Job in the Ancient World

Vicchio

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781498276559
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In this first of a three-volume work, Vicchio addresses the most ancient Hebrew text of Job in all its complexity, with particular emphasis on the problems of evil and suffering. But he follows this with the "reception history" of the text--how it was translated, read, and interpreted in other ancient works: the Septuagint, apocryphal books, early Christian writings, Talmud, Midrash, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Peshitta. Two appendices detail how Job has been treated in art and architecture and in Western music. Volume 1: Job in the Ancient World Volume 2: Job in the Medieval World Volume 3: Job in the Modern World

1

Parallels to Job in Ancient Literature

The Bible cannot be properly studied or understood apart from its background and environment which comprises the whole ancient Near East. Since the middle of the last century, a great deal of new light has been shed on the Bible, especially on the Old Testament, by recovery of considerable portions of the ancient literatures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia.

—Marvin Pope, Job

The author of the book of Job knows what people think, what people say in whispers—and not just in Israel.

—Christian Duquoc, Demonism and the Unexpectedness of God

Introduction

It is usually taken for granted that the book of Job has deep roots in ancient Hebrew language and culture. Although a small number of commentators, both ancient and modern, have suggested an authorship outside ancient Palestine,1 most writers on the book of Job have thought it to be a Hebrew work. The ancient Jews, however, did not live in isolation. Israel was situated at a central cultural highway linking the northern Fertile Crescent to Egypt in the south. The religion and literature of ancient Israel had many precursors elsewhere in the Near East.

Before the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Hebrew Bible was one of the only known repositories of literary materials from the cultures of the ancient Near East. With Napoleon’s expeditions to Egypt in the early nineteenth century, the discipline of Near Eastern Studies was born. Since that time, the combined expertise of archaeologists, anthropologists, philologists, geographers, historians, and theologians has brought to light thousands of documents and artifacts from Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Palestine. We now possess a great deal of information about life in the Fertile Crescent, beginning around 3000 BCE.

In this opening chapter we do the following things: first, we discuss the nature of ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature; second we talk briefly about the book of Job as wisdom literature; finally, we make some observations about parallels to Job in the Hebrew Bible, as well as elsewhere in the ancient Near East.

Ancient Near Eastern Wisdom Literature

Throughout the ancient Near East there were two separate kinds of Wisdom literature. The first variety is usually called “Prudential literature.” It usually involves practical advice for the young on how to attain a successful and good life. Examples of this genre are the Egyptian Amen-em-opet; the Babylonian “Counsels of Wisdom”; and biblical book of Proverbs.

The other form of Near Eastern Wisdom is “Reflective literature.” These texts most often involve a reflective probing into the depth of the deepest of human questions: the meaning of life, and the nature and meaning of suffering, for example. The “Babylonian Theodicy,” the Egyptian “Dispute Over Suicide,” and the biblical books of Job and Ecclesiastes are good examples of this form.

One important realization to arise from the deciphering of various languages and literatures of the ancient Near East is that the Egyptians, Sumerians, Akkadians, Edomites, Canaanites, Greeks, Hurrians, and Hittites all possessed a brand of what might loosely be called “wisdom literature.” Beginning with the Egyptian Pyramid Age (2600–2175 BCE) and the Sumerian Era in Mesopotamia (3000–2300 BCE), wisdom writings circulated far beyond the times and places in which they were written.

In general terms, ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature had a number of family-resemblance characteristics,2 or traits shared across geographical and cultural boundaries, which give these disparate pieces of literature a certain similarity. First, wisdom literature is primarily about the individual. It tends to provide the portrait of a single soul trying to make sense of an often hostile environment. Second, Wisdom literature most often addresses ultimate questions—what Paul Tillich has so aptly called “boundary situations”: the destiny of human beings, the nature of death, and the meaning of human suffering. As Bernhard Anderson puts it:

Wisdom is the concern of Man as Man: Greek or Jew, Babylonian or Egyptian, male or female, king or slave. The quest for wisdom is the quest for the meaning of life. And this quest if the basic interest of every human being.3

Third, in most of Near Eastern wisdom literature there is a premium on honesty. Rather than offering clichés or a deus ex machina to solve the larger issues raised by the text, it tends to be evaluative and summative. In this sense, Near Eastern wisdom literature is most often an honest portrayal of actual experience, with the lament employed more often than songs of praise or confessions of faith.

Because the emphasis in wisdom literature is usually on the individual, it does not, for the most part, concern itself with the larger sweep of history Once again, Anderson describes the genre succinctly and eloquently:

Wisdom literature did not have an historical perspective. The sage brought history of a standstill, so to speak, in order to analyze in depth the problem of human existence. He was not concerned with the unrepeatable events and the dynamic movement of a people’s unique history but with the recurring experiences and the fixed moral order in which every individual participates.4

A fourth noteworthy aspect of ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature is its tendency to provide practical counsel in trying situations.5 Rather than theoretical speculation or metaphysical pronouncements, wisdom literature usually offers a way of surviving the current situation. Sometimes this involves little more than the advice to keep one’s head low when in the presence of the gods. In other instances it involves knowing the proper ritual prescriptions for appeasing those gods. In either case, wisdom literature often presents the reader with practical advice on how to deal with real suffering.

A fifth characteristic of both ancient Near Eastern and Hebrew wisdom literature is that in general wisdom literature has little to do with organized religion. Thus, references to the covenant, or the patriarchs, for example, are rare in Ancient Hebrew literature. This characteristic is directly related to the notion that wisdom literature tends to be individualistic.

Finally, ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature involves a fearless use of reason in confronting the fundamental issues of life, as well as a refusal to pretend certainty when none is to be found. The writers of Near Eastern wisdom texts for the most part exhibited a refreshing allegiance to the truth, whatever it might bring.

From this short description of Near Eastern wisdom literature, it should be clear that biblical wisdom, hokmah, is part of a larger and older tradition. The precise relationship between particular biblical texts and specific ancient Near Eastern literature outside Palestine, however, is almost never clear.

There are some rare instances of borrowing so striking that scholars universally agree on an Egyptian or Babylonian text as a direct progenitor of a biblical text. The tenth-century BCE Egyptian “Maxims of Amenomope,” for example, clearly served as a model for Proverbs 22:17—24:22.6 Similarly, there may be a connection between the Babylonian “Epic of Gilgemesh” and the flood story in Genesis 6–8. In general, however, detection of clear borrowing of an earlier text by biblical writers is rare. The fact that human suffering and questions about meaning are ubiquitous in the ancient Near East complicate discussions about what earlier Near Eastern sources may have been used by the authors of Job as they constructed their book.

Book of Job and Wisdom Literature

It should be clear that the biblical book of Job fits this general description employed above. It is essentially a moral tale, coupled with extensive poetic dialogues. The story is set in a non-covenantal context. Neither Job nor his friends are identified as Hebrews. Nowhere is the book are the promises of Yahweh or the covenant with Abraham mentioned.

Job speaks honestly throughout the book; the speeches of the friends and God provide some practical advice; it begins with Job as an individual, one different from others because he is blameless and upright; and throughout the book, reason is employed by the hero to suggest that the traditional answers in ancient Israel to why people suffer are untenable in his case.

The book of Job, then, is clearly an example of ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature. Like Plato, who wrote in dialogue form and who often ended his dialogues inconclusively, the authors of Job involve the reader in an intense debate that ends, not with a resolution, but with a new set of questions. Questions about the nature of suffering and the meaning of life.

The questions raised in the book of Job go right to the heart of the faith of Israel. But the authors of Job were unwilling to soften the question of innocent suffering. Thus, they often put in the mouth of Job words which sounded like blasphemy to the ears of orthodox people. This unswerving honesty is a characteristic of both ancient Near Eastern wisdom in general and Hebrew wisdom in particular.

Hebrew Parallels to Job

Certainly the clearest parallels to the book of Job are to be found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. Many of the Psalms contain complaints strikingly similar to those of Job. They frequently lament the suffering of the innocent or express perplexity at the prosperity of evil doers. Psalm 49, for example, presents the experience of a righteous individual who, though persecuted unjustly, nevertheless expresses confidence in God’s deliverance. Psalm 10 may serve as another illustrative example:

Why dos...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Parallels to Job in Ancient Literature
• Chapter 2: The Setting of the Book of Job
• Chapter 3: Job in the Masoretic Text: A Search for the Original Text
• Chapter 4: A Reading of Job in Its Time and Place
• Chapter 5: Job in the Septuagint
• Chapter 6: Job in the Jewish Apocrypha
• Chapter 7: Job in Early Christianity: The First Four Centuries
• Chapter 8: Job in the Talmud and Midrash
• Chapter 9: Job in the Dead Sea Scrolls
• Chapter 10: Job in the Peshitta
• Appendix A: Job in Art and Architecture
• Appendix B: Job in Western Music