The Daily Office is, at the moment, working our way through the book of Job. It's quite a tale. Now I know that there are great disputes between the biblical literalists and the school of Higher Criticism and so forth about the age and authorship of Old Testament books. That's not my point here. And I know that one of the obvious questions about Job is "Did it all really happen?" And that's not my point either. Take it as either fiction or literal fact: Two points of agreement between the various schools of thought emerge. First, this is one of the oldest pieces of writing in the Bible, far older than the Psalms, for example. Christians, Jews and Muslims all revere Job and take him as an example. Second, the understanding of God and His ways is extremely well-developed here. Just to take one example, I was taught that Old Testament Jews did not have a very clear idea of the afterlife. Their idea of Sheol was sort of a dim place of shadows where the souls of the d