The central thesis of the Book of Job, dealing as it is doing with the long standing question of why life is unfair, is that there is no such thing as unfairness in life.
For it is only our egos, our sense of ourselves and the entitlement such a sense often brings, that causes us to perceive life as being unfair. To be disadvantaged is not unfair. It is not fair, either, but neither is it unfair. When it comes to such givens as our looks, our wealth, and even our health, it isn’t only pointless to protest but wholly wrong-headed to do so. One may as well protest that the sky should be green and the grass blue!
But we see the ridiculousness of that because our egos are not involved ; it neither helps nor impedes us that the sky is some color or other. Yet it is doing matter when it comes to our looks, our possessions, and our bodily vitality. And so it is our own self-interest that declares whether something is fair or unfair, then our own self-interest, and not some reference to some morality over and above ourselves.
Naturally, in the world of the Book of Job, that morality is God, and if taken literally, which is to say anthropomorphically, it’s a oppressive indictment, for Job’s whole suffering was simply the result of a bet between God and none other than the devil who is, additionally, allegedly a regular presence at the heavenly court!
Like all works of art, the Book of Job is enduring for its rich many-faceted personality which admits of no easy interpretation or, to put it an alternate way, admits of many at the same time valid interpretations. It is an ancient existential classic because of its logic-shorting understanding, much in the spirit of a Zen koan, small but intricately detailed in the mind of her or him who would unravel its many meanings.
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