Celsus

Hi all,

Comments, scathing criticisms, pointing out glaring factual errors, and perhaps some constructive feedback as well are all welcome.

Joel

Introduction

Job is a book grouped among the Wisdom Literature, alongside Proverbs, Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), Sirach, and the Wisdom of Solomon. It is generally regarded as dating to the Persian period, although controversy on its dating remains. Historically, its author was connected with all manner of ancient figures (Moses, Solomon, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Ezra, and Elihu who appears late in the poem), but such is speculation. What can be said was with confidence is that Job was not an uncommon name from the 19th to 14th centuries BCE (possibly an Edomite name), that he was well-known as a legendary figure similar to Paul Bunyan, and a character gets mention in Ezekiel 14:14, 20.[1]

Some argue that its ending bears similarities to the ending of Amos, that it is dependent on Jeremiah, and Deutero-Isaiah in turn is dependent on Job--this would place it well into the 7th century BCE (the older view, now no longer taken for granted). However, its stance as a contradiction to other Wisdom Literature (other than Qoheleth) places it at a much later date. Still more troubling, parts of it show ancient influence that make it an uneasy sit in later period. This however, will have to be left for scholars to argue over. It is not unreasonable to date it to the 4th-3rd centuries BCE, and I will work on that assumption here.

Form and Structure

My study is aimed at looking at mythic allusions and parallels as a study, but firstly, we should consider a basic look at its structure. Job is generally divided into several sections: The prose material (Job 1-2; 42:7-17), the poetic speeches of Job in his dialogue with his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (3-31), the speech of Elihu (32-37), and God's intervening speech and Job's reply (38-42:6). Like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, it assumes that human problems fall into discernable patterns that are controlled ultimately by God. Some argue that it is set up like a lawsuit (with a fair amount of legal terms used), but unconvincingly.[2]

The prose material is generally considered much older and legendary, and does not fall into the category of Wisdom Literature. It is instead a folktale not to be treated historically. Neils Peter Lemche argues that Job 1:1 ("There was once a man in the land of Uz"--NRSV) should be translated as "Once upon a time there lived a man in the land of Uz" in order to get the nuance of what sort of folktale we're dealing with.[3] Indeed, the setting in the prose section is artificial, and largely contradictory to the speeches of Job in the poetic section.

The poetry in the middle section of Job is generally considered one of the masterpieces of ancient literature. Alfred Lord Tennyson considered it "the greatest poem of ancient or modern times." It is a discussion on the "origin, nature, meaning, and resolution of the problems of evil and suffering within one's larger theological perspective"[4]--in short a theodicy. The character of Job here is unlike the prose material--whereas he is stoic and faithful in the prose (e.g. 1:21), in chapters 3-31 he laments, questions, and generally just whines (see 9:23-24; 24:1-12, etc.)--anything but faithful. His pseudo-pious friends, of course, echo Proverbs Some early rabbis even consider Job blasphemous!

The prose summation in chapter 42 never adequately addresses the issues raised within these poetic dialogues and speeches--perhaps the ancients saw no way out other than an appeal to God. Considering that the earlier prose set it up as a wager between God and Satan,[5] it points to needless suffering of a wistful God--more problems with the contrived nature of the prose being tacked on. Meanwhile, the laments of Job are interrupted by a face-saving poem in chapter 28: Wisdom (and Job's attempts at understanding the situation) are out of the reach of mere mortals. It is unclear who is speaking, certainly not Job because he's completely forgotten this by chapter 30. It is generally considered a later addition.

Elihu's entry in chapter 32 is a foreign addition, perhaps tacked on by a later writer in preparation for God's speech in chapter 38. He is mentioned nowhere else, appears abruptly with little introduction, and disrupts the continuity between Job 31:40 (where Job leaves off) and 38:1 (where God makes his whirlwind appearance). It bears resemblance to that odd chapter 28, and Elihu is preparing for God's speech a few chapters later. His speech amounts to "wait, hold on, God is still there," yet like the prose summation, never adequately addresses Job's laments. However, he does quote earlier sections of Job, and we could interpret chapter 32 as a case of ancient footnotes. Thankfully, everyone ignores him. Then, as suddenly as he appears, he sinks back into the ether from which he came.

God's intervention in chapter 38 is thunderous and stern, yet it does not sit well with the little wager he and Satan played earlier in the book. The omnipotent, omniscient deity is clearly diffeent from the anthropomorphic God of the prose. It is now we begin the search for mythic allusions and parallels to this work.

The Layer Beneath the Layers

Like much of ancient writing, cultic influences and traditions widespread throughout the Ancient Near East had bearings on the text. Job has its own unique metaphors--Behemoth and Leviathan are mentioned only in Job, and while Behemoth may simply be some large herbivore, Leviathan has cultic significance. Rituals to minor deities are commonly mentioned in the Bible. For example, Isaiah 28:15 and 18 speak of a "covenant with death"--more accurately, they are speaking of a covenant with Mot, the god of death, and enemy of Baal. Ziony Zevitt writes:

• I conclude that Israelite mythology portrayed Adonay, Asherah, Baal, Baalat, El, Molech, Mot, Yam, and YHWH (listed in alphabetical order), aong with other deities as warriors, heroes, and world makers vying for control and mastership of peoples, lands and the cosmos as did Canaanite mythology. I also conclude, however, that Israelian mythology comprehended Adonay, Asherah, Baal, Baalat, El, Molech, Mot, Yam, and YHWH as begetters, nurterers [sic], healers, protectors and judges as did the earlier Canaanite mythology (insofar as it is known to contemporary scholarship). Ugaritic Baal, for example, was addressed for deliverance from siege, for success in war, as well as providing for children.[6]

Job is no exception--we can see Abaddon and Mot as living deities in 28:22. Some ancient traditions such as the slaying of a primordial serpent (Job 3:8; 9:8;[7] 26:13; 41; Isaiah 27:1) have been found in iconography. A cult stand discovered at Ta'anach in 1902 shows a male figure subduing (?) a serpent by grasping its neck. In fact, the creation myth in which a storm god fighting a snake is common. No doubt it has made its way into Job and Isaiah as Leviathan (no, it's not a dinosaur, before anyone asks).

However, when we venture into the myths of other Ancient Near Eastern sources, it gets even more intriguing. Job bears resemblance to the Egyptian piece, "A Dispute over Suicide," a Sumerian essay, "Man and his God," and another text simply known as the Babylonian theodicy.[8] Unfortunately, I've got no access to these texts.

What I do know of, is the Kirta epic, an Ugaritic poem dated to the 14th century BCE although several sections are missing.[9] It (or at least the recovered text) begins with King Kirta suffering a disaster much like Job's. His seven wives die to a variety of natural causes (illness, war, etc.) and he is in danger of having no natural successor, but then El (notice, of course, that El the Canaanite/Ugaritic deity is a precursor to El the Israelite deity) appears to him in a dream. He must make a large sacrifice to Baal and El (Job 42:8), then travel to Udum and lay siege to it. The King would concede defeat and offer his throne, but Kirta was to refuse and instead ask for Hurrai's hand in marriage. All takes place as in the dream, and Hurrai bears Kirta seven sons (Job 42:13--seven sons) and seven daughters and they throw a party. Kirta is then stricken by disease and the other gods refuse to help him--all except for El, who prepares a healer for him. However, his return is not happy--his son has succeeded him and refuses to return it to him. For that, Kirta curses him. Unfortunately, the epic ends there, and while plausible reconstructions have been made, all that is known is that Kirta and his youngest son battle the other sons later on.

Concluding Speculations

While the similarities are not overt, it does point to an ancient tradition of folktales dealing with the problem of suffering while believing in just and powerful gods. Job and Kirta are a millenia apart, yet the grappling with theodicy is never satisfactorily resolved. All we can say is that folk literature like Kirta developed early on, and perhaps the question of suffering became of interest to the Wisdom schools springing up in Persian dominated Israel. Undoubtedly, the prose of Job would have been very old by that time--a good enough setting for some qualitatively superior poetry to be inserted to express the problem. Perhaps a later editor (or even the same writer) chickened out at the prospect of blaspheming YHWH. Maybe Elihu was the persona taken on by the scribe to represent his own views thereby distancing himself from Job's troubling questions. Whatever the case, the daring charges of Job against his god stand head and shoulders over the rest of the Hebrew Bible.


[1] The Septuagint version of Job 42:17 identifies Job with Jobab, the grandson of Esau (Genesis 36:33-34).

[2] Montgomery, J.F. & Zuck, R.B., The Bible Knowledge Commentary, Victor Books, p. 716

[3] Lemche, N.P. (1998) Prelude to Israel's Past, Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, trans. E.F.Maniscalco, p. 25, n. 23. Note here that this designation as "folktale" is to separate it from the toledot (story of genealogies) in Genesis--it is far less sophisticated and an indication that we are not dealing with actual events.

[4] Inbody, T. (1997) The Transforming God: An Interpretation of Suffering and Evil, Lousville: Westminster John Knox, p. 30

[5] Satan (properly, ha-satan, "the Accuser," is portrayed as one of the bny 'lym, also elohim, "sons of God" and really a minor angel or deity. No efforts are made to excuse this, which conflicts with later Judaism and Christian theology.

[6] Zevitt, Z. (2001), The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches, London & New York: Continuum, pp.684-5 He lists the overt mythological allusions as found in Genesis 1:27; 6:1-4; Exodus 4:22-23 (c.f. Hosea 11:1; Jeremiah 3:19; 31:7-9, 20); Exodus 4:22-28; Isaiah 25:6-8; 27:1 (the little apocalypse); Psalms 2:7; 18:14-16; 29:1-10; 65:8; 74:12-17; 89:10-11, 26; 93:1-5; 104:6-9, 10-11; and Job 3:8; 9:8, 13; 26:11-13; 38:8-11; 40:25-32.

[7] Job 9:8 is alternately read as "trampled the back of the sea dragon" and is a better fit with the astrological characters of the next verse.

[8] Farmer, K.A., (1998), "The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes" in McKenzie, S.L. & Graham, M.P. (eds.) (1998), The Hebrew Bible Today: An Introduction to Critical Issues, Lousville: Westminster John Knox, p. 135.

[9] The following summary is adapted from Lemche (1998), pp. 178-179.

CJD

Ah, Celsus. You've made me salivate. Just a few remarks:

This is, of course, due to the fact that the setting itself is ancient. I personally think it was written around the 7th century [c. 1000–600 BC] (because, quite simply, the protagonist's age need not reflect the age of the author(s). Thus, I think a 4th–3rd century dating is a bit early. First, let's look briefly at the setting:

1. Age of protagonist: 140 (240 in LXX) (42:16) Conclusively Patriarchal.

2. Old unit of value: "q'sita" (42:11; cf. 33:19; Josh. 24:32).

3. How was wealth measured? Cattle, slaves, precious metals (1:3; 42:11, 12; cf. Gen. 12:16; 13:2–6; 24:3, 5: 26:12–14; 30:43).

4. Simple religous practices (not exactly cultic): cf. Job 1:5. You'll contend this, right?

5. Job's name is legendary: Ezek. 14:14, 20; 28:3

6. Archaic divine name: Shadday

Nota bene: references to "iron" (smelting of iron not know until about 1200 BC ?) may be an anachronism (cf. 19:24; 20:24; 28:2, etc.).

You're right Celsus, there is little consensus about the dating of this book as a whole, while the prose accounts are typically seen to be from an ancient epic of Job (see Sama, "Epic Substratum in the Prose of Job,' JBL 76 (1967) 13–25.) Can I bolster your introduction, anyway? Moving on to the question of literary dependence.

Here's the short list:
a. Job 3:3–26 and Jer. 20:14–18
b. Job 15:7–8 and Proverbs 8:22, 25
c. Job 21:7–13 and Jer. 12:1–3
d. Job 7:17–18 and Ps. 8:5

Also, the interplay with so-called Second Isaiah and Third Isaiah is particularly strong, as many scholars have noted (still others cite some 50+ correlations to other parts of the canon as well as Sirach).

Now, this begs the question, who depends upon whom? Saint Paul quotes Job (1 Cor. 3:19; cf. Job 5:13); does that mean Job is dependent on Paul?

The only conclusion based on this is that the nature and direction of the dependence is unknown on whether the parallel texts are mutually dependent on an unknown third source.

Moving on to language . . .

1. The text abounds in Aramaisms. But . . .
2. Dahood prefers to speak about NW Semitic in general, with a special preference for Ugaritic (see Bib., 306–320).
3. At an early stage it seems Hebrew was much closer to Aramaic. One scholar points us to the "Sefire Inscriptions" to back this up.
4. Aramaisms might only indicate cultural diversity.

Since the language of the book is obscure (vernacular Hebrew or a mixture?), is it a translation from some other language?

Also, I have read that Job has some orthographic peculiarities (I'll get the reference if interested), which would move its date to at least before 600 BC.

Finally, the author(s) and date:

1. After the invention of smelting iron (cf. Job 14:9).
2. But before 200 BC because the MSS of Job was found at Qumran.
I've read that the text there dates to the time of Jesus ("supposed" for some of you mythers). The language suggests that the translation could have been made two hundred years earlier, making it the oldest known Targum.

Hence my dating it c. 1000–600 BC.

I will get to the implied author in my next post as I go through the rest of your OP.

This I will contend sharply in the next post. I am of the mind that one cannot tell us what the text means until one can tell us how it means. This assumption of yours will impede your exegesis, IMO.

I also think there are many falsely alleged parallels, but I'll wait until you show your hand on that . . .

Regards and thanks for reading,

CJD

Mageth

Job has its own unique metaphors--Behemoth and Leviathan are mentioned only in Job, and while Behemoth may simply be some large herbivore, Leviathan has cultic significance.

IIRC, B&L are also mentioned in the Book of Enoch (in the Catholic Bible), and in other apcryphal texts.

More info on the Monsters

Doctor X

Interesting.

Any thoughts on the use of Stn--"Satan"--the "Prosecuter?" I was thinking about this because in Job he seems a more "ancient" version--a tool of the gods and Big Daddy . . . able to visit "Heaven" and talk to Big Daddy. Goes on a job . . . did not actually see that pun!

In other words, he is not an "evil" character or a personification of evil--or an excuse for "bad." "Stn"--to memory, otherwise appears in Chronicles where the Chronicler "fixed" the problem of YHWH ordering David to do something so he can punish him for it. The Chronicler inserts Satan . . . which leaves us the question on how he could do this without YHWH intervening.

Anyways, it seems that Satan in Job fulfills a similar role--he keeps Big Daddy's hands clean. Why not have just have Big Daddy rain down the pestilence, boils, and Amway Distributers? Satan does allow the "conflict" part of the story--a bet, a wager, a challenge . . . but having him cause the problems "softens" the responsibility of Big Daddy.

Also, by considering/translating him as "prosecuter" Satan has a purpose--to test. He proposes a test. Perhaps, in the author's mind, Big Daddy tries to show Satan one who would not fail--in a way, Big Daddy proposes the wager, not Satan--"Hey, look at my good servant Job, here!"

--J.D.

Celsus

Hi CJD,
I aim to please.
I think an old social setting is not necessarily troublesome. Blenkinsopp and others have argued in a considerable number of cases that an old setting need not necessarily imply an old date. Remember, I consider the prose to be early as well--your points (1) to (5) would not really trouble my stance that it reaches final form in the Persian period. The grist is whether an early date can be pinned on the poetic section--that is much harder to do, but look at (5): Shadday "Almighty" appears over 30 times but so too does El, Elohah, and YHWH shows up in his grand entry and epilogue. Yet it also shows up in Ruth, which most agree is a Persian or later novella. I think that a more systematic look at the wisdom poetry would need to be undertaken, which I don't have the expertise to do.
I'd love for you to contribute.
I hinted at this in my intro, but didn't have the time to go into it properly. Perhaps you'd like to elaborate further? It looks very promising.
I've read that it's been influenced by a variety of languages--even Akkadian and Sumerian, but I can't remember where. So it's a bit unsure if its a straight translation or there would be a direct influence of primarily one language. Now incidentally, wouldn't Aramaisms point to a later date?
I'd be interested, definitely. No doubt anyone else looking on is bored to death already.
Job 14:9 doesn't say anything about iron, did you get the right verse? And is it that the Qumran Job MSS dates to the turn of the millenia? That doesn't set a very strict range (1200-200 BCE).

Anyway, I look forward to your next post. We may reach another deadlock as to the age of the Pentateuch, so let's try to keep that one out for now. I'm quite open on Job though.

Joel

Celsus

Hello Doctor X,

I think here that Satan is not properly "Satan" as I state in my footnote. He is subordinate to God, one of the Elohim, and something of a Loki character--not necessarily evil. I find both characters extremely anthropomorphic (1:12/2:6 has the Accuser leaving the presence of the Lord, for example). Also interesting is the large chunk of material in which ha-satan features (Job 1:6-12 and 2:1-6).

On the other hand, it would not at all be surprising to find Satan as an evil deity featuring in Job. Most translations wipe out the presence of gods such as Abaddon, Mot, Gad, Molech, etc. with personifications (Mot=Death as mentioned). Rituals to other gods and clear signs of henotheism are widespread. Perhaps ha-satan survives because of his similarity to the later Satan.

Joel

Celsus

Right, I was refering to the orthodox Bible and Catholic Apocrypha. Enoch is not part of the Catholic Bible. I suppose the influence of Job (and perhaps other oral traditions now lost) on later Jewish literature is to be expected.

Joel

Mageth

Enoch is not part of the Catholic Bible.

Woops. And here I was thinking it was.

That's what I get for being raised Protestant.

DrJim

Enoch and Jubilees are part of the Eithiopic chruches canon (which is a larger and a little more flexible an entity that the bibles of other Christiainities).

I had an Eithiopian student who was dead proud of their big bible: he would laugh and say that it shows that Eithiopians are simply wonderful folk since God trusted them with more sacred literature...

In Jubilees, Mastema, a sort of Satan-figure (who also appears as a proper character and generic "satans" plays a pretty big role as a fallen watcher: they write him into biblical stories the way Chronicler does with David's census.
He plays some roles like Satan in Job: in the Akeda of Jubilees, it is Mastema who tests Abraham's faith by in the sacrifice of Isaac, and is put to shame when Abraham passes the test.

Doctor X

Hello Celsus:

I guess it would help if I read the footnotes. . . .

I agree. I tend to look at Elohim as "gods" in the context of Job with El Shadday, El Insert-Your-Honorific-Here as Big Daddy. I am probably "preaching to the choir," but it seems to me that you have a "head god"--El--with other gods--hence the "El of the Heavenly Hosts" and--adding a form of YHWH--the "El that makes the Heavenly Hosts--of which Satan appears to be one.

Regarding anthropomorphisms, these abound in the OT--with Big Daddy wandering around the garden yelling "Hey Adam?!!"--and different aspects of YHWH walking about. A "contradiction" some point to in Job is that Big Daddy has to ask Satan where he has been. Does not Big Daddy--All Knowing-All Loving-All Smiting--know? Not with the very human conception of gods.

Another anthropomorphism that disturbes believers now is temper. Like humans with too much power, the gods lose their tempers. YHWH frequently "repents" of his anger. He has tantrums . . . do not mess with him. Wander over to Homer and you have Hera sleeping with Zeus so he will stop preventing her attempts to squish Troy! The minx. . . .

Back to Job . . . the "out of the whirlwind speech" is, in my mind, a bit of regal irritation bordering on tantrum. "I am the god. You do not get to question these things!" In a way, that is the message . . . things happen . . . even to "good and devote" people.

--J.D.