The Massoretic Essay

Throughout humanity, the idea of suffering played a major role in human lives, in some cases by ending it. Nevertheless, according to popular religious traditions, the first humans, Adam and Eve, were placed on Earth to suffer for their sins in a life of misery. All humans are a part of this “original sin,” thus there is no such thing as innocent humans suffering in the world. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Popular religious themes are centered on the idea of continual suffering in life, like the Israelites who continued to suffer through the Holocaust. The theme of The Mexican Flyboy is also structured around the idea of suffering. In the story, Simon Vegas is obsessed with people who have suffered throughout history and “saves” those victims out of their misery. Even though Simon liberates the victims out of suffering, the historical events like burning of Jesse Washington continue to take place. The idea of saving the individuals is abstract, as it seems like the bodies suffer, while the souls are saved.

Suffering forces people to be put in bad places where they feel pressured to eventually make inhumane decisions. Putting people in these poor situations pressures them to make choices that will be best for survival. An example of an inhumane decision occurred in Night in chapter 7 when the whole camp was

Prometheus Bound and The Book of Job are two stories that are both similar in many ways, but at the same time very different from one another. Prometheus Bound is a story about a man who kindly assists humans and gives them fire for their own use. However, Zeus does not like the fact that Prometheus helped the humans, or is friends with them, so he decided to punish Prometheus for what he done. Zeus has his his servant Hephaestus chain Prometheus to a rock and leave him there. Prometheus spend days on the rock and talks to the Chorus of Oceanis, lo, and Hermes while he is on the rock and explains to them all why he is chained to the rock. To end the story a thunderstorm rolls in and Prometheus is left chained to the rock. The Book of Job is a story about a man who “feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1, ESV). He was a very wealthy man who had ten children, many livestock, and many servants. Satan speaks to God one day and God gives him permission to test Job’s faith. Satan begins by taking away Job’s children, killing his livestock,

importance of a book and how strongly he feels towards these ideas of preserving books and

Elie Wiesel is not only a talented author but a survivor of the holocaust who documented his horrific experiences in his memoir “Night”. In the beginning of the book Elie Wiesel was one of the most religious people in his town of Saghet who had a dream of living a monastic life. However, as a result of the harrowing injustices he endured he continuously lost faith in his religion. Within the book the reader is reminded again and again that when extreme adversity is experienced, faith is often lost.

For many early settlers in America, a strong faith and steady belief in God’s ability to influence and intervene in their everyday lives was vital to survive and endure the hardships and burdens they often faced. This is the case in “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”, Mary Rowlandson’s account of a Native American attack on her home which resulted in a lengthened, grueling captivity; throughout her captivity, Rowlandson finds immense comfort and peace in her faith in God and within a Bible she receives. Similarly, Anne Bradstreet depicts the tragic burning of her home in her poem “Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th 1666”. In her poem, Bradstreet portrays the sadness she feels

Identifying the problem with pain is fairly simple according to Lewis, explaining the purpose of pain not so much. In chapter one Lewis tells us that the problem with pain is the fact that we as Christians have to try to make it fit into our belief system and that fact “creates, rather than solves, the problem of pain.” (C. Lewis) It also means that as Christians, we are left facing the dilemma of trying to explain how we serve an all-loving, all- powerful, benevolent God who despite His benevolence allows us to suffer.

Similarly to the crucial aspects above, the poem “About Face” represents some issues already mentioned. The poem “About Face”, by Patience Agbabi is a poetic depiction of the mythological painting of the goddess of the hunt Diana and a hunter Actaeon.

Once Satan had manipulated Eve into eating the fruit, God “Sent him out of the gardens of/ Eden to tip the ground from which he was taken” (Genesis 3:23). Through the end of book one of Milton’s creations, Beelzbub one of Satan’s angels had a lurking suspicion that God can’t be overpowered (Book 1). Only with the commands of God, where Satan and his devils freed from their chains in hell “Chained on the burning lake, nor ever thence/ Had risen or heaved his head, but that the will/ And high permission of all -ruling Heaven” (Book I, 210). God is the pilot of man’s

The author of this writing let people know how he/she felt about the book from the very first sentence. The author’s thesis starting out this paper by saying “This novel is a feeble imitation of one that was very popular in

The Book of Job provides an example of how people should praise God by illustrating a blameless, responsible, and fearing man who will always turn away from evil. Therefore, this book presents the same man tortured by outside forces lacking the possibility to acquire help from family and friends. Throughout the reading in particular (14:11) demonstrates how there was a moment of weakness in which Job fails and ask for his death, but after all, he did not commit sin and endured waiting for his torment to banish. In addition, the book reveals how men turned against a man in need and instead judged him without understanding the sources causing his disgrace. However, the book provides a comparison in how humans behave by providing vivid examples of characters who showed behaviors illustrating how humanity functions.

Job owns seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yokes of oxen, three daughters, seven sons, and a wife-in short, prosperity. In addition, he is a respectful and religious man who worships God and lives a chaste life. However, God chooses to test Job and sets a list of punishments for him, who undergoes these challenges throughout the book of Job. There is a certain contradiction in a deity that punishes those who obey, and the story emphasizes the omniscience of God’s unique role in Job’s life. God’s seemingly capricious nature demonstrates the usage of power by an omnipotent figure, in terms of beneficence, retributive justice, and exploitation.

As a fiction writer, Mark Twain, whose original name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens, stands apart as a comic genius. In America, Mark Twain had popularized this new genre through two of his well- known novels. One is 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ' and the other 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn '. Mark Twain 's idea of a boy character is based on the picture of an average American boy. The American boy, by nature, is enterprising and mischievous, not a reserved character like his counterpart in England. His counterpart is bolder and hence a more interesting character. Mark Twain 's portrayal of the twin boy characters - Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn is actually a portrayal of the American boys in general. This does not mean that American boys are not good or obedient.

Then his wife said to him, “Are you still unshaken in your integrity? Curse God and die!” But he answered, “. . . If we accept good from God, shall we not accept evil?” (Job 2:9-10)

‘Once upon a time’ a short story by Nadine Gordimer transports the reader through the narration of an interpretation of Apartheid in South Africa. The author used the story of a white family whose members at first “Loved each other very much and were living happily ever after” (Gordimer, 1). Yet, at the end trying to find more happiness away from the black population end up living a tragedy with the death of their son. This misfortune was due to their obsessive fear of the black world. During apartheid, white identity has schemed as power over the blackness of the rest of the population which was segregated. The essay through a literary analysis and a close reading of the text ought to bring out this