Viktor Frankl and the Book of Job: A Search for Meaning

This book accomplishes two distinct tasks. First it develops the psychological theory of Dr. Viktor E. Frankl as a literary hermeneutic. Second it applies the hermeneutic by reading the book of Job. Key issues emerge through three movements. The first movement addresses Frankls concept of the feeling of meaninglessness and his rejection of reductionism and nihilism. The second movement addresses the dual nature of meaning; an association is revealed between Frankls understanding of meaning and the Joban understanding of wisdom. The third movement involves an exploration of Frankls ideas of ultimate meaning and self-transcendence. As a Holocaust survivor Frankl had a personal stake in the effectiveness of his approach. He lived the suffering about which he wrote. Because of this reading the book of Job with a hermeneutic based on Frankls ideas will present readers with opportunities to discover unique meanings and serve to clarify their attitudes toward pain guilt and death. As meaning is discovered through participation with the text we will see that Jobs final response can become a site for transcending suffering. Applying Victor Frankls logotherapy to the book of Job Marshall Lewis sees Job as one forced to make sense of what appears to be an absurd situation. A fresh reading of both Frankl and Job Lewis following Frankl argues that while any experience can be made meaningful in the end we are sometimes better off accepting a world in which suffering has no meaning at least at present. A bold and ambitious reading that respects the text of Job as much as it does the texts of Frankl the book uses Frankl to construct a new hermeneutic of reading. --C. Fred Alford Professor Emeritus University of Maryland College Park and author of After the Holocaust: The Book of Job Primo Levi and the Path to Affliction Marshall H. Lewis is a psychotherapist and logotherapist who has practiced for over thirty years. He is a frequent speaker on Viktor Frankls theory and serves on the faculty of the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy. His graduate training in psychology and doctoral training in Bible culture and hermeneutics led him to write this book.