The book of Job is a vivid testimony to pain, a plea for justice, and a wrenching theological debate about suffering and its causes. Central to this debate are questions about the roles that God and humans play in causing human suffering and whether divine-human relationships can proceed in the midst of overwhelming anguish. Like a riddle, the text grasps readers minds and emotions, inviting them to participate in Jobs story and to work toward their own solution to the dilemmas of both Job and his friends.

Kathleen M. O'Connor is author of several books including The Wisdom Literature (Liturgical Press, 1990), Jeremiah: Pain and Promise, and Lamentations and the Tears of the World. She is the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament, emerita, at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia, and also taught at the Maryknoll School of Theology in Ossining, New York. She is active in the Catholic Biblical Association of America and the Society of Biblical Literature.