Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 19:13:46 -0800
From: Chance
To: Dr. Robert Sheldon 
Subject: RE: Achieving understanding...

That is an excellent analogy to the Book of Job.  I see the Book of Job as
purely interpretative in nature.  Some could see the if you hold out long
enough it is bound to pay off and others may see it as faith above all.  The
reason I have been asking you these questions is to get another point of
view for a project at school.  The question posed to me is as follows:

In Oedipus Rex and Job there is a search for understanding.  How do Oedipus
and Job achieve understanding (if they do) and what is it?

I have been asking different people to see if I am missing anything in my
interpretation of the book.

Thank you


-----Original Message-----
From:	Dr. Robert Sheldon
Sent:	Saturday, March 06, 1999 9:34 AM
To:	Chance
Subject:	Achieving understanding...

Dear Chance,
 I don't know if this is a question I can answer. I need to understand
what you mean by "achieve understanding". I'll try a stab at it, but I
may miss the mark.
 If by "understanding" you mean a rational, cognizent, intellectual
*reason*, then I'm afraid you will be disappointed. The book was not
written in poetry by accident. This rational approach has been
particularly frustrating for modern scholars and Bible expositors. If you
read my chapter on Existentialism, you will see that long books have been
written on the "irrationality" of the book of Job, which is to say, modern
expositors have despaired of finding "the reason".
  On the other hand, if by understanding you mean an inner peace, a
comforted heart, a satisfied spirit, then I can try to answer how Job
found that. Unfortunately this delves into aspects of human experience
that are far harder to convey in print than "reasons". You might
understand it better if I sang it for you, or acted it out for you, or
recited a poem for you. In all these methods, I would be attempting to
draw out of your experience a gut reaction that spoke directly to the
heart. I tell my girls that if a boy gets fresh with them, their best
response is a hard slap on the face. There's nothing like pain to cut
through the irrationality of teenage hormones. But to reason with the boy
would be a waste of breath. That's the message of the book of Job. And
that is my challenge in writing on it.
  Warm regards,
  Rob Sheldon

On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Chance wrote:

> The only question I have is How did Job achieve understanding and what was
> it?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Dr. Robert Sheldon 
> Sent:	Friday, March 05, 1999 7:48 PM
> To:	Chance
>
> Certainly,
>  I take full responsibility for the WWW pages that were begun 2 years
> ago, which is not to say that I can answer every question.
>
> I think I got the server back online, by deleting the server
> software and reinstalling it. So you might try out the more recent
> version at:
>     http://cspar181.uah.edu/RbS/JOB/job.html
>
> - regards,
>   RbS
>
> On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Chance wrote:
>
> > Would it be ok for me to direct any Book of Job questions to you?
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:	Dr. Robert Sheldon 
> > Sent:	Friday, March 05, 1999 6:34 PM
> > To:	Chance
> >
> > Yes, sort of,
> >  We had a power outage on Monday which took the server down.
> > I am still trying to diagnose the error messages from the
> > server software. You might try
> >    http://buspace.bu.edu/EPG/rsheldon/JOB/job.html
> > for a slightly stale version of the JOB pages.
> >
> >  - regrets
> >  Rob Sheldon
> >
> > On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Chance wrote:
> >
> > > Is your website on Job still up?