Suffering in the Therapeutic Space Job’s Dialogue with Suffering in Contemporary Medical Practice

The ancient dialogue between Job and his friends mirrors the contemporary encounter between physician and patient in the therapeutic space. This article examines how modern biblical scholars and thinkers—Martin Buber, Carl Jung, Harry Austryn Wolfson, James Boyd White, Gershom Scholem, and Elie Wiesel—have reinterpreted the Book of Job, offering profound insights for healthcare professionals who daily witness and bear witness to human suffering. Their interpretations provide a framework for understanding not only the patient’s experience of inexplicable suffering but also the physician’s role as both healer and fellow sufferer in the face of medical mystery and mortality.
Keywords: Job, Therapeutic Encounter, Sacred-Profane Dialectic Biblical Interpretation, Healthcare Philosophy, Physician-Patient Relationship Buber, Jung; Wiesel, Tzimtzum, Hermeneutic Medicine.