Comparing the Book of Job to Ecclesiastes Essay

The out of date Testament is often viewed as a creaky, incomprehensible tome, full of history, force out and a wrathful, bombastic divinity fudge. Often, it is used as a manual This is what theology wants, this is what would displease the Creator, and so on and so forth. There are ii particular books of the Old Testament, Job and Ecclesiastes, stand out from the crowd. They ask and look for to address the aboriginal questions of life and spirituality.Before diving into content and themes, it is cardinal to acknowledge structural differences between the two books. Job is told from the third mortal and is a story with a clear sequence of thus farts and plot. In fact, it is likely that versions of Job were told by many peoples of the region. (Seow, HB 726), and That the final form is the return of a complex history of transmission. It consists of a narrative, focused in the introduction and epilogue, with a series of dialogues between them.Ecclesiastes, on the other hand, is to a greater extent akin to an essay, interspersed with poems, proverbs and songs to support his conclusions. This leases a some(prenominal) telling and little showing, simply allows for more wisdom to be dispensed.In both books, the mysterious industrial plant of the world, ostensibly controlled by God, cause consternation. Jobs livelihood is ruined, even though he was a decent man. As for EcclesiastesI returned, and sawing machine under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet excoriation to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of science but time and chance happeneth to them all. (Ecclesiastes 911, King James countersign)Through much of Ecclesiastes, he laments the mysterious unfairness of existence and the apparent powerlessness of mankind. The premier(prenominal) parts of the book are about accepting that this is just the elbow room the world is. His conclusions are as follows That life mu st be enjoyed when it give the sack be, for they are few that we are largely powerless over our receive destinies, and that God is in an unfathomable and entirely separate, wonderful realm without deathrate or time. Ecclesiastes excessively contended that the only true judgment of worth was from God itself.Jobs plot makes for a slightly different conclusion. Job, bewildered, speakswith his comforters, who assert that varied interpretations of the events that transpired, which Job argues against. God enters the scene and speaks, chastising Job, who had disputed Gods will. Additionally, Jobs friends, who had so far been speaking on behalf of the deity, were punished. The nub that no mortal can comprehend the will of God, and that to do so is an offense to the Creator, is stronger than in Ecclesiastes. While Ecclesiastes warns against false piety and talking as if one knows when one does not, direct justice is applied to a circumstantial case to cap off the book of Job.The final lessons are, for the most part, unoriginal and oft repeated in scripture That good deeds and idolize are the only sure resolution. Both of these scriptures look at the fundamental senselessness of the way the world works and put God in charge of it both acknowledge the relative powerlessness of the individual. Both also acknowledge that an individual cannot transcend our frustrating state of being without go to God.Sources CitedAn explanation of sourcesI am aware that sacred texts would normally expect as Popular sources, but the Oxford Annotated is garnished with ample commentary from dozens of theologians Footnotes and essays cod about half of the text. I am considering the King James variance a popular source, which is the only sacred text that does not require notation in the Sources Cited page (Raimes, 158).Raimes, Anne. Keys for Writers. Fourth. New York, Boston Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (NRSV) Ed. Coogan, Michael. O xford University Press. 2001.