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sizrobe's review against another edition
4.0
This book is not an easy beach read, but capital L Literature. It's dry, full of big words, greek, and latin phrases, and requires at least a basic knowledge of not just the mainstream bible but apocrypha such as Enoch. For a book written by a famed psychologist the book is mostly theology, which I found surprising. For as difficult as it is to read, it's also mercifully short at 108 pages.
On to the content. Jung believes Christ is the titular Answer to Job, in that god wanted to become man, and still wants to, in order to comprehend the suffering he inflicted not on merely Job but all of humanity. He typifies God as wrathful, unreliable, injust, and cruel. God is a creature that cannot stand seeing his creation fall for Satan's wiles, when he himself was even fooled into torturing poor Job. Additionally, he goes on to say that in God's lack of self-reflection and wildly fluctuating temper, he is actually unconscious, and man's consciousness is higher than God's.
While the title refers to Job, he also discusses the female incaration of God in Sophia, and goes on a bit of a tangeant about Revelation.
One particular quote I found interesting was that "myth is not fiction: it consists of facts that are continually repeated and can be observed over and over again" and another is "the fact that the life of christ is largely myth does nothing to disprove its factual truth-- quite the contrary."
Finally, one bit that I found curious was "[I] emphatically state that visions and their accompanying phenomena cannot be uncritically evaluated as morbid." I don't know if this has changed since 1973, but I fail to see how literal visions could be anything but morbid, but hey, I'm not the famed psychologist here.
On to the content. Jung believes Christ is the titular Answer to Job, in that god wanted to become man, and still wants to, in order to comprehend the suffering he inflicted not on merely Job but all of humanity. He typifies God as wrathful, unreliable, injust, and cruel. God is a creature that cannot stand seeing his creation fall for Satan's wiles, when he himself was even fooled into torturing poor Job. Additionally, he goes on to say that in God's lack of self-reflection and wildly fluctuating temper, he is actually unconscious, and man's consciousness is higher than God's.
While the title refers to Job, he also discusses the female incaration of God in Sophia, and goes on a bit of a tangeant about Revelation.
One particular quote I found interesting was that "myth is not fiction: it consists of facts that are continually repeated and can be observed over and over again" and another is "the fact that the life of christ is largely myth does nothing to disprove its factual truth-- quite the contrary."
Finally, one bit that I found curious was "[I] emphatically state that visions and their accompanying phenomena cannot be uncritically evaluated as morbid." I don't know if this has changed since 1973, but I fail to see how literal visions could be anything but morbid, but hey, I'm not the famed psychologist here.
scorwin's review against another edition
4.0
Access: Chatswood Public Library
I remain somewhat unconvinced that Jung's interwoven theses gel together eloquently within the same exploratory study. Grandiose musings on God's latent desires to become Man while also toying with ideas about the psychology of the unconscious. Perhaps my theological (and indeed psychological) education has proven insufficient to grasp the interplay, or I really am on firm ground when I say he should pick a lane. His chapter-by-chapter progression from historical regurgitation marching further into apocalyptical projection felt clunky at moments, yet that may also be the result of me biting into it one chapter at a time. Irrespective of the mechanics of his writing, the suggestions (and indeed proposals) presented here are profound, deeply unsettling to my Catholic education, and fascinating to consider. I likely haven't understood everything I've read, but I can't say I'm worse off for having tried.
I remain somewhat unconvinced that Jung's interwoven theses gel together eloquently within the same exploratory study. Grandiose musings on God's latent desires to become Man while also toying with ideas about the psychology of the unconscious. Perhaps my theological (and indeed psychological) education has proven insufficient to grasp the interplay, or I really am on firm ground when I say he should pick a lane. His chapter-by-chapter progression from historical regurgitation marching further into apocalyptical projection felt clunky at moments, yet that may also be the result of me biting into it one chapter at a time. Irrespective of the mechanics of his writing, the suggestions (and indeed proposals) presented here are profound, deeply unsettling to my Catholic education, and fascinating to consider. I likely haven't understood everything I've read, but I can't say I'm worse off for having tried.
agziegler22's review
2.0
Probably more like a 2.5- I was super excited about this and it just wasn’t what I thought it would be. I read Job back in the spring when I was in the thick of a mental health battle and it totally resonated with me, then for one of my summer psych classes I had to read a section of this- my introduction to Jung was that he was controversial as a psychologist and as a Christian so I was intrigued.
I had a hard time with a lot of what he was writing about from a faith perspective, but it did give me a much better understanding of his theories. It felt scattered at best and took longer to read than I had hoped. Not mad I read it but I’m glad it’s done.
I had a hard time with a lot of what he was writing about from a faith perspective, but it did give me a much better understanding of his theories. It felt scattered at best and took longer to read than I had hoped. Not mad I read it but I’m glad it’s done.
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