The Book of Job: Commentary, New Translation, Special Studies

Robert Gordis' "The Book of Job: Commentary, New Translation, Special Studies" is one of the most interesting commentaries on the Biblical text that Carlyle called "the grandest book ever written with pen." Gordis' method of interpretation, which he calls in his Introduction "vertical", "[reaches] out in time to later periods in the historical experience of the Jewish people, in order to utilize all the resources of post-biblical literature and language, apocryphal, mishnaic, talmudic, medieval, and modern, for the purpose of enhancing our understanding of the vocabulary, syntax, style, and content of biblical literature -- and in turn to be illumined by it." "This approach -- says Yehoshua Gitay (JAOS 101.2) -- provides a careful and balanced commentary, with a new translation that is reasonable, poetic, and very readable." “...magisterial achievement,” seconds John G. Gammie of The University of Tulsa. “[The work is a] comprehensive volume of almost six hundred pages. Gordis presents [besides new translation] a series of introductions followed by 42 special notes enabling him to discuss his views on the various critical issues of the book... This work deserves to be ranked among the foremost of critical commentaries on the Book of Job...”