Divinely Abused: A Philosophical Perspective on Job and His Kin

Preface; Chapter 1: What is Abuse?; 1. Self-Worth; a. Self-Worth and Justification; b. Resentment and Sell-Worth; 2. Happiness; a. The Socratic Conception; b. The Maimonidean Conception; c. The Wittgensteinian Conception; 3. Power; a. The Intuitive Paradigm; b. The Moral Paradigm; c. The Self-Restraint Paradigm; Chapter 2: Divine Abuse; 1. Job's Conception of Happiness; a. The Worldly Conception; b. The Moral Conception; 2. Job's Conception of Self-Worth; a. Divine Abuse: Humiliation and Elevation; b. Resentment and Moral Hatred of God; 3. Power and Power Relations; a. Job's Conception of Power; b. Job's Way of Exercising his Power; Chapter 3: The Way Out: From Abuse to Suffering; 1. Afflictions of Love and Love of Afflictions; a. Afflictions of Love; b. Love of Afflictions: The Sadist, the Masochist and the Slave; 2. Providence and Intervention; a. Providence as Intervention; b. Maimonides; c. Simone Well; 3. Providence Lost; a. Afflictions of Hate; b. Malevolent Providence; c. From Abuse to Suffering; Chapter 4: Forgiveness; 1. The Victim; a. Harms, Wrongs and Hostile Emotions; b. Resentment and Reason; c. Overcoming Resentment; 2. The Assailant; a. Telling the Moral Story; b. Telling the Biographical Story; c. Telling the Same Story; 3. Forgiveness; a. Forgiveness without Reconciliation; b. Reconciliation without Forgiveness; c. Forgiveness and Reconciliation; Chapter 5: Forgiving God; 1. Protest; a. Roth's Theodicy of Protest; b. Blumenthal's Theology of Protest; 2. Beyond Protest; a. Protest in Context; b. Beyond Protest; 3. Forgiving God; a. The Logical Space for Forgiveness; b. Forgiving God; c. Subsisting in Brokenness; Conclusion; Bibliography.

N. Verbin is an Assistant Professor at Tel Aviv University and a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.

"Nehama Verbin has written an important and original book. Through an insightful study of Job's relation to his God, she offers fresh insights into key notions in ethics and the philosophy of religion, such as affliction, faith, and forgiveness. Her acute and probing discussions of these will leave moral philosophers, philosophers of religion, and students of the Book of Job deeply in her debt." -- Professor Peter A. Byrne, Emeritus Professor of Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion, King's College London, UK