This article examines the “Message” of J.B. on the basis of internal evidence from the play and direct comments by its author, Archibald MacLeish. The conclusion is that the play dismisses God as a significant factor in human experience and substitutes human love as providing an island of meaning. A reading of Job, based on the thesis that the work is ironical throughout, comes to a similar conclusion that the final author/redactor of Job also dismisses God but that he provides no new island of meaning for humanity. Thus MacLeish may be nearer to the mainstream of the canonical tradition than the final text of Job.
