Walter Vogels: The Analysis of a Book: The Book of JobThe book of Job has not revealed all its secrets. It continues to intrigue the Bible-reader, to surprise, tostimulate or to scandalize. The book has inspired artists and writers of spirituality. The research to penetrateits mystery goes on. We will begin by briefly summarizing the contribution of historical criticism which wasuntil recently the classical method of exegesis. We will then show how semiotics might approach this mostexciting book. The understanding of the book of Job would also profit greatly from a psychological readingand from the other new methods now being used in exegesis.Exegetes have been searching to determine the meaning of this book but with different results. They all agreethat the book of Job speaks about suffering. Studies have even tried to determine what was the precise natureof Job's illness when he was struck down with "loathsome sores " (2,7). But to say that the book treats ofsuffering is clearly insufficient: it is: the suffering of the innocent. But the questions and the discussion aboutthe meaning go on. Is the problem of this innocent suffering seen from the side of man or from the side ofGod? One group of scholars opts for the first solution. For them the book is practical and existential andspeaks about the human problem of suffering. But again scholars disagree. Does the book speak about themoral aspect of human suffering: what a person is supposed to do when he suffers? How he is to behave? Ordoes the book, rather, enlighten the test of faith of innocent suffering? How can a person continue to keep hisfaith? In other words the book of Job studies the moral or the religious behaviour of the innocent person whosuffers. The second group of scholars believes that the book is less existential and more intellectual and thatit reflects upon this suffering from the side of God. Innocent suffering raises the question about the justice ofGod, the conflict between human and divine jus...