The Book of Job consists of a prose prologue and epilogue narrative framing poetic dialogues and monologues.[4] It is common to view the narrative frame as the original core of the book, enlarged later by the poetic dialogues and discourses, and sections of the book such as the Elihu speeches and the wisdom poem of chapter 28 as late insertions, but recent trends have tended to concentrate on the book's underlying editorial unity.[5]
Origin Of The Book Of Job
Religious views on authorship can vary, but historically Moses has been seen as having written the Book of Job. This view is given in the Jewish Talmud,[47] and was also held by the medieval Jewish philosopher Saadia Gaon.[48] Modern Christians have sometimes agreed with the Jewish tradition, while other Christian believers have speculated that Elihu, Solomon, Ezra, or even Job himself may have written the book.[49]
The language of Job stands out for its conservative spelling and for its exceptionally large number of words and forms not found elsewhere in the Bible.[50] Many later scholars down to the 20th century looked for an Aramaic, Arabic or Edomite original, but a close analysis suggests that the foreign words and foreign-looking forms are literary affectations designed to lend authenticity to the book's distant setting and give it a foreign flavor.[46][51]
In the Latin Vulgate, the New Revised Standard Version and in Protestant Bibles, it is placed after the Book of Esther as the first of the poetic books.[1] In the Hebrew Bible it is located within the Ketuvim. John Hartley notes that in Sephardic manuscripts the texts are ordered as Psalms, Job, Proverbs but in Ashkenazic texts the order is Psalms, Proverbs, and then Job.[1] In the Catholic Jerusalem Bible it is described as the first of the "wisdom books" and follows the two books of the Maccabees.[53]
The three books of wisdom literature share attitudes and assumptions but differ in their conclusions: Proverbs makes confident statements about the world and its workings that are flatly contradicted by Job and Ecclesiastes.[56] Wisdom literature from Sumeria and Babylonia can be dated to the third millennium BCE.[57] Several texts from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt offer parallels to Job,[58] and while it is impossible to tell whether the author of Job was influenced by any of them, their existence suggests that the author was the recipient of a long tradition of reflection on the existence of inexplicable suffering.[59]
The book begins with the frame narrative, giving the reader an omniscient "God's eye perspective" which introduces Job as a man of exemplary faith and piety, "blameless and upright", who "fears God" and "shuns evil".[65][66] The contrast between the frame and the poetic dialogues and monologues, in which Job never learns of the opening scenes in heaven or of the reason for his suffering, creates a sense of dramatic irony between the divine view of the Adversary's wager, and the human view of Job's suffering "without any reason" (2:3).[66]
Jewish liturgy does not use readings from the Book of Job in the manner of the Pentateuch, Prophets, or Five Megillot, although it is quoted at funerals and times of mourning. However, there are some Jews, particularly the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, who do hold public readings of Job on the Tisha B'Av fast (a day of mourning over the destruction of the First and Second Temples and other tragedies).[89] The cantillation signs for the large poetic section in the middle of the Book of Job differ from those of most of the biblical books, using a system shared with it only by Psalms and Proverbs.
Modern works based on the book include Ralph Vaughan Williams's Job: A Masque for Dancing; French composer Darius Milhaud's Cantata From Job; and Joseph Stein's Broadway interpretation Fiddler on the Roof, based on the Tevye the Dairyman stories by Sholem Aleichem. Neil Simon wrote God's Favorite, which is a modern retelling of the Book of Job. Breughel and Georges de La Tour depicted Job visited by his wife, William Blake produced an entire cycle of illustrations for the book.
Writers Job has inspired or influenced include:[original research?] John Milton (Samson Agonistes); Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov); Alfred Döblin (Berlin Alexanderplatz); Franz Kafka (The Trial); Carl Jung (Answer to Job); Joseph Roth (Job); Bernard Malamud; and Elizabeth Brewster, whose book Footnotes to the Book of Job was a finalist[92] for the 1996 Governor General's Award for poetry in Canada. Archibald MacLeish's drama JB, one of the most prominent uses of the Book of Job in modern literature, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1959. Verses from the Book of Job 3:14 figured prominently in the plot of the film Mission: Impossible (1996).[93] Job's influence can also be seen in the Coen brothers' 2009 film, A Serious Man, which was nominated for two Academy Awards.[94]
The book of Job in the Hebrew Bible is found among the books designated Ketuvim ("writings"), along with Ecclesiastes and the Book of Proverbs. All three belong to a genre known as wisdom literature. The books share a common ancient cultural reflection; similar texts are known from Sumer and Babylonia (from the 3rd millennium BCE), Mesopotamia, and the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.
The Book of Job offers our earliest text of what will develop as the details of the Devil (diabolos in Greek) and the origin of Satan. In Job, Ha-Satan is not yet an evil being, but functions somewhat as God's prosecuting attorney. Ha-Satan in Hebrew meant "accuser" and later "adversary," and his role was to travel around and place obstacles before humans so that they make a choice between good and evil.
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The wide use of foreign, and particularly Aramaic, linguistic features inthe poetic core serves distinct literary functions. On the one hand, the admixtureof foreign words and sounds, together with the predominant Hebrew, yieldsadditional possibilities for wordplay, assonance, and double entendre (see, forexample, at 3:8). On the other hand, because the speakers in the book areTransjordanian, and to the east of Israel the Semitic idiom manifests manyAramaic features, the characteristic sprinkling of Aramaic colors the speech ofthe characters as dialectal, as foreign.
The Israelites categorized Job within their wisdom literature. The book includes language from ancient legal proceedings, laments, and unique terms not found elsewhere in the Bible. In addition, the majority of Job is written in parallel lines which are indicative of poetry.
I am a pastor in Kenya. I use Pastor Chuck Swindoll's books a lot: Moses, David, Joseph, Esther, Hand Me Another Brick. I also receive Insight [for Today] daily. I use all as my study material. . . . I pray that I could absorb all that, live it and teach it. God bless Chuck, God bless Insight For Living.
Of all the Old Testament books, the Book of Job remains acutely contemporary today. Written between the 6th and 3rd c. B.C., it deals with subjects such as the presence of evil in the world, the misery, the quest for justice, the faith, and the behavior of people when they face sudden twists and turns of life. It seems that the ancient text had been illustrated since the Early Christian period because of its fascinating novel-like narrative style.
But I would say it matters for other reasons. Given the way Ezekiel and James treat the book and the person of Job, the readiness to treat the book and the man as fictional signifies a kind of mindset, a kind of soul inclination, which leans more easily toward critical trends than I think is healthy. That would be a concern to me.
The book contains a wide variety of literary genres (narrative, poetry, visions, dialogue and others) woven together into a literary masterpiece. The most commonly accepted outline identifies two cycles of lament, dialogue, and revelation, sandwiched between a prologue and an epilogue:
Proposing a medical diagnosis a posteriori of a person who died a long time ago is not as impossible as it sounds if sufficient medical history is available.A whole book of the Bible is devoted to Job and his trials. The diagnosis of leprosy has been generally accepted by medieval commentators because the verses of the Book speak of ulcers disseminated over the skin, and also because leprosy is an exemplary sanction imposed by way of example by God to punish those who have committed a sin. In this paper, we have taken the different verses with a medical content from the Book of Job, and reconstructed the clinical picture as if the patient had turned up in the 21st century in order to see if the diagnosis of leprosy may be called into question, and to discuss the limits of the medico-historic approach. The clinical picture of the disease consists of deterioration in the general condition, with widespread pain, confusion, skin eruptions, bilious vomiting, and so on. Under these conditions, if Job did exist, and if the retrospective medical history is reliable, the most likely diagnosis is that of scabies rather than leprosy.
The traditional view of Satan as an evil angel opposing the work of God in the book of Job is more likely than the alternative view of Michael Heiser and others who promote similar views.
Kenneth Berding is a professor of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology. He is an author of various books, some academic (such as Polycarp and Paul), some semi-academic (such as What Are Spiritual Gifts? Rethinking the Conventional View), others for-the-classroom (such as Sing and Learn New Testament Greek or The Apostolic Fathers: A Narrative Introduction), and still others for-the-church (such as Walking in the Spirit or Bible Revival: Recommitting Ourselves to One Book). He has published articles in such journals as the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Vigiliae Christianae, New Testament Studies, and Journal of Early Christian Studies. He is the director of Bible Fluency: Sing It, See It, Study It. Before coming to Talbot, Berding was a church planter in the Middle East and taught at Nyack College just north of New York City. He has a heart for God and ministry, has written many worship songs, and has served as a worship pastor in local church ministry. 2ff7e9595c
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