ואל-תמכר » job

Reading Proverbs and Job Back to Back

mitchell b powell — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 06:14:46 +0000

I like the Jewish canonical order of the books of the Hebrew Bible. I just remarked on the contrasts between Ruth and Song, but there’s an equally fascinating tension between the two books preceding Ruth and Song. And this is the tension between Proverbs and Job. Proverbs teaches one how to live ethically, how to become wealthy, how to increase in power, how to align one’s life with God’s plan in order to increase. And then Job, devastatingly, follows with an example of someone who lives the sort of life Proverbs calls for, but does not get the Proverbially expected outcome.

Psalms introduces the problem of how to interpret the success and failure of the righteous and wicked. Proverbs and Job develop those themes further. The way all these books stand next to each other in the Hebrew canon might be the basis for an argument that we should try adopting the Hebrew order ourselves.

job’s messengers

mitchell b powell — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:36:29 +0000

When I see it in print, the series of messengers coming to Job present some interesting difficulties. How accurate were their accounts? What’s up with each claiming to be the only one who escaped — do they not see each other standing there. But for a moment all the questions fade, and I remember one of the strongest mental impressions I ever received in my childhood, from a taped oral presentation of the series of messengers.

I do not know when it was in my life, nor whether I was in the Venezuela and the US or that time. Almost all my memories have locations. This is no exception. My location in this memory in my mind’s eye, standing away off and watching Job, sitting and talking with friends, minding his own business. A happy and prosperous man.

And then a messenger comes, and speaks details of disaster. And before he is finished, another comes, telling a different tale. And another. I alone have escaped to tell you. I alone have escaped to tell you. I alone have escaped to tell you. I don’t remember how many messengers came to Job, but their cumulative effect still disturbs me.

One layer at a time, disaster is piled up on top of Job, with no time in between speakers for reflection, for trying to get at the facts, for trying to harmonize their accounts. The world simply caves in on Job.

Orally recited, the text does that superbly. What you’re reading in print is a dim reflection of what it looks like when read in a grave, steady, almost slow but never pausing voice. Try reading it out loud that way to yourself, and suddenly Job sitting in complete shock and silence for a week afterward won’t seem on all that far-fetched.

was job a real person?

mitchell b powell — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:33:21 +0000

That’s the title of Jeff Oien’s recent post. In it he decides that on the basis of Ezekiel 14:14 that Job was “of course” a real person. Critics would respond with the argument that Job is simply a parabolic figure and he’s being used here as a symbol of righteousness in a hypothetical and impossible situation: the simultaneous presence of Noah, Daniel, and Job. Bryan Lilly chimed in with a post detailing the reasons he thinks Job was a historical figure. Martin Luther, if I remember right, believed Job was a parable. I’ll not wade into the arguments, but I thought I’d just throw in something else.

According to E. W. Bullinger (see his Companion Bible, Genesis 46:13), Job may well have been the son of Issachar. As it says in Genesis 46:13 (Masoretic Text),

And the sons of Issachar [were] Tola and Puah and Job and Shimron.

If we turn to our NIV’s however, we find that there is no Job:

The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puah, Jashub, and Shimron.

The difference is that the Samaritan Pentateuch and some Septuagint mss. read “Jashub,” which better agrees with some other passages. So even if the correct reading for Genesis is “Job,” and this is uncertain, the Job/Jashub referred to could well be different from the Job of the Book of Job.

job posting

mitchell b powell — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:58:06 +0000

Job is an awkward book to have in the Bible, but I’m glad it’s there. It provokes a great quantity of worthwhile discussion, including this post.