Ashes and a Thunderstorm: A New Reading of the Book of Job

In this groundbreaking work, author Craig Bingham offers readers a new way to approach the book of Job, showing how Job's story is a beautiful and hope-filled narrative about what it means to wrestle with suffering and trauma and move forward into new life.

The key to reading Job, he explains, is to recognize its underlying mirrored structure, in which events and paradigms are echoed and rearticulated as the book progresses. The first half of the book is the author's literary set-up, introducing common paradigms for understanding suffering which are then deconstructed by the agonized honesty of Job, who refuses to accept those paradigms as adequate explanations for his suffering and grief.

The second half of the book then charts Job's own journey of healing as he encounters the divine and is drawn into renewed life. Job chooses to embrace a world that reflects the wildness and wonder of God in spite of his own inexplicable experiences of suffering. Each aspect of the story is rearticulated in a transformed way, drawing us as readers and listeners into a profound shift in perspective.

If you have ever struggled with the story of Job, had experiences of profound suffering or loss, or simply want to better understand a commonly misinterpreted piece of literature, this book is for you.