Sunday, December 18, 2011

Answer to Job – Intro


So as my first foray back into blogging after some time, I decided to go easy on myself and blog through C.G. Jung’s Answer to Job.  Actually, this will be quite a challenge (both in the material and in the blogging), and I am going to really work at being consistent in my writing of new posts.  

A little about Answer to Job from the back cover:
Considered one of Jung's most controversial works, Answer to Job also stands as Jung's most extensive commentary on a biblical text. Here, he confronts the story of the man who challenged God, the man who experienced hell on earth and still did not reject his faith. Job's journey parallels Jung's own experience--as reported in The Red Book: Liber Novus--of descending into the depths of his own unconscious, confronting and reconciling the rejected aspects of his soul.

Some preparatory comments on style and language are in order.  The book is broken up by section (I, II, III, etc) and by paragraph number (557,567, etc.).  When I quote the book, I will use the following designation: (VII,643).  Also, Jung, as a product of his culture, uses exclusively masculine pronouns.  When quoting, I will use Jung’s words, with the caveat that I personally avoid the use of such pronouns in my own writing.  He also refers to God with masculine references.   Same caveat applies for me in this case as well. 

2 comments:

notpastor said...

Hi Rob, I figured I'd just move our thread over to your blog (from Tony's). I like that you're working through the psycho/spiritual/cultural lens. I'm gonna have to pick up my old ATJ again.

And, as for ATJ, I've found it to be the most compelling vision of individuation that I have come across. On a personal level, it helped me get free from a lot evangelical baggage that I was carrying around at the time.

I haven't read Stein's "Jung on Christianity." Really have only read his chapter on the goals of analysis, which was a bit dry. But I'll take your rec and look into it. The last book on Jung I read (or started to read) was Hauke's Jung and the Postmodern. I don't know if I'm a Jungian or a postmodern or what now, but maybe that's the point.

RoboPA said...

Yeah, I don't know if I would buy Stein's book, as it's pretty expensive. I just looked, and there are some used copies on Amazon for a reasonable price. I borrowed it from the local seminary library. I have some CD's of him doing a seminar at the Jung Institute in Chicago on the topic of "A Psychological Interpretation of the Bible". Pretty fascinating stuff.

I looked at the Hauke book on Amazon, but didn't purchase it. I have a similar struggle around postmodern or Jungian. I wouldn't identify as a Jungian necessarily. From a purely psycho-therapeutic viewpoint, I tend to gravitate towards Post Freudians and the British school/Relational thinkers. Where I see the value in Jung is in his work around the numinous function of the psyche.