THE BOOK OF JOB: FAITH AND JUSTICE IN A WORLD OF INCOMPREHENSIBLE NIHILISM.
Lecturer: Dr Robert Tilley
Dr Robert Tilley is a lecturer in biblical studies and ancient languages at the Catholic Institute of Sydney and in Christian literature at the Aquinas Academy.
Dr Robert Tilley did his Doctorate at the University of Sydney with a thesis entitled Reading the Sacred Text. He has lectured widely on a variety of topics, endeavouring to show how Scripture, theology, philosophy, and the arts all interrelate. He has lectured in Biblical Studies at the Catholic Institute of Sydney for close to ten years now, and for a longer period of time has been a regular lecturer in Biblical Studies, the arts and theology at the Aquinas Academy. He has also lectured at UNDA Sydney and tutored in Biblical Studies at the University of Sydney.
No other book of the Old Testament has exercised as much of an influence on modern philosophy, literature, and film as the Book of Job has. Only, it could be argued that this is for the wrong reason, in that many read Job through the lens of modern nihilism. They liken it to Kafka’s The Trial wherein a man is caught within a world that, beneath appearances to the contrary, is incomprehensible and unjust. A world in which God and justice are words which, to borrow from Macbeth, ‘signify nothing’. But this is wrong, as this short series hopes to show. Job is a book which sets out to counter just such an arbitrary and nihilistic view of God, a view that is not unique to the modern world but that can be found in ancient texts such as Ecclesiastes. The argument of Job is that God is comprehendible, that He loves justice, and that He works to reveal the lies and duplicities by which the fallen world seeks to justify injustice and corruption. Job is one of the great works of literature, and it is so because its majestic style mirrors its majestic contents.
Wednesdays 14, 21, 28 June 2023 10am-noon in the Crypt of St Patrick's Church 20 Grosvenor St , The Rocks
