Abstract
This paper examines the book of Job for encoded psychological meaning. Its main conclusion is that the story imagery expresses a need to rectify fatherly and parental oblivion for a child who is the object of the destructive envy of a sibling. A family dynamic is constructed from the story’s repeated emphasis of Job’s blamelessness and the story’s position that Satan both proposes and causes Job’s sufferings. The emergent family model sees Job as representing a son, Satan an envious rival, and God a father or parent(s). This paper proposes that Job’s story may be reactive to a period where male authority was at risk of becoming excessive, threatening family and community health.
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Notes
This, and all references to Job, are referred to the Jerusalem Bible (1996).
Such numbering is added to the longer quotations throughout this paper.
References
Jacobson, E. (1980). The self and the object world. New York: International Universities Press.
Miller, A. (1990). For your own good. New York: The Noonday Press.
Miller, A. (1991). Banished knowledge. New York: Doubleday.
The Jerusalem Bible (1966). Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company.
Winnicott, D. W. (1962). Providing for the child in health and in crisis. In The maturational process and the facilitating environment (1987). International Universities Press, New York.
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Badalamenti, A.F. Job’s Story and Family Health. J Relig Health 48, 200–216 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-008-9190-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-008-9190-1