies
Public Relations
Educational Theories
Teacher's Career
Chicago/Turabian
Company Analysis
Education Theories
Shakespeare
Canadian Studies
Food Safety
Relation of Global Warming and Extreme Weather Condition
Movie Review
Admission Essay
Annotated Bibliography
Application Essay
Article Critique
Article Review
Article Writing
Book Review
Business Plan
Business Proposal
Capstone Project
Cover Letter
Creative Essay
Dissertation
Dissertation - Abstract
Dissertation - Conclusion
Dissertation - Discussion
Dissertation - Hypothesis
Dissertation - Introduction
Dissertation - Literature
Dissertation - Methodology
Dissertation - Results
GCSE Coursework
Grant Proposal
Marketing Plan
Multiple Choice Quiz
Personal Statement
Power Point Presentation
Power Point Presentation With Speaker Notes
Questionnaire
Reaction Paper

Research Paper

Research Proposal

SWOT analysis
Thesis Paper
Online Quiz
Literature Review
Movie Analysis
Statistics problem
Math Problem
All papers examples
How It Works
Money Back Policy
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
We Are Hiring

The Book of Job, Research Paper Example

Pages: 16

Words: 4329

Hire a Writer for Custom Research Paper

Use 10% Off Discount: "custom10" in 1 Click 👇

You are free to use it as an inspiration or a source for your own work.

A Man Named Job and the Book Where His Name was Carved

The words of Almighty God in the Holy Bible serve as guidance and life-lessons to the readers. The book of Job’s author and the date it was written are not yet unfolded. Most likely, it was written between the seventh and fourth centuries BCE. The assumed exact date of publication is after 586 BCE. 1 It is also one of the oldest contents of the Bible. It was coherently and poetically written and produces a complex, incredibly powerful and daring contents that deliver subtle meaning, allusions, parody, quotations, narrative structure, irony, etc. 2 It is considered as one of the most debated and intriguing books among the Hebrew Scriptures and tells a story about Job, a man who had a reputation of being upright and blameless, one who had great fear in God and refused to accept the evil. 1

There are three theories on the authorship of the Book of Job. The first one is that the book was written by Job, himself. This theory was made because of the line in Job 19: 23-24 NIV, saying, “Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever!” It entails the desire of Job to have such book written. Second theory is that Moses was the writer of the book. Moses lived during the same period of time and assumed that he had enough knowledge about the happenings for him to compose the book. It is assumed that Moses added the prologue on second and third chapter and provided a setting and the epilogue on chapter 42. However, this theory is denied because of the proximity of the place where Moses lived and the poetic style of writing which is different from the Pentateuch. Lastly, the third theory is that an anonymous writer during the period of the return from the captivity of Babylonian made the Book of Job. This theory suggests that the book was passed from generation to another through oral discussions and was finally put [1]into writing centuries after the occurrence of the events in Job’s life. The allegorized prologues and vocabulary during this time period were similar to what were written in the Book of Job. 3

The realness of the existence of Job is sometimes questioned by some scholars. Some studies say that he only represented men who were suffering during that time. 4 However, evidence suggests that Job actually existed in the Middle East and that he really experienced the occurrences written in the book. One of the evidences that assume the real existence of Job was written in Ezekiel 14:20 wherein Job, Noah and Daniel were named as epitomes of holiness. In the New Testament, James 5:11 described Job as an epitome of patience. Likewise, archaeologists found out that there were men who existed in the past named Job. This finding supported the fact that Job is a name commonly used before. It is assumed that Job lived during the time of Abraham. The exact location of Job’s life is not known apart from the statement that he lives in Uz. However, some studies suggest that he lived in the north eastern part of the Palestine located in the land of Aram or now known as Syria. This theory is based on Genesis 10:23 saying that Uz was an offspring of Aram. Likewise, Job 1:3 stated that Job was the greatest man among all the men who lived in East. On the other hand, some scholars suggest that Job lived in Edom, the southern part of Palestine. Eliphaz, who was one of his friends, lived in Teman which was part of Edom.

Job was a good and godly individual. He had a strong character and unparalleled righteousness. In 1:18 of the book, Job was described as a servant of God who feared Him, refused evil, blameless and upright. He was like Isaac, Abraham and Jacob who also served as a family priest. In Job 1:3, he was described as the greatest man among all the people who lived in the East. He was prosperous and possessed numerous domesticated animals and owned a big house of servants and worker.

5 The intention of the Book of Job is not to completely provide answers to man’s questions of why he is suffering from great pain and why he needs to feel debilitation and severe terminal diseases. Instead, it narrows down the questions of an individual who has existed with a righteous and honourable life and is experiencing pain and asks the question why? The message of the book is to make the readers realize that all men facing suffering and struggles in their life and ask God the question why would not receive any answer from Him. According to Corinthians 5:7, questions about suffering will not help a man because of the presence of things that will not help him increase his faith. Faith is only present when people believe in God during the days they don’t understand the reasons behind everything. 6 [2]

Reasons for Sufferings

Suffering is considered as a test. It challenges man’s faith, character, values and love for God. These tests will either make or break a man or make someone bitter or better. Bitterness happens when people jump into a wrong conclusion and perspective about God’s purpose for bringing them pain and suffering. On the other hand, suffering can make a person feel better by opening his eyes to the power, wonder, wisdom, love and goodness of God. 8 Sometimes, suffering is given to people as a punishment. It can be traced back during the time when the Israel children failed to go to the Promise Land with faith in God. They had to wander in the wilderness for thirty-eight years because of their committed sin. 3 The deportation of Israeli from the Babylon was a very painful moment in their lives. It served as a great challenge for the people to have covenant relationship with God and understanding and encounter with the evil. It was indeed a normal practice for them to accept evil and embrace suffering as a disciplinary result of their infidelity and disobedience to God. 4

The Deuteronomic view of the covenant between God and Israeli (Deut 30:15-20) implies that people should establish a faithful and righteous relationship with God in order to free themselves from evil of suffering. In Corinthian 5:5, Paul showed that suffering implies a corrective intention. Paul said that as a disciplinary action, there should be a physical intervention of life’s consequence to bring back well-being with God as well as with the whole body. On the other hand, in John 9, suffering may be a prelude of God’s reversal in the future. A blind man was asked by Jesus who had sinned and he answered none. The blind man and his parents were not sinners which made them undeserving to get punishment from God. Instead, being blind was a way for him to discover the greatness of God when he got his sight after his conversation with Jesus. Likewise, suffering may be due to spiritual agony. It was felt by the son of God, Jesus, who agonized in the Garden of Gethsemene with his sweat of blood. Another reason for suffering is that God wants an individual’s suffering to become an inspiration to other men. Paul, the apostle, suffered and became an inspiration and source of strength of the whole church. 8

On the other hand, people sometimes give wrong answers to their questions of suffering. 5 Some people think that God bring them pain because they have done something wrong. For instance, a woman who realized that she has a cancer may think that she got the disease because she had failures as a mother and God wanted her to suffer. Likewise, some people think that God does not care. These individuals think that they are not deserving of God’s attention and care. They think that if God really cared, there would be no disease and problems to suffer from. Similarly, during moments of suffering, there are people who think that the control is not in God’s hands. They believe that in spite of the fact that God can control some things in life, He cannot manipulate those that cause pain, harm and infliction to the human’s life. People assume that God can only rule the Heavens but definitely not the Earth.

Another explanation that people give is that God is not capable of stopping Satan. People who view this depend on Ephesians 2:2 and 2 Corinthians 4:4 descriptions that Satan is the prince of the air and that he is the god of the present age, respectively. These people believe that God is only for the Heavens and that He cannot stop the evil from harming the creatures in this world. Satan wants people from serving God to stop. Lastly, people believe that there is suffering in their lives because God is not fair. These individuals tend to compare what other people have and that these people are most of the time, do not deserve what they have. This sentiment is similar to Habakkuk (1:13) saying, “Why do You hold Your tongue when the wicked devours one more righteous than he?”

Job’s Sufferings

Job’s suffering was not related to punishment, inspirations, spiritual agony and other reasons that were mentioned above. The reason behind his sufferings is unknown. Job said, “I don’t have the foggiest idea why this has come to me. I can’t see any purpose to it. I don’t know what God is up to. I certainly don’t deserve it”. 8 God declared Job as a righteous man which resulted to the complexity of his sufferings. His friends Elphaz, Bildad and Zophar kept telling him that he had sins of his own however, their argument was not proven. It was Elihu who proved the three friends wrong and said that serving God brings out a profit and that if Job is not receiving any, there should be something wrong with his life. Elihu implied that God’s sovereignty liberates Him from any mistake and that the wrongness was on the side of Job.

On the other hand, some studies say that Job’s suffering was special because it was Satan who chose to attack him. 5 Since God said that Job was righteous, He invited people to companion him so that he could bless the individuals around him and the world where he lived in. Because of Satan’s desire to stop this blessing, he induced great suffering to Job. This is also the reason why the history of Israelis was filled with torment, why Jesus’s life featured his own agony and why true and devoted Christians suffered the most. Therefore, it can be said that Satan attacked Job because he was not like other individuals. Satan wanted to end his righteousness and the blessings provided by God. The Prologue, chapter one to two, depicted Satan as a challenge for Job’s righteousness. Satan removed all Job’s material wealth as well as the lives of his daughters and sons. With these first hardships, Job 1:22 stated “In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.” Continuing the challenge, Satan started to remove the patriarch’s health, induced plagues and tempted Job’s wife to say curses and death wishes towards God. Still, Job remained faithful to God in Job 2:10. 3

However, Job started to curse the moment he was born. He questioned “why” seven times from Job 3:11, 12, 16, 20 and 23. He asked, “Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not perish when I came from the womb? Why did the knees receive me? Why the breasts that I should nurse? Why was I not hidden like a stillborn child? Why is the light given to him who is in misery? Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden?” 6 He started demanding for answers to his questions from God. Job said in Chapter 3:3-9:

Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night which said, ‘a boy is conceived’. May that day be darkness; Let not God above care for it, nor the light shine on it. Let darkness and black gloom claim it; Let a cloud settle on it; Let the blackness of the day terrify it. As for that night, let the darkness seize it, Let it not rejoice among the days of the year, Let it not come into the number of the months. Behold, let the night be barren; Let no joyful shout enter it. Let those curse it who curse the day, Who are prepared to rouse Leviathan (the crocodile). Let the stars of its twilight be darkened; Let it wait for light but have none, And let it not see the breaking dawn. 5

God’s Revelations about Himself and His Answers

Job’s ultimate desire is to hear the response of God about his questions of suffering. Finally, God answered him with an imposing from a whirlwind. God’s message to God was in two parts. The first one was a mere introduction of His message which is included in Job 38: 1-3, while the remaining part can be read from Job 38:4, Chapter 41. The second part included the questions God raised towards Job. God’s answer was overwhelming and contained impressions, questions, representations and challenges. 7 God discussed about elements of the design and structure of Creation. He talked about His roles as the Creator and Preserver of everything here on Earth. These statements of God made Job realize how poor his power was to understand things that were happening in his life. God made him realize that His insights and actions go beyond the capabilities and knowledge owned by Job. God’s speech was not merely intended to explain, justify or excuse himself; it was intended to challenge man to put his trust to God. 6

In Chapter 38-39, God had spoken and revealed Himself. In Job 38:2, God asked and referred to Elihu, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” In Job 38:4, God talked about the foundations of the Earth, the continental rocks, the globe’s surfaces and its central core. Job 38:8 talked about God’s speech about Him carefully balancing the planet’s land area and water. Job 38:9 depicted how God provided a greenhouse protective covering, the rings of water and the clouds during the Creation period. He then compared the world’s underground supply of water, depth of the oceans to the moral degradation of demise (Job 38: 16-17). God then talked about the snows and how it served as water reserves for the annual irrigation of the land. God also used these during the moments of battle and trouble just like in the flood that devastated Kishon during the battle of Barak and Deborah against Sisera (Job 38:22). In Job 38: 31, 32, God also spoke about how accurate the astronomical figures are. He described the stellar constellations including the Pleiades, Orion, Arcturus as well as the zodiac signs. Job 38:41 provided an explanation of the sustainability provided by God to the animals and how He balances the food chain. Job 39:1,2 also talked about the diversity on the periods of gestations in all faunas of the earth. God also spoke about the rich selection of plumage given to wild fowls in Job 39:13. The conclusion part was written in the fortieth chapter with God’s statement, “Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? He that reproveth God, let him answer it.” 8 God’s point in this statement is that Job should learn how to trust Him even more because He was able to take care of all the other elements existing in this world.

God rejected Job’s desire to let the darkness cover the earth because of his agony and suffering. God told him the He made night and day because every creature in this world needs light from the moon and stars. He rejected darkness because He was on the side of existence and He knows that light is an essential of life. God also talked about how the sea came from a womb and was given birth (Job 38:8) because He knows that the earthlings wound need it. God also questioned if the rain had a father and from whose womb the ice came from. He asked about it because He wanted to tell Job that He put limits on water because He never wants it to overtake and destroy the land. God was also referring to balance with His questions. When Job desired for death, God answered with a question that death is not ease, freedom and rest. He said that Death is something else and that Job had gone wrong. God is definitely a provider of life and that He rejects death as an option for a man’s freedom and ease. 5

Job’s Repentance

God’s exposition was enough for Job to understand that there were more than the things he knew about his life. Job answered yes to the question of servicing God for nothing. Job’s answer was yes because he believed that serving God should not be after His rewards, it should be built with a foundation of heart, loyalty and a desire for the presence of God in a man’s life. This presence can survive loss and chastity – darkness and hardness, which will later on result to love and light. 6

Reflections

The Book of Job provided a portrayal of God which can be hard for some readers. Some believe that the prologue portrayed a selfish, intervening at will in a man’s life, and arbitrary kind of God. On the other hand, the God of Job’s friends was described as too reacting based on a rigid system of retribution and reward and too mechanical. Likewise, Job’s God during his time of anguish was depicted as harassing humans, too violent and an anarchist. In Jobs 28, people’s commentary on the poet’s God was too inaccessible and remote. However, some commended the speeches of God. Victor Hugo said that if all literatures would be destroyed and he had to save one work, it would be Job. Some considered the Book as the greatest poem for both ancient and modern era of literature. Daniel Webster thought that the Book was a composition of a literary genius and that it is one of the most outstanding compositions written at any language for any age. 9

During moments of despair and suffering, people often question the happenings in their lives. People believe that God is a God of love and that He treats His creations right. People believe that God only wants health, prosperity and goodness for His people. However, in times of great pain, people tend to ask questions, How could God do this? Why is He inducing such pain? The exposition of God when Job kept on asking Him to answer his questions is a fact that God answers people’s prayers and that He is always around. He is definitely not a silent God (woods). A man’s relationship with God is possible with communication that is why it is always taught to the believers that they should always say their thoughts into prayers to reach God. When God asked Job about the existence of various animals, there are some of them which are not known by Job. God asked about this because He was pointing out that there are animals that may or may not matter to Job, but all of them mattered to Him. Likewise, it is a way of saying that there are sufferings that may not matter to man but it will always matter to God. In addition, since God talked about things that Job didn’t know, Job realized that he’s not worthy to question things because of his limited knowledge. God also talked about Job’s trying to question God’s goodness. God rebutted by saying that if Job questioned Him, then it must mean that he knows more about goodness compared to God.

All these statements from God prove that there are things in life that are beyond the human knowledge. These things may not be learned by a single creature in the span of his life therefore, it is only God who knows everything. Likewise, God’s concern about all the elements of life is evidence that He cares about all the creatures in the world – that God is fair and that He does not choose certain people to get sufferings or blessings in this life. When God talked about the beasts that were described similarly to a hippopotamus and crocodile means that this life is very unpredictable and that people are bound to face both predictable and unpredictable dangers. With this, it is always man’s choice to continue imagining dangers or believe that God is always in control.

All throughout their dialog, God never told Job about His plans of bringing His son Jesus to the world to let people understand about His love and Glory. Still, Job managed and chose to believe that God cares and that He is in control. Today, people have already read great stories and lessons from the Bible and knew about the purpose of the existence of Jesus Christ, and that is to redeem the world from sin. God sacrificed His own son Jesus Christ to take away the sufferings of men. However, men still chose to disbelieve and reject the love and capabilities of God. Likewise, the dialog did not include the answers to Job’s questions. God only talked about random aspects of His creations. But still, Job accepted and believed God. He did not blame God and continued the righteousness in His life. If Job knew the reasons, it would probably not change anything since everything had already occurred. This means to say that God does not want people to question Him because in Faith there is no questioning. He just wanted men to [3]move on and realize that people do not know everything about life and that answered questions would not change a thing about their existence.

The dialog of God with Job is a proof that God is not the reason of man’s suffering. God only talked about His creations and His actions but He never talked about His will to induce pain to humans. Thus, it should be said that men should not blame God for his sufferings. Also, God is suffering with men. God’s sufferings happened in the presence of Jesus. He took away His son Jesus and put his spirit upon men so that God could suffer with humans at the same time. Likewise, God has plans for men’s suffering. In the New Testament, He put Jesus Christ as a redeemer of men’s sins and He also talked about the revelations that await men in the future.

Reading the Book of Job may cause the reader to gain and perceive sixteen truths. 10 These truths include (1) People should not limit the capabilities of God to a predetermined notion of recompense or retribution theology, (2) sin may not always be the reason and cause of man’s suffering, (3) people who accept the false tenets about pain and suffering may cause them to put the blame on God, (4) a recompensive theology destroys the ways of God and make humans set their own standards and interpretations of the actions of God, (5) Satan enjoys the fact that people believe the wrong concept of suffering and use it against the righteousness of men, (6) a strong relationship with God is the only way to get justice from the evil’s injustice, (7) believers see life as God’s way of providing purpose, (8) people do not have all the knowledge in this world, (9) God has the wisdom that men do not have, (10) blessings from God are based on grace, (11) people can face sufferings with their faith, (12) God allows people to feel suffering, pain and even demise if these are for His own purpose, (13) prosperity theology is not included in God’s plan, (14) suffering has its own preventive reason, (15) the greatest saints and true Christians struggle with underserved pain and suffering, (16) suffering is designed to glorify God.

Bibliography

1 N. Wolterstoff. The Silence of God who Speaks. Philosophia. Vol. 30. 2003.

2 M. Grinber. The Book of Job: Approaches, Contexts and Readings. 2011

3 B.T. Arnold & B. Beyer. Encountering the Old Testament, A Christian Survey. 2 nd edition. 2008.

4 H.S. Kushner. When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Alfred A. Knopf Inc. 1981.

5 RBC Ministries. Knowing God Through Job. Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2002.

6 A.F. Badalamenti. Job’s Story and Family Health. Journal of Religion and Health. Vol. 48. 2009.

7 F. Johnson. A Phonological Existential Analysis to the Book of Job. Journal of Religion and Health. Vol. 44. 2005.

8 P.J. Pellach. The Suffering of Job: He is Every Person and No-One. Perspectives of Human Suffering. 2012

9 Mark A. Copeland. The Book of Job: Introduction to the Book. 2006

10 Larry J. Waters. Reflections on Suffering from the Book of Job. Dallas Theological Seminary. 1997

1 N. Wolterstoff. The Silence of God who Speaks. Philosophia. Vol. 30. 2003.

3 B.T. Arnold & B. Beyer. Encountering the Old Testament, A Christian Survey. 2 nd edition. 2008.

4 H.S. Kushner. When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Alfred A. Knopf Inc. 1981.

5 RBC Ministries. Knowing God Through Job. 16 July 2012. Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2002.

6 A.F. Badalamenti. Job’s Story and Family Health. Journal of Religion and Health. Vol. 48. 2009

9 M.A. Copeland. The Book of Job: Introduction to the Book. 16 July 2012. 2006

10 L.J. Waters. Reflections on Suffering From The Book of Job. 16 July 2012. Bibliotheca Sacra. 436-51. 1997

Stuck with your Research Paper?

Get in touch with one of our experts for instant help!

Wolfgang Keller, Case Study Example

Capital Punishment, Research Proposal Example

Time is precious

don’t waste it!

Plagiarism-free guarantee

Privacy guarantee

Secure checkout

Money back guarantee

Related Research Paper Samples & Examples

The risk of teenagers smoking, research paper example.

Pages: 11

Words: 3102

Impacts on Patients and Healthcare Workers in Canada, Research Paper Example

Pages: 7

Words: 1839

Death by Neurological Criteria, Research Paper Example

Words: 2028

Ethical Considerations in End-Of-Life Care, Research Paper Example

Pages: 5

Words: 1391

Ethical Dilemmas in Brain Death, Research Paper Example

Words: 2005

Politics of Difference and the Case of School Uniforms, Research Paper Example

Pages: 2

Words: 631

The Book of Job in the Bible Essay

Introduction, dialogue between god and satan, the debate in covered in the book of job, significance of god’s speech.

Job is one of the Old Testament books in the Bible. It utilizes a combination of poetry and prose to explore themes of individual suffering and God’ justice. The main character in the book is Job, a staunch believer who loses wealth, friends, and succumbs to severe pain and suffering. He undergoes a dramatic transformation from wealth to poverty. Despite the loss, he does not lose his faith and continues to believe in God. Throughout the book, Job reiterates his innocence and rejects the argument that suffering is caused by sin. He is humble and faithful to God. However, his humility and faithfulness are tested when he loses his wealth and succumbs to suffering. The dialogue between Job and his three friends constitutes the greater portion of the book and covers 28 chapters (from chapter 3 to chapter 31). In the argument, Job’s self-defense, lamentation, and questions are responded to by a speech from God in a whirlwind.

The book of Job begins with a dialogue between God and Satan. Satan is asking permission from God to test Job’s faith. God validates Job’s righteousness by describing him as a righteous servant who is faithful and avoids evil. God challenges Satan by asking whether he has tested the faith of Job in the past. Satan responds by presenting a counterchallenge. He claims that Job will curse and stop believing in him if his wealth is taken away. God responds by telling him that Job’s wealth is under his power and he can do whatever he wants. As such, Satan is granted permission to test Job’s faith. However, God warns him not to touch his soul. He wants to prove to God that Job’s faith is weak and will vanish if he experiences suffering and pain. After being granted permission, Satan walks away from God’s presence.

The debate covered in the book focuses mainly on personal suffering and God’s justice in relation to Job’s life. These themes emerge in the debate that ensues between Job and his three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) who visit to comfort him. The debate starts when Job attributes his suffering to God’s injustice and unfairness. The friends are surprised because of his attitude. Traditionally, people suffer because of their sins.

However, Job does not agree with the proposition. His friends advise him to search his conscience to uncover sins he committed to warrant God’s punishment. However, Job declines their advice because he opposes the claim that suffering emanates from sin. He maintains that he is innocent. He accuses God of injustice and argues that he does not deserve to suffer because he is humble, patient, and faithful. Job argues that his suffering is more than he can handle because his friends have abandoned him and God is taking pleasure in his pain and suffering. He prefers death other than a life of misery, pain, and suffering. Job curses life and wishes that he had died the moment he was born.

Eliphaz tells Job that God does not punish righteous people. He argues that Job is wicked and deserves to suffer as a form of punishment. He accuses him of impatience because he accuses God without finding reasons for his suffering. He maintains that Job’s suffering is characteristic of what befalls wicked people who offend God. Eliphaz tries to console him by telling him that nobody is just before God and he thus deserves to suffer. He advises Job to turn to God for help because no one else is available to help him. Job responds and claims that his friends have betrayed him by abandoning him because of his suffering. He accuses God of injustice and wishes that his life would go back to normal. He tells Eliphaz that he is justified to complain because he does not deserve to suffer.

Zophar accuses Job of wickedness and advises him to repent in order to mitigate his suffering. He tells Job that people portray either submissiveness or arrogance before God. He says that Job is arrogant and thus deserves punishment. He tells the job that God’s wisdom cannot be quantified or measured. He says that to show Job that his suffering is proof enough that he has committed sin. He maintains that sinners are rewarded by suffering.

He advises Job to repent in order to reestablish his relationship with God. Job responds by claiming that many other people are suffering and he is not the only one. He pleads with God to come to his aid and have mercy on him. In addition, he rejects the idea of life after death even though he is aware that God controls everything that exists. He rejects Zophar’s arguments and tries to reach out directly to God.

Bildad reiterates Zophar’s accusations by stating that Job is guilty of injustice against God and that is why he is suffering. He reprimands Job for lamenting because he believes that God is just and fair and does not punish good people. He tells Job that God does not make exceptions when punishing wicked people. Therefore, he should not expect God to have mercy on him because suffering is a reward for sin.

He tells Job that God punishes people who argue against him. Zophar states that God’s fairness was the reason why he is suffering because he cannot be exempted from punishment. Job responds by blaming God for his suffering. He is convinced that God has refused to give him reasons for his suffering because it is without reason. He states that he needs a mediator in order to reach God. However, after failing to get one, he begs for mercy and forgiveness from God.

The three friends maintain that God is just and does not punish the righteous, and uses suffering as a way of reminding people to repent. However, Job does not agree with their arguments. He maintains that he is innocent and God is unjust. In his misery and desperation, Job demands an explanation from God for his great suffering. In response, God answers him in a speech through a whirlwind.

In the debate, God’s speech is significant for the position takes by Job because of several reasons. First, it teaches that people should avoid accusing God of injustice and unfairness. God works in his own ways and people should not question them. Job’s suffering was a test of faith and patience. However, he chose to blame and accuse God of injustice. God’s speech proves that he cares for everyone despite the presence of pain and suffering in life. Third, God’s speech is relevant for Job’s position because it reveals God’s mysterious ways, which humans cannot understand. Instead of accepting God’s mysterious ways, Job decides to accuse God.

God’s speech contradicts the stand taken by Job’s friends. They argue that Job is suffering because he has committed sin. However, Job’s suffering is not because of wickedness but God’s will. According to the speech, he is suffering because God is exercising his power and has good reasons for allowing it. Moreover, God does not bring suffering upon Job as a sign of the d for repentance as the three friends claim. With regard to the stand taken by Job’s friends, God’s speech shows that human beings do not understand why God allows some things to happen to people. In addition, they ignore God’s power and control over creation.

The debate presented in the book of Job between Job and his friends focuses on suffering and God’s justice. The debate ensues after job accuses God of bringing suffering and pain upon him despite his innocence. Job argues that God is unjust because he lets him suffer without a proper reason. He accuses God of injustice and unfairness. On their part, Job’s friends maintain that God is just and does not punish righteous people. As such, they maintain that job’s suffering is as a result of his wickedness hence need for repentance.

In his speech that is a response to Job’s complaints, God reveals that he is ruler over all creation and his power surpasses that of all creatures. On the other hand, the speech is relevant to the stand taken by Job’s friends because it shows a lack of understanding of God’s power. They think that Job’s suffering is God’s wrath for his wickedness. The speech reiterates God’s power over creation, and his mysterious ways of doing things.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2020, July 6). The Book of Job in the Bible. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-book-of-job-in-the-bible/

"The Book of Job in the Bible." IvyPanda , 6 July 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/the-book-of-job-in-the-bible/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'The Book of Job in the Bible'. 6 July.

IvyPanda . 2020. "The Book of Job in the Bible." July 6, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-book-of-job-in-the-bible/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Book of Job in the Bible." July 6, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-book-of-job-in-the-bible/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Book of Job in the Bible." July 6, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-book-of-job-in-the-bible/.

Job's Friends and Their Contributions to the Message of Job
Religious Studies: the Book of Job
The Christian Crusades: The Barbarism and Wickedness of Crusaders
Satan in the Holy Quran and the Bible
The Fall of Satan - A Theological Study
Satan in John Milton’s and Dante’s Works
What is meant by “wicked problems of design”?
Satan in Dante's "Devine Comedy" and Milton's "Paradise Lost"
Satan’s Comparison in Dante and Milton’s Poems
“The Mysterious Stranger” by Mark Twain
Religious Teachings of Buddhist Doctrine
Religious Teachings: Jainism vs. Buddhism and Hinduism
The Acts and the Gospel According to Paul
Religious Studies of Prayer: The Books of Luke and Acts
Luke-Acts Theological Content

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser .

We're Hiring!
Help Center

the Book of Job

Most Cited Papers
Most Downloaded Papers
Newest Papers
Save to Library
Last »
Book of Job Follow Following
Biblical and Neo Babylonian Law Follow Following
Wisdom Literature Follow Following
Temple Theology Follow Following
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Follow Following
Biblical Studies Follow Following
Law, Religion and Violence Follow Following
Pentateuchal Studies, Comparative ANE Law Follow Following
Monotheism Follow Following
Biblical Wisdom literature Follow Following

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

Academia.edu Publishing
We're Hiring!
Help Center
Find new research papers in:
Health Sciences
Earth Sciences
Cognitive Science
Mathematics
Computer Science
Academia ©2024

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

View all journals
Explore content
About the journal
Publish with us
Sign up for alerts
NATURE INDEX
20 March 2024

Is AI ready to mass-produce lay summaries of research articles?

Kamal Nahas 0

Kamal Nahas is a freelance science journalist based in Oxford, UK

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

AI chatbot use showing a tablet screen with language bubbles on top of it.

Generative AI might be a powerful tool in making research more accessible for scientists and the broader public alike. Credit: Getty

Thinking back to the early days of her PhD programme, Esther Osarfo-Mensah recalls struggling to keep up with the literature. “Sometimes, the wording or the way the information is presented actually makes it quite a task to get through a paper,” says the biophysicist at University College London. Lay summaries could be a time-saving solution. Short synopses of research articles written in plain language could help readers to decide which papers to focus on — but they aren’t common in scientific publishing. Now, the buzz around artificial intelligence (AI) has pushed software engineers to develop platforms that can mass produce these synopses.

Scientists are drawn to AI tools because they excel at crafting text in accessible language, and they might even produce clearer lay summaries than those written by people. A study 1 released last year looked at lay summaries published in one journal and found that those created by people were less readable than were the original abstracts — potentially because some researchers struggle to replace jargon with plain language or to decide which facts to include when condensing the information into a few lines.

AI lay-summary platforms come in a variety of forms (see ‘AI lay-summary tools’). Some allow researchers to import a paper and generate a summary; others are built into web servers, such as the bioRxiv preprint database.

AI lay-summary tools

Several AI resources have been developed to help readers glean information about research articles quickly. They offer different perks. Here are a few examples and how they work:

- SciSummary: This tool parses the sections of a paper to extract the key points and then runs those through the general-purpose large language model GPT-3.5 to transform them into a short summary written in plain language. Max Heckel, the tool’s founder, says it incorporates multimedia into the summary, too: “If it determines that a particular section of the summary is relevant to a figure or table, it will actually show that table or figure in line.”

- Scholarcy: This technology takes a different approach. Its founder, Phil Gooch, based in London, says the tool was trained on 25,000 papers to identify sentences containing verb phrases such as “has been shown to” that often carry key information about the study. It then uses a mixture of custom and open-source large language models to paraphrase those sentences in plain text. “You can actually create ten different types of summaries,” he adds, including one that lays out how the paper is related to previous publications.

- SciSpace: This tool was trained on a repository of more than 280 million data sets, including papers that people had manually annotated, to extract key information from articles. It uses a mixture of proprietary fine-tuned models and GPT-3.5 to craft the summary, says the company’s chief executive, Saikiran Chandha, based in San Francisco, California. “A user can ask questions on top of these summaries to further dig into the paper,” he notes, adding that the company plans to develop audio summaries that people can tune into on the go.

Benefits and drawbacks

Mass-produced lay summaries could yield a trove of benefits. Beyond helping scientists to speed-read the literature, the synopses can be disseminated to people with different levels of expertise, including members of the public. Osarfo-Mensah adds that AI summaries might also aid people who struggle with English. “Some people hide behind jargon because they don’t necessarily feel comfortable trying to explain it,” she says, but AI could help them to rework technical phrases. Max Heckel is the founder of SciSummary, a company in Columbus, Ohio, that offers a tool that allows users to import a paper to be summarized. The tool can also translate summaries into other languages, and is gaining popularity in Indonesia and Turkey, he says, arguing that it could topple language barriers and make science more accessible.

Despite these strides, some scientists feel that improvements are needed before we can rely on AI to describe studies accurately.

Will Ratcliff, an evolutionary biologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, argues that no tool can produce better text than can professional writers. Although researchers have different writing abilities, he invariably prefers reading scientific material produced by study authors over those generated by AI. “I like to see what the authors wrote. They put craft into it, and I find their abstract to be more informative,” he says.

Is ChatGPT making scientists hyper-productive? The highs and lows of using AI

Nana Mensah, a PhD student in computational biology at the Francis Crick Institute in London, adds that, unlike AI, people tend to craft a narrative when writing lay summaries, helping readers to understand the motivations behind each step of the study. He says, however, that one advantage of AI platforms is that they can write summaries at different reading levels, potentially broadening the audience. In his experience, however, these synopses might still include jargon that can confuse readers without specialist knowledge.

AI tools might even struggle to turn technical language into lay versions at all. Osarfo-Mensah works in biophysics, a field with many intricate parameters and equations. She found that an AI summary of one of her research articles excluded information from a whole section. If researchers were looking for a paper with those details and consulted the AI summary, they might abandon her paper and look for other work.

Andy Shepherd, scientific director at global technology company Envision Pharma Group in Horsham, UK, has in his spare time compared the performances of several AI tools to see how often they introduce blunders. He used eight text generators, including general ones and some that had been optimized to produce lay summaries. He then asked people with different backgrounds, such as health-care professionals and the public, to assess how clear, readable and useful lay summaries were for two papers.

“All of the platforms produced something that was coherent and read like a reasonable study, but a few of them introduced errors, and two of them actively reversed the conclusion of the paper,” he says. It’s easy for AI tools to make this mistake by, for instance, omitting the word ‘not’ in a sentence, he explains. Ratcliff cautions that AI summaries should be viewed as a tool’s “best guess” of what a paper is about, stressing that it can’t check facts.

Broader readership

The risk of AI summaries introducing errors is one concern among many. Another is that one benefit of such summaries — that they can help to share research more widely among the public — could also have drawbacks. The AI summaries posted alongside bioRxiv preprints, research articles that have yet to undergo peer review, are tailored to different levels of reader expertise, including that of the public. Osarfo-Mensah supports the effort to widen the reach of these works. “The public should feel more involved in science and feel like they have a stake in it, because at the end of the day, science isn’t done in a vacuum,” she says.

But others point out that this comes with the risk of making unreviewed and inaccurate research more accessible. Mensah says that academics “will be able to treat the article with the sort of caution that’s required”, but he isn’t sure that members of the public will always understand when a summary refers to unreviewed work. Lay summaries of preprints should come with a “hazard warning” informing the reader upfront that the material has yet to be reviewed, says Shepherd.

Why scientists trust AI too much — and what to do about it

“We agree entirely that preprints must be understood as not peer-reviewed when posted,” says John Inglis, co-founder of bioRxiv, who is based at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. He notes that such a disclaimer can be found on the homepage of each preprint, and if a member of the public navigates to a preprint through a web search, they are first directed to the homepage displaying this disclaimer before they can access the summary. But the warning labels are not integrated into the summaries, so there is a risk that these could be shared on social media without the disclaimer. Inglis says bioRxiv is working with its partner ScienceCast, whose technology produces the synopses, on adding a note to each summary to negate this risk.

As is the case for many other nascent generative-AI technologies, humans are still working out the messaging that might be needed to ensure users are given adequate context. But if AI lay-summary tools can successfully mitigate these and other challenges, they might become a staple of scientific publishing.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00865-4

Wen, J. & Yi, L. Scientometrics 128 , 5791–5800 (2023).

Article Google Scholar

Download references

How research managers are using AI to get ahead

Peer review
Research management

Peer-replication model aims to address science’s ‘reproducibility crisis’

Nature Index 13 MAR 24

Submitting papers to several journals at once

Correspondence 28 NOV 23

What reproducibility crisis? New research protocol yields ultra-high replication rate

News 09 NOV 23

Numbers highlight US dominance in clinical research

Embrace AI to break down barriers in publishing for people who aren’t fluent in English

Correspondence 12 MAR 24

Is the Mars rover’s rock collection worth $11 billion?

News 19 MAR 24

People, passion, publishable: an early-career researcher’s checklist for prioritizing projects

Career Column 15 MAR 24

Postdoctoral Associate

Our laboratory at the Washington University in St. Louis is seeking a postdoctoral experimental biologist to study urogenital diseases and cancer.

Saint Louis, Missouri

Washington University School of Medicine Department of Medicine

Recruitment of Global Talent at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOZ, CAS)

The Institute of Zoology (IOZ), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), is seeking global talents around the world.

Beijing, China

Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOZ, CAS)

Postdoctoral Fellow-Proteomics/Mass Spectrometry

Location: Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA, USA Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Tulane University School of Med...

New Orleans, Louisiana

Tulane University School of Medicine (SOM)

Open Faculty Position in Mathematical and Information Security

We are now seeking outstanding candidates in all areas of mathematics and information security.

Dongguan, Guangdong, China

GREAT BAY INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY： Institute of Mathematical and Information Security

Faculty Positions in Bioscience and Biomedical Engineering (BSBE) Thrust, Systems Hub, HKUST (GZ)

Tenure-track and tenured faculty positions at all ranks (Assistant Professor/Associate Professor/Professor)

The university is situated in the heart of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, a highly active and vibrant region in the world.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)

Quick links

Explore articles by subject
Guide to authors
Editorial policies

For IEEE Members

Ieee spectrum, follow ieee spectrum, support ieee spectrum, enjoy more free content and benefits by creating an account, saving articles to read later requires an ieee spectrum account, the institute content is only available for members, downloading full pdf issues is exclusive for ieee members, downloading this e-book is exclusive for ieee members, access to spectrum 's digital edition is exclusive for ieee members, following topics is a feature exclusive for ieee members, adding your response to an article requires an ieee spectrum account, create an account to access more content and features on ieee spectrum , including the ability to save articles to read later, download spectrum collections, and participate in conversations with readers and editors. for more exclusive content and features, consider joining ieee ., join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to all of spectrum’s articles, archives, pdf downloads, and other benefits. learn more →, join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to this e-book plus all of ieee spectrum’s articles, archives, pdf downloads, and other benefits. learn more →, access thousands of articles — completely free, create an account and get exclusive content and features: save articles, download collections, and talk to tech insiders — all free for full access and benefits, join ieee as a paying member., ai prompt engineering is dead, long live ai prompt engineering.

man in blue shirt and briefcase walking away from camera in a environment with lines and circles connected together to look like a computer system

Since ChatGPT dropped in the fall of 2022, everyone and their donkey has tried their hand at prompt engineering —finding a clever way to phrase your query to a large language model (LLM) or AI art or video generator to get the best results or sidestep protections . The Internet is replete with prompt-engineering guides , cheat sheets , and advice threads to help you get the most out of an LLM.

In the commercial sector, companies are now wrangling LLMs to build product copilots , automate tedious work , create personal assistants , and more, says Austin Henley, a former Microsoft employee who conducted a series of interviews with people developing LLM-powered copilots. “Every business is trying to use it for virtually every use case that they can imagine,” Henley says.

“The only real trend may be no trend. What’s best for any given model, dataset, and prompting strategy is likely to be specific to the particular combination at hand.” —Rick Battle & Teja Gollapudi, VMware

To do so, they’ve enlisted the help of prompt engineers professionally.

However, new research suggests that prompt engineering is best done by the model itself, and not by a human engineer. This has cast doubt on prompt engineering’s future—and increased suspicions that a fair portion of prompt-engineering jobs may be a passing fad, at least as the field is currently imagined.

Autotuned prompts are successful and strange

Rick Battle and Teja Gollapudi at California-based cloud computing company VMware were perplexed by how finicky and unpredictable LLM performance was in response to weird prompting techniques. For example, people have found that asking models to explain its reasoning step-by-step—a technique called chain-of-thought —improved their performance on a range of math and logic questions. Even weirder, Battle found that giving a model positive prompts, such as “this will be fun” or “you are as smart as chatGPT,” sometimes improved performance.

Battle and Gollapudi decided to systematically test how different prompt-engineering strategies impact an LLM’s ability to solve grade-school math questions. They tested three different open-source language models with 60 different prompt combinations each. What they found was a surprising lack of consistency. Even chain-of-thought prompting sometimes helped and other times hurt performance. “The only real trend may be no trend,” they write. “What’s best for any given model, dataset, and prompting strategy is likely to be specific to the particular combination at hand.”

According to one research team, no human should manually optimize prompts ever again.

There is an alternative to the trial-and-error-style prompt engineering that yielded such inconsistent results: Ask the language model to devise its own optimal prompt. Recently, new tools have been developed to automate this process. Given a few examples and a quantitative success metric, these tools will iteratively find the optimal phrase to feed into the LLM. Battle and his collaborators found that in almost every case, this automatically generated prompt did better than the best prompt found through trial-and-error. And, the process was much faster, a couple of hours rather than several days of searching.

The optimal prompts the algorithm spit out were so bizarre, no human is likely to have ever come up with them. “I literally could not believe some of the stuff that it generated,” Battle says. In one instance, the prompt was just an extended Star Trek reference: “Command, we need you to plot a course through this turbulence and locate the source of the anomaly. Use all available data and your expertise to guide us through this challenging situation.” Apparently, thinking it was Captain Kirk helped this particular LLM do better on grade-school math questions.

Battle says that optimizing the prompts algorithmically fundamentally makes sense given what language models really are—models. “A lot of people anthropomorphize these things because they ‘speak English.’ No, they don’t,” Battle says. “It doesn’t speak English. It does a lot of math.”

In fact, in light of his team’s results, Battle says no human should manually optimize prompts ever again.

“You’re just sitting there trying to figure out what special magic combination of words will give you the best possible performance for your task,” Battle says, “But that’s where hopefully this research will come in and say ‘don’t bother.’ Just develop a scoring metric so that the system itself can tell whether one prompt is better than another, and then just let the model optimize itself.”

Autotuned prompts make pictures prettier, too

Image-generation algorithms can benefit from automatically generated prompts as well. Recently, a team at Intel labs , led by Vasudev Lal , set out on a similar quest to optimize prompts for the image-generation model Stable Diffusion . “It seems more like a bug of LLMs and diffusion models, not a feature, that you have to do this expert prompt engineering,” Lal says. “So, we wanted to see if we can automate this kind of prompt engineering.”

“Now we have this full machinery, the full loop that’s completed with this reinforcement learning.… This is why we are able to outperform human prompt engineering.” —Vasudev Lal, Intel Labs

Lal’s team created a tool called NeuroPrompts that takes a simple input prompt, such as “boy on a horse,” and automatically enhances it to produce a better picture. To do this, they started with a range of prompts generated by human prompt-engineering experts. They then trained a language model to transform simple prompts into these expert-level prompts. On top of that, they used reinforcement learning to optimize these prompts to create more aesthetically pleasing images, as rated by yet another machine-learning model, PickScore , a recently developed image-evaluation tool.

Here too, the automatically generated prompts did better than the expert-human prompts they used as a starting point, at least according to the PickScore metric. Lal found this unsurprising. “Humans will only do it with trial and error,” Lal says. “But now we have this full machinery, the full loop that’s completed with this reinforcement learning.… This is why we are able to outperform human prompt engineering.”

Since aesthetic quality is infamously subjective, Lal and his team wanted to give the user some control over how the prompt was optimized. In their tool , the user can specify the original prompt (say, “boy on a horse”) as well as an artist to emulate, a style, a format, and other modifiers.

Lal believes that as generative AI models evolve, be it image generators or large language models, the weird quirks of prompt dependence should go away. “I think it’s important that these kinds of optimizations are investigated and then ultimately, they’re really incorporated into the base model itself so that you don’t really need a complicated prompt-engineering step.”

Prompt engineering will live on, by some name

Even if autotuning prompts becomes the industry norm, prompt-engineering jobs in some form are not going away, says Tim Cramer , senior vice president of software engineering at Red Hat . Adapting generative AI for industry needs is a complicated, multistage endeavor that will continue requiring humans in the loop for the foreseeable future.

“Maybe we’re calling them prompt engineers today. But I think the nature of that interaction will just keep on changing as AI models also keep changing.” —Vasudev Lal, Intel Labs

“I think there are going to be prompt engineers for quite some time, and data scientists,” Cramer says. “It’s not just asking questions of the LLM and making sure that the answer looks good. But there’s a raft of things that prompt engineers really need to be able to do.”

“It’s very easy to make a prototype,” Henley says. “It’s very hard to production-ize it.” Prompt engineering seems like a big piece of the puzzle when you’re building a prototype, Henley says, but many other considerations come into play when you’re making a commercial-grade product.

Challenges of making a commercial product include ensuring reliability—for example, failing gracefully when the model goes offline; adapting the model’s output to the appropriate format, since many use cases require outputs other than text; testing to make sure the AI assistant won’t do something harmful in even a small number of cases; and ensuring safety, privacy, and compliance. Testing and compliance are particularly difficult, Henley says, as traditional software-development testing strategies are maladapted for nondeterministic LLMs.

To fulfill these myriad tasks, many large companies are heralding a new job title: Large Language Model Operations, or LLMOps, which includes prompt engineering in its life cycle but also entails all the other tasks needed to deploy the product. Henley says LLMOps’ predecessors, machine learning operations (MLOps) engineers, are best positioned to take on these jobs.

Whether the job titles will be “prompt engineer,” “LLMOps engineer,” or something new entirely, the nature of the job will continue evolving quickly. “Maybe we’re calling them prompt engineers today,” Lal says, “But I think the nature of that interaction will just keep on changing as AI models also keep changing.”

“I don’t know if we’re going to combine it with another sort of job category or job role,” Cramer says, “But I don’t think that these things are going to be going away anytime soon. And the landscape is just too crazy right now. Everything’s changing so much. We’re not going to figure it all out in a few months.”

Henley says that, to some extent in this early phase of the field, the only overriding rule seems to be the absence of rules. “It’s kind of the Wild, Wild West for this right now.” he says.

How Coders Can Survive—and Thrive—in a ChatGPT World ›
Why OpenAI’s Codex Won’t Replace Coders ›
Prompt engineering - Wikipedia ›
Prompt engineering - OpenAI API ›

Dina Genkina is an associate editor at IEEE Spectrum focused on computing and hardware. She holds a PhD in atomic physics and lives in Brooklyn.

It is easy to optimize something when you know WHAT you are optimizing and what your final (correct) state might be. But, that is only a small part of what prompt engineering is about. The greater challenge (which has yet to be optimized!) is knowing what questions to ask, understanding what matters, and having a clear sense of what might be a correct end-state. That is easy to do with math problems. Much harder in the real-world! This analogy might help: just because a camera can auto-focus, doesn't mean photographers are out of work!

As prompt engineering increasingly relies on LLMs, it is worthwhile to note that some automatic prompt tuning methods, such as AutoPrompt (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.03099.pdf), achieve interpretable prompts by utilizing a synthetic benchmark of edge cases. These cases help to explain the reasoning and effectiveness behind certain prompts.

A) Whatever it is, it isn't engineering.

B) IEEE members should know better.

We Need to Decarbonize Software

Exosuit muscle control steps closer to reality, video friday: project gr00t, related stories, ai takes on india’s most congested city, nvidia unveils blackwell, its next gpu, why are large ai models being red teamed.

IMAGES

The Book of Job Essay Example
🌱 The book of job summary and analysis. Summary of the Book of Job
️ Research papers on job satisfaction. Research Paper About Job
Book of Job
How to write a research paper on a career
The Book Of Job • The Sacred Books (English) • Jazzybee VerlagJazzybee

VIDEO

Research Paper Writing online Workshop
Top Tips for Writing Scientific Papers High Impact Journals
Can You Write & Submit 5 Papers In 5 Months?
How to Write a Research Paper Publication
Muthoot Microfinance Ltd New Vacancy 2024🔥|| Only Office Job || Salary
शुभ लक्ष्मी Finance Ltd Vacancy 2024🔥 || Only Office Job || Salary

COMMENTS

THE MEANING OF THE BOOK OF JOB* opening of the Book of Job is a ...
book is referred to S. R. Driver and G. B. Gray, The Book of Job (1921, and reprints), LXXV1II+376+360 pages. (The commentary of M. Pope did not reach me in time to make use of in this paper.) A detailed and excellent survey on Job research between ca.ca. 1921 and 1953 is given by Kuhl 1953 and Kuhl 1954.
(PDF) The social context of the Book of Job
The social context of the Book of Job Although much has been written about the Book of Job, no consensus exists among scholars with regard to issues such as the dating and origins of this book. In ...
Communicating the Book of Job in the Twenty-First Century
This wisdom text has always been a dificult book to interpret, and to complicate matters it is increasingly counter to the assumptions and values of the contemporary culture. This article proposes six strategies for the efective communication of Job in the twenty-first century. ******* Although Job is one of the longer books in the Bible, in ...
The Book of Job and the Role of Uncertainty in Religion and Law
The Book of Job has also occasioned a good deal of commentary in the Christian tradition. G.K. Chesterton, for example, in a famous essay, praises the Book because in it God routs the human skeptics by propounding a higher skepticism. Chesterton suggests that Job's wounds prefigure those of Jesus and lead us toward the new hope that Jesus ...
Does the Book of Job Suggest That Suffering is Not a Problem?
The exegesis of the Book of Job has vexed people for epochs and it grasps the depths of human despair, the anger of moral outrage, and the anguish of a felt desertion by God on the part of the protagonist. From one man's agony it reaches out to the mystery of God, beyond all words and explanations.
The Book of Job and Pastoral Intervention in Crisis
This article uses the Book of Job as a starting point for guidelines on how to help people traumatized by various crises find purpose and meaning in life without imposition of pre-judged solutions. Using a loose analogy between a theological discussion in the biblical book and the modern theories of existential psychotherapy, it makes a point of showing how both methods may fail if they are ...
(PDF) The Authors of the Book of Job and the Problem of their
This is consistent with modern assessments of Job [5, 6, 7,8]. Joshua was Moses' successor and right-hand man [2], and his book is considered as chronologically close to the Pentateuch and ...
THE BOOK OF JOB AND ITS MODERN INTERPRETERS1
Now the general structure of the Book of Job can be stated simply enough. There are four sections : first (and also last), the prologue and epilogue, which have similar style and material; second, the conversation of Job with his friends ; third, the speech of Elihu ; and, fourth, the speech of God. Now a little more detail about each.
13 The Book of Job
In any discussion of Bible and ecology, the Book of Job has a vital part to play. In particular, the whirlwind speeches at the end of the book (Job 38-41) constitute an essential voice in the discussion. At first reading, God's speeches from the whirlwind seem to have little to do with the rest of the book, which has been chiefly concerned with undeserved suffering and divine justice.
The Book of Job as a Resource for Counseling
The book of Job is commonly considered an exemplary study in the dynamics of suffering and the problem of theodicy. This article considers the book of Job for its insights into the challenge of providing pastoral care to persons in spiritual pain. The dialog between Job and his friends illustrates how spiritual distress challenges the theological assumptions of both sufferer and caregiver.
Understanding the Book of Job
"The Book of Job: Introduction and Exegesis," The Interpreter's Bible, III, 877 - 1198. Google Scholar Williams, B. J. "Theodicy in the Ancient Near East," Canadian Journal of Theology, II ( 1956 ), 14 - 26 .
The Book of Job
This masterpiece is written in a poetic style. It is also considered as the first of five poetic books of the Old Testament. These include Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Psalms and Job. Moreover, Paul (Ro 11:35) and James (Jm 5:10-11) have referred to it in the New Testament as an inspiration for patience.
(PDF) The relevance of the book of Job in the making of the believing
Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. The relevance of the book of Job in the making of the believing subject ... (Ricoeur, 1967), Job's problem is that God has become too close to mankind. The book of Job presents the problem of the just sufferer, that is, of an evil too big to be justified as retribution. This ...
The Book of Job Critical Essays
Critics divide The Book of Job into three sections: a prose prologue (1:1-2:13), a poetic dialogue (3:1-42:6), and a prose epilogue (42:7-17). The prologue provides an idyllic picture of a semi ...
(PDF) The Book of Job as a Thought Experiment: On ...
Abstract. This paper presents a philosophical critique of the proposal that the Book of Job is a theological thought experiment about divine providence. Eight possible objections are entertained ...
The Book of Job
There is an incredible amount of information written within the Book of Job, so the whole book is too long to write every verse in full, so the authors will give scripture references and leave the detailed study to you. The Book of Job has been so designated because of its principal character, Job. In the Hebrew canon it stands among the Hagiographa or Holy Writings.
The Mystery of Human Suffering; a Critical Study of The Book of Job Vis
Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. ... THE CONCEPT OF HUMAN SUUFERING IN THE BOOK OF JOB 2.0 Introduction In all Biblical wisdom literature the book Job is quite unique because of its very unusual form of Hebrew with very unique Hebrew words not found anywhere else in the Bible, it combines a philosophical and ...
The Book of Job, Research Paper Example
A Phonological Existential Analysis to the Book of Job. Journal of Religion and Health. Vol. 44. 2005. 8 P.J. Pellach. The Suffering of Job: He is Every Person and No-One. Perspectives of Human Suffering. 2012. 9 Mark A. Copeland. The Book of Job: Introduction to the Book. 2006. 10 Larry J. Waters. Reflections on Suffering from the Book of Job.
Research Paper: The Message of Job (Wisdom Literature)
The book of Job encourages the suffering person to be still in the mystery of God's ways, yes, the mystery of his wisdom (Longman, 36). We must wrestle with the darkness of reality but still dig ...
The Book of Job in the Bible
Job is one of the Old Testament books in the Bible. It utilizes a combination of poetry and prose to explore themes of individual suffering and God' justice. The main character in the book is Job, a staunch believer who loses wealth, friends, and succumbs to severe pain and suffering. He undergoes a dramatic transformation from wealth to poverty.
Research Paper On The Book Of Job
The book of Job deals with the issue of suffering and God 's position in the matter. Being a rich farmer, as Job was, would allow us to assume that he was a hard working man that was provided for and was in need of nothing. Job's story is a testament to faith in God when things are no longer in one's own favor.
Book Of Job Essays: Examples, Topics, & Outlines
Book of Job - Biblical Allegory Job's. Job's tale is one of the most accessible Biblical allegories. An honorable, just, pious man loses everything: his ten children, his wife, his entire estate, and on top of it all is inflicted with a horrendous skin disease that leaves him crippled. All this was done as a challenge and a test of his faith.
the Book of Job Research Papers
View the Book of Job Research Papers on Academia.edu for free.
Is AI ready to mass-produce lay summaries of research articles?
A surge in tools that generate text is allowing research papers to be summarized for a broad audience, and in any language. But scientists caution that major challenges remain.
AI Prompt Engineering Is Dead
Close Access Thousands of Articles — Completely Free Create an account and get exclusive content and features: Save articles, download collections, and talk to tech insiders — all free! For ...