Job as the Sufferer

In philosophical traditions, self-knowledge describes an individual mental state that is mainly guided by sensations, thoughts, and beliefs. The character of Job seeks to express his epistemic state of dealing with the chronic pain he experiences. Through the motif of the righteous sufferer and the interplay of focalisation and metaphor, the author of the book of Job is able to construct epistemic agency related to Job's beliefforming practices on both a sensory-physical and a psycho-emotional level. Implicit epistemological assumptions about the nature, sources and limits of self-knowledge determine Job's beliefs about the origin and avoidance of pain. Though permanent decline is understood as being a part of life, Job comes to see pain as an emergent yet contingent property creating a temporal divide in his personal identity over time. Epistemic success in the context of the cognition of pain is attained through what is perceived as both an increase in self-knowledge and a deeper understanding of the human condition.