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Reading the Book of Job in the Pandemic

The disaster came fiercely and unexpectedly, like what happened to the biblical character Job. For the past half year, the whole world has suffered enormously from a wildly spreading new type of coronavirus, which was named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 February 2020. Up till now, no single medicine has proved to be an effective cure, nor is there any vaccine. The disease consumes life and causes panic. We have been in one way or another like the biblical Job, going through an existential crisis, unsure of the underlying causes but very sure of the lived consequences. In the present context, there are a range of biblical texts that may resonate with our experience, but Job clearly deserves discussion.