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9 - Job

from Part II - Wisdom Literature in the Hebrew Bible

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2022

By
Will Kynes
Edited by
Katherine J. Dell
Edited in association with
Suzanna R. Millar  and
Arthur Jan Keefer
Katherine J. Dell
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Suzanna R. Millar
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Arthur Jan Keefer
Affiliation:
Eton College
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Summary

Will Kynes introduces the book of Job by asking ‘What is the book of Job, and how does that affect how you read it?’ This question entails investigation into the book’s genre, for genre recognition provides a horizon of expectations which shape the reader’s perspective. Job has traditionally been read as Wisdom Literature, based on perceived similarities with Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in form, theme, and Sitz im Leben. However, this genre grouping leads to Job’s unwarranted separation from the rest of the canon, theological abstraction, and hermeneutical limitations. Job is an open and ambiguous text which might be placed in multiple genre groupings. Kynes surveys several of these (sifre emet, lament, exemplary sufferer texts, poetry, drama, controversy dialogue, history, epic, didactic narrative, Torah, prophecy, lawsuit, and apocalyptic), as well as some meta-generic readings (parody, citation, and polyphony). Given this diversity, and recognising that all readings are culturally contingent and only partially appropriate, he advocates a multiperspectival approach which draws insights from many directions.

Keywords

Jobgenrewisdom literatureambiguitygenre diversity
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Wisdom Literature , pp. 162 - 183
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Further Reading

Clines, David J. A. Job. 3 vols. WBC 17–18B. Nashville: 1989–2011.Google Scholar
Clines, David J. A. ‘Why Is There a Book of Job, and What Does It Do to You If You Read It?’ Pages 122–144 in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible. JSOTSup 225. Sheffield: 1995.Google Scholar
Dell, Katharine J. The Book of Job as Sceptical Literature. BZAW 197. Berlin: 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dell, Katharine, and Kynes, Will, eds. Reading Job Intertextually. LHBOTS 574. New York: 2013.Google Scholar
Harding, James Edward. ‘The Book of Job as Metaprophecy’. SR 39 (2010): 523–547.Google Scholar
Jones, Scott C. ‘Job’. In The Oxford Handbook of Wisdom and the Bible 533–550. Edited by Kynes, Will. New York: 2021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kynes, Will. My Psalm Has Turned into Weeping: Job’s Dialogue with the Psalms. BZAW 437. Berlin: 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kynes, Will. An Obituary for ‘Wisdom Literature’: The Birth, Death, and Intertextual Reintegration of a Biblical Corpus. Oxford: 2019.Google Scholar
Lambert, David A. ‘The Book of Job in Ritual Perspective’. JBL 134 (2015): 557–575.Google Scholar
Morrow, William. ‘Consolation, Rejection, and Repentance in Job 42:6’. JBL 105 (1986): 211–225.Google Scholar
Newsom, Carol A. The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations. Oxford: 2003.Google Scholar
Seow, C. L. Job 1–21: Interpretation and Commentary. Illuminations. Grand Rapids: 2013.Google Scholar
Westermann, Claus. The Structure of the Book of Job: A Form-Critical Analysis. Translated by Charles A. Muenchow. Philadelphia: 1981. Translation of Der Aufbau des Buches Hiob. Tübingen: 1956.Google Scholar

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