The starting point of the book is expressed in a surprising question: whether it is possible to find a free-thinker, a skeptic or a rationalist in the Bible? R. shows, that it is possible. As it is seen from the title of the book, he chooses two of them: Job, and Ecclesiastes (Kohelet). The Book of Job is a reason to talk about the theodicy in the ancient Near East, about the shaping of the cult of Yahweh, and about the ethic monotheism of the prophets, and — as a result — about the theodicy of Judaism after the Babylonian captivity. The next text of the first part is about the content, dating, and interpretation of the Book of Job, and its comparing, among others, with the philosophy of Epicurus. The second part is centered at the Book of Ecclesiastes, which is opened with a universal question about the searches for the meaning of life. There R. shows, step by step, how was that question put and solved in the ancient Near East, and in the Stoic philosophy. Then, as it was in the first part on the Book of Job, there is a text on the content, dating, and interpretation of the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Written in 1980-s, and published in 1992, the book was obviously created by a Soviet scholar. He rejected the attempts of theological considerations, teaching, or playing with some theological interpretations of the topics and plots.