Publisher's Synopsis
PREFACEThe Jewish book of Job is about a once-wealthy man who lost everything; his property, his children, and his health.The entire book is centered around the question of why things happen to us? Why do good people seem to suffer and the bad live in peace? Why is there no apparent justice in the way things happen in this reality? These are questions that Job demands that God answer.The story takes place at a time when Job is suffering greatly and several of his friends have come to visit him. For the most part, they all tell him that he has sinned and that is why God is punishing him. Job denies that he has sinned, which is true, but his friends criticize him for saying he is sinless when it is obvious from his present condition that he has in some way offended God.In the end, God responds to Job, but he does not answer him. God does not attempt to justify what has happened to Job. God's reply was simply to ask Job who he was to question what God was doing.The book of Job states a truth that many religionists do not want to accept; that there is no guarantee of justice, that the good sometimes suffer and the bad do not. Many religionists feel that there will be justice after death; at that time all things will even out. However, there is a possibility that things are no different in the spiritual reality than they are in this reality. In the Eastern religions of Taoism and Zen Buddhism, there is no concern over justice. There is a mindset that things are good or bad only by perception. One experiences events of life and only when one distinguishes these events as good or bad does one become confused in the manifestations of the Infinite Potential. In the Taoist and Zen mindset, it is a waste of time to consider justice or the lack of justice. The concept of justice is just a delusion of the mind that occurs when one tries to distinguish the oneness of the Infinite Potential into parts and then to judge those parts as good and bad. Justice then becomes arbitrary based on one's perspective.From the perspective of God, or what the Tao calls the Way, or what I refer to as the Infinite Potential, all things are in perfect harmony and things only become out of harmony and confusing when one attempts to mentally distinguish the manifestations of the Infinite Potential as good or bad.I have removed the discussions between God and Satan at the first of the traditional Book of Job. These are in Chapter 1 and 2. I think it confuses the main point of the story I want to focus on and leads off into a whole different set of considerations. I am interested in God's conversation with a human being: Job. Not God's conversation with Satan, a non-human being.In all my books, I am focused on increasing the peace in the world human society and not on speculation about what goes on strictly in the spiritual dimension.
