Loading...In my previous post I mentioned that the book of Job is almost certainly the work of two different authors, with two different views – of Job, of Job’s relation with God, of the reason for Job’s sufferings, of Job’s reaction to suffering, and just about everything else. I’ve been asked to give reasons that scholars have (long) thought that this is the case – that there are two different works that have been spliced together. Here I’ll lift my introduction to Job from my yet-to-be-published textbook on the Bible, due to come out in the Fall. In my next post or so I’ll say a few words at greater length about the views of suffering in the two different parts of Job.
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One of the difficulties that most readers have with Job – possibly without realizing that they are having the problem – is that they do not realize that this book is not simply the work of one author with one consistent view of how to explain the problem of suffering, specifically the suffering of the righteous. The book in fact has two separate parts to it, and scholars have long recognized that these two parts almost certainly come from two different authors, writing at two different times. And most important, these two authors had two different views of how to deal with the problem of suffering. When someone later combined their two writings into one larger piece, it created all sorts of havoc for interpreters, since the beginning and ending of Job (both of these are from one author) support a different view of suffering from the middle (which is from the other author).
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Are these the earliest references to Satan in the Hebrew Bible? When the book of Job can be dated? I have read too that we have “versions” of “Job” in Babylonian an Egyptian literature. Is that true? Thanks for the interesting post!
It’s very hard to date the book of Job — almost nothing in it suggests when it was written. So it’s hard to know if these are the “earliest” references. The Satan figure shows up also in Chronicles and Zechariah. And yes there are other Job-like figures in ancient Near Easter literature.
When it is published I intend to purchase your book on the Bible. It will be an excellent contemporary reference from a scholastic perspective.
While in college I recall participating in a coffee house style discussion at the professor’s home dealing with the theme: “A good god and the problem of evil or an evil god and the problem of good?” It was an interesting academic discussion but still only academic.
The debate in Job, though academically interesting is still just academic.
I enjoy delving into the thoughts of the ancients, but I am a here-and-now sort of person.
While we discuss academics on this blog there are living beings, outside our door, enduring horrific suffering, as we speak.
Question:
How do you think we can apply what we learn from the ancients, what we learn from Job, for example, what we learn from Jesus regarding compassion (Matthew 25:31, etc) to those who are suffering and experiencing the evils in the world today? Are we given any definitive direction through scripture to a resolution of suffering?
I think we are given a number of directions, some of them more satisfying than others. I think the answers of Job are altogether unsatisfying, for reasons I’ll explain.
The bookends of the poetic center of Job, as you say, seem to portray the humble, patient Job willing, in his assumption that God has a good reason, to suffer whatever God has laid upon him. But in Jack Miles analysis in his book “God: A Biography,” he sees a Job at the end who does not give in to God. He bases part of this on what he sees as a very shaky translation as “myself” (“therefore I despise myself”), saying there is a problem with the word “myself” such that, in the original, it is not at all clear that it is himself that he despises. Another point Miles makes is this: Job twice repeats God’s words right back at him before commenting on them. (All this is in pp. 317-320.) The conclusion of Miles’ argument is that Job, in the end, is not as contrite as tradition has made him out to be. Are you familiar with his argument and would you please comment?
Yes, there are lots of ways of reading that ending. Mine is veyr different from Miles’s. I’ll lay out what I think in a later post. (Basic line: I think God squashes Job down into the dirt by his mighty presence and berates him for being such an insignificant nobody.)
Absolutely core issue for any sort of Theism . Eagerly await analysis the two ” Jobs ” . Will other Hebrew Bible/ New Testament answers also be looked at ?
Yup, a bit.
Terrific post. Thanks. I had long been confused by the two different presentations of Job (the nice guy versus the irritable guy) . Now I understand. The different genres and different names for God are also quite interesting. Does anyone ever contend that books by Plato, etc. were written by more than one author? I mean was this editorial fusion common in antiquity?
I suppose it was common, but I don’t know that multiple authors are ever suggested for the Platonic dialogues….
I remember when I first read about the two authors of Job in one of your earlier books. Perhaps not to the degree that your other, shall we say, exposes on the new testament, impacted me, but it cemented all of the feelings I had as a child when being taught the Bible by fundamentalists. We were ostracized for asking questions, especially those that challenged “the party line.” I can’t begin to describe the feelings of elation I felt as the new-found confirmation that my childhood intellect had been spot-on all along swept over me and broke the bondage of the low self-esteem that those misguided teachers had taught me to have. I guess I just wanted to thank you for having the courage to face the truth as you found it, and adjust your understanding accordingly. It can’t have been easy for you. But, because you did, and you wrote your books, I found out the truth and it set me free.
Isn’t this another case where writings from the Northern Kingdom were smashed together with those from Judea when the OT was finally being written?
Somehow I don’t find either version very satisfying.
In this case there is nothing to suggest that one part was from the North and the other from the South.
Dr. Ehrman, I love your blog and I have learned much from your books and your Teaching Company courses. I have a question about Job. Most of the commentaries I have studied have suggested that actually there were more than even two authors. In fact there were probably at least 3 and maybe others not counting editors. Author 1 for the prelude and the postlude; author 2 for the dialogues with the three friends and author 3 for the insertion of the Elihu dialog which comes out of no where and, at least to me, doesn’t seem to fit at all. How do you feel about the Elihu dialog?
Yes, I think within the poetic section there were at least two authors — the Elihu materials were added later. And along with these three authors (two in the poetry, one in the prose) there was a later editor who put it all together as one book. And along with all these figures there was one or more scribes who botched the copying of the text so that the third cycle of speeches with the friends got messed up in serious ways.
If what you’re saying about the book of Job is true, and I believe you may be right, then this book is not a reliable source from which we can ascertain any dependable knowledge as to the reason for suffering. The God, sons of God and satan of this story are fictional. So let’s search for our reason for suffering elsewhere.
Thank you for your introduction to Job.
One way the introduction or the body that follows the introduction could be improved would be to quote Hebrew scholars on the editing and the Hebrew canonization that put these works together and authorized them as sacred scripture.
You, I understand are a New Testament scholar. It would be elegant to know who would be the closest to an Old Testament scholar partner–perhaps someone at your university.
The book of Job is on the Saturn bookshelf of Astrology. I have moved from an Astro-Carto-Graphy beam of Venus to an Astro-Carto-Graphy beam of Saturn on the Descendant. My natal chart also has Saturn on the Descendant. I didn’t know how true astrological influences were until I moved away from a Venus beam to a Saturn beam. A Vedic Astrologer giving a lecture on remedies to suffering said if you are suffering from Saturn energy, you are advised to read the book of Job.
With you, Bart, I’m doing that.
With gratitude,
Steefen
Why do you use the word or title “satan” as a proper name? Didn’t you take pains elsewhere to point out that the Hebrew is always preceded by the indefinite article “ha,” thus rendering it “the satan” in English–a title at best with an indefinite article but surely not a proper name.
Well, it’s usually translated that way in Job. But I’m not wedded to it. On the other hand, as long as one recognizes what it means and that it does not refer to The Devil, I think maybe it’s OK.
Thats very interesting professor, however i don’t think this will convince fundamentalists (then again nothing will), are there any noteable contradictions between the 2 which may be more convincing.
You might look at my book God’s Problem where I discuss the issue.
The Satan of Job is an ambiguous character but so it seems to me that the Satan of the Gospels is too. Both Satans are constrained in their exercise of seemingly unlimited power. The Satan of Jesus’ temptation, unlike the dragon of Revelation 12, does not try to kill Jesus, only corrupt him. And the same goes for Job. My question is, when did Satan come to be seen as a ‘roaring lion’ and a hellish monster?
PS. I have always thought of Job in connection with Eddie Murphy’s Trading Places movie in which Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy wager a dollar that they pick a bum off the street (Eddie Murphy) and train him to do just as well as commodities trader Dan Akroyd while turning Akroyd into a street bum.