The Brick Testament - The Book of Job

[Brendan Powell Smith]

Happy Thanksgiving! The Brick Testament has been updated this week with eight new Bible stories illustrating the Book of Job in its entirety:

Meet Job, God Makes Wager with Satan, God Kills Job’s Children, Servants, Animals, God Tortures Job, Three Friends Accuse Job, Fourth Man Accuses Job, God Refuses to Explain His Cruelty, and God Gives Job Replacement Children, Money.

Here’s a few preview images:

Enjoy,

-Brendan Powell Smith

The Brick Testament - The world’s largest, most comprehensive illustrated Bible

[Marcus Aurelius Antoninus]

Once again very well done. I always enjoy your work. Thanks again.

[Skinny Boy]

A really great book again. Well done . I suppose you don't have any plans for the scarred and scabbed Job fig?

[Zepher]

Okay, I don't know if you reply, but I've got to say, these are simply amazing! First off the builds are lovely, and secondly the stories are very, very, very, well told!

[Brendan Powell Smith]

I suppose you don't have any plans for the scarred and scabbed Job fig?

Well, I don't have any future plans for him if only because he doesn't really exist except in those photos. The scabs and boils were hand-drawn on for each photo using Photoshop. That process was rather grueling, but I don't think I have the requisite skillz to get the same effect using paint on an actual fig.

I put a lot of thought into how best to portray Job in his tormented state. As always, I very much wanted to find a purist LEGO solution. I was very happy to have the Mandrake head from Harry Potter, but try as I might, I couldn't think of a way to find a matching LEGO body that looked nealry disgusting enough to provide the visual impact I was looking to make.

Maybe I'll re-illustrate Job in a more purist way after LEGO releases their Medieval Plague sets in 2013.

Okay, I don't know if you reply, but I've got to say, these are simply amazing! First off the builds are lovely, and secondly the stories are very, very, very, well told!

Thanks, Zepher. I do appreciate comments, and always try to reply.

Glad I was able to make Job visually appealing (well, maybe not the fig himself). I had my worries about that since there's so much dialogue. But I tried to keep the camera angles dramatic and fresh at the least.

Now it's time to start planning for Revelation...

-Brendan

[pr0visorak]

Great job! I love the detail and work you put into it :pir-skull:

[Guss]

cool^^ new things to read! thanks Brendan Powell Smith ^^ I'll manage to read it when I'll had time!

[badboytje88]

Hey Brendan,

I am a teacher in Holland, and I'd love to use your book for bible class. But there is no translation in Dutch. The children are 8 years old, so their English is even worse than mine. am I allowed to use the pics and stories, translate them and print them for my own use? I'm not trying to make a profit off off you, and want your approval before I start translating.

[Brendan Powell Smith]

am I allowed to use the pics and stories, translate them and print them for my own use? I'm not trying to make a profit off off you, and want your approval before I start translating.

You have my permission to use material from The Brick Testament for the off-line, non-commercial purposes you are suggesting. My general policy for such usage can be found here:

http://www.thebricktestament.com/churches

(Sorry, but the "courtesy credit" image is currently unavailable. If you could instead just make sure your audience is made aware that the images are not your original works and are borrowed from www.thebricktestament.com, that will be fine.)

And I'll stress again, this is for off-line usage only. Nothing that will appear again on the Internet or made a profit from in any way.

Best regards,

-Brendan

[Bonaparte]

Again I enjoyed learning another chapter of the Bible.

There's one question on my mind. At the end of the story, when God restored Job's life (giving him again animals, children, ...) you didn't restore the looks of Job. He still looks as bad as he did when he was being tested. Is this your own interpretation? Does the Bible give any specifics about that?

[Brendan Powell Smith]

At the end of the story, when God restored Job's life (giving him again animals, children, ...) you didn't restore the looks of Job. He still looks as bad as he did when he was being tested. Is this your own interpretation? Does the Bible give any specifics about that?

The Bible does not say anything about Job's skin being restored. I'm not sure whether the author (or authors?) of Job intend for the reader to assume that Job went back to looking as he did before God had Satan physically torture him. If we are meant to think so, I would guess Job would have somehow been given new skin. This would be in line with his receiving new children intsead of his killed childen being restored to life, new animals instead of his old animals being restored to life, and new riches instead of his former riches being returned.

But as the story has come to us, there is nothing said about Job's skin. That being the case, I decided I'd depict Job's skin as beginning to heal once God stops tormenting him, but as with any case of a skin ailment that profound, I imagined that the effects of it would never fully go away (without some specified supernatural intervention, that is). I think, for me, it also represented the idea that although Job was given twice the riches he once had, and a new "replacement" set of ten children, he would always have with him the torments he suffered emotionally and physically.

Interestingly, the Bible also never says what happens with Job's wife. It doesn't say whether Job's ten new children are born to a new wife (or wives), or whenther his original wife stayed with him through everything. So I just decided not to show any wife in the last few illustrations since no wife is mentioned.

-Brendan