In a group, one Witness said. “I really like Brother Noumair’s talks. He’s a good speaker.” My friend waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . .and then burst out laughing. She was waiting for a B part—an example, a qualification, a contrast. Nope. That was it, the complete comment. “*Everybody* likes Brother Noumair’s talks,” she told me. She had just assumed there would be a B part.

I thought of that exchange with regard to a short talk he gave recently about Job. “He’s a digger,” my wife says. I mean, the guy conducts the Gilead school, so of course they are going to select someone who has a gift for “digging.”

My latest book, ‘A Workman’s Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen’ opens with a verse-by-verse discussion of Job. It takes up 30% of the book. For the most part, it departs from whatever the Witness organization has said. In fact, it has to. A review of the JW Library app reveals large swaths of Job untouched by Watchtower publications, and some of the verses that are touched just lead to some type of ‘Bible trivia,’ like what the “skin of your teeth” means. My book instead considers a wide range of commentators. Since some regard the Book of Job as the greatest literary work of all time, it is not hard to find commentators

I would have squeezed Noumair’s remarks in there, somehow, had the book not already been released. They are that unique. He highlights the confrontation between Jehovah and Satan that results in a permitted test on Job’s integrity. He reviews verses to show that every inch of the way, Jehovah is in complete control, as he reveals what is in the Devil’s heart and allows an issue to be settled. As soon as it is settled, “the gavel goes down” and Job’s state of captivity, which likely lasted less than a year, is reversed. The lesson? Confidence in God’s power, which in turn leads to confidence on the part of those who trust him. And the assurance that trials, once they are endured, come to an end.

‘A Workman’s Theodicy’ goes on to cover a wide range of theologians, some of whom have asserted things nearly unrecognizable to those of any traditional Bible community. Scholars widely regard Job as a product of two books fused together. The first two and the final chapter are part of a “fable.” The poetry in between represents the “theology” of maybe one, maybe multiple authors. (Opinions differ) “Is the intellectual appeal of this approach that by so dividing Job into two portions, you are in position to understand neither?” I explore the question.

The book also looks at the theology of a popular Jewish rabbi, Harold Kushner, who has written much on Job and the light it sheds on God’s coexistence with evil. Guided by modern critical techniques, he all but presents Satan as God’s hit man, assigned to do his dirty work. He does not sense any particular enmity between the two parties—they work as a team, in his view. He also resolves the question of evil by deciding that God is not all-powerful. He means well, but he is at time outmaneuvered by “Leviathan,” to whom he assigns a new meaning.

It is too bad I couldn’t have squeezed Noumair in the book. Maybe I will in case I revise it later. He would have made a fine addition. See: “We Can Endure Like Job,” a talk searchable at JW*org.

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