definitely not by the Jews, nor by the mainstream of Christian thought. If some present-day fundamentalists think of it as factual, that's their problem.

"This didn't REALLY happen... but if it did... we should be like Job, instead of just finding a less-dickish god."

Anyone who would hold Job up as a role model while deeming a god who would do this worthy of worship (whether they believe it actually happened or not) shouldn't be allowed to choose their own spouse.

Oh, wait.

The people who wrote that story DIDN'T choose their own spouses.

Namely, what you believe to be the human dilemma and what Job is saying about it.

It is not an allegory, and certainly not history. It makes only a few points that flow from the poetic reflections of the three friends. Suffering and evil are real. Don't speculate where they come from. They are pervasive.

(Browining) "Just when all seems safest there's a storm."

The last part after the poetry is a pathetic effort by a much later author to say, "everything will turn our just right" Everything does not turn out just right.

Buddhism has the best understanding of the problem of evil. It just exists!

Try the play "JB" by Archibald MacLeish

or another word I have sworn off using,and a refusal to seriously look at a historic literary treasure.

he's not apathetic, it simply doesn't register to him. Problem of evil solved.

God in the poem is a bit player.

take the point of view of his children. His first children.