Reading Job, part 4. Biblical Wisdom
I'm reading commentaries. And general works on wisdom literature. There are 3 books of the Old Testament that everyone agrees is wisdom-literature : Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job. They all belong to the same general genre, because they all deal with the life of everyman ...
or rather ... the issues dealt with in each of them are issues that every man (and woman) can relate to.
Proverbs is the easiest of the lot to get to grips with, even if it is not a particularly homogenous work. In it are hymns and proverbs, aforisms and good advise, admonitions and praises. But it is impersonal.
Ecclesiastes purports to be the work of one man, and his struggle to get to grips with what he percieves to be the meaning-less-ness of life Vanitas vanitatum, all is vanity, all is in vain.
And then there is Job. The received wisdom re. Job is, that it deals with innocent suffering. With the major problem, that if God is almighty, and there is only one, then all good as well as all suffering has only one source : God
And how can God allow things to go bad for the good man and good for the bad man.
All this is exemplified in the person of Job. But ... the book itself has different parts. There is the frame-work. Chapters 1-2 and chapter 42:7-17. This is the story that the remainder is hinged upon. Chapters 1-2 establish the piety, wealth and general wonderfulness of Job. It tells of how he looses everything through the work of the contradictor (the satan) first his possessions (and among those : his children) then his health. So, the health, wealth and happiness-deal is off, and when the main-part of the book starts, we find Job, sitting in the ash-heap, scraping his boils and wounds with a pot-sherd. And with 3 friends around him. There to mourn his losses with him.
And then comes the part that groups this one as belonging to the genre of wisdom.
A dialogue between Job and the friends (Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar). Then a sololiqui by a 4th person (Elihu), and finally, the big show-down between Job and God.
But as I read, and read, and read ... the book itself (in so far 4 different translations and 2 re-tellings), and the commentaries, I frankly find it harder and harder to accept the received wisdom re. this work.
The more I read, the more I become convinced that this book is not about the suffering of the innocent. It is read as such, certainly, and it can be read as such, but ...
All good exegesis must start with reading what is there.
Not what one already knows or assume to know, but what is actually there.
As I wrote in the previous post. This can be troublesome with Job, but ... if the starting-point is, that the text is what it is (disregarding scribal errors), because someone wanted it to be this way, then we have to deal with the weird stuff too. And we have to account for it.
And in my endavor in this direction, the presupposition of the general genre of wisdom is becoming a hindrance. Not that I don't think that the ultimate ... goal of the text is, for the reader as well as the main protagonist to achieve wisdom, knowledge, insight, but ...
This is not an exposition on the right way to live for "everyman" (like Proverbs) or a tractate on how the individual can find meaning in an empty life, as Ecclesiastes attempts. The book of Job seems to me to be about loss and depression ... but the loss is only explicit in the narrative framework, not in the main part of the book. There it is implied, but not spelled out ... (but I need to re-re-re-re-read the main part to be certain about that).
Oh, well. For the moment, I'll try to separate what I know about wisdom-literature in general, and the received knowledge re. Job in particular and try to go with what I read.
After all, that is what exegesis is about :-)
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Reading Job, part 3
Textual criticism.
There are many issues when reading Job.
One of the fairly serious ones is : Which Job are you reading ?
Just try reading the King James version and the RSV-version (and probably even the NEW RSV-version), and you will see that they differ greatly from each other at some points.
... and yet, they are both translations of the same, basic, Hebrew text.
With Job, the trouble lies not so much in the translations, but in the Hebrew.
You see, the Hebrew text is ... difficult.
There are passages in there that are well nigh impossible to get any sort of meaning out of. There are passages where every other word is one that only occur in the book of Job, and half of those are words that only occur this once.
When things like this happens, scholars turn to text-critique. Try to establish a firm text, one that is as close to "the original" as possible, and to do this, a battery of options are available.
The first one is : could there be a simple error of spelling. These texts have been handed down to us in written form, certainly, but ... errors occur. Letters are mis-read, repeated, omitted. Whole passages were repeated or omitted, not because the scribe/s were incompetent, but because they were human beings.
And when the next scribe along the line started copying, he knew, that he had to copy completely accurately, so ... a chance error was continued, now as (pardon) gospel truth.
And another couple of errors occur with the next scribe ... and the next ... and the next ...
Now, in scholar-speak, all the many possible scribal errors have each their name, and I'm not going to bore you with those. Just take my word for it, that haplography and dittography are just a few of them.
One way to deal with this is, to make a hyper-text. That's what New Testament scholars have in the Nestle-Aland edition of the New Testament. That is a text where you take many different old manuscripts of the same text, and see if there is a concensus.
When there is no consensus, you generally go with the version found in the older manuscripts ... but other options are noted in a text-critical apparatus.
Old Testament scholars don't have that ... yet. In this country we use a print-version of the manuscript usually known as the "Leningradensis", which is the oldest known manuscript containing the entire Old Testament, as we know it. There is a manuscript called the "Aleppo" which is about a century older, but that one doesn't have Genesis, since it has been in a fire. SO, we work with an annotated version of Leningradensis (which is - and you may be surprised here - a medieval manuscript from the 12th century)
ANYway. You still look at what other manuscripts and fragments of manuscripts, have, and if most of the others have a different version, you may choose to go with that.
If this one doesn't work (every script writes the same gibberish), you go to what is called "the versions" : the Septuagint (ancient Greek version of the Old Testament) and the Vulgate (Latin version of the Old and New Testament) are the most important, but there are others. You turn to those and check what they have translated.
Sometimes - quite frequently in fact - this can solve the issue.
You can see, from their translation, that they had a word added (or not there), or where the spelling error is, or that they assumed a different vocalization, simply by translating backwards.
BUT, there are pit-falls in this one too.
One of the "solid" pillars of textual critisism is, that any copyist is more likely to change gibberish to sense than the other way around ... which again means, that the - to us - gibberish text might well be the "real" thing, whereas the ancient versions changed an original text to something more easily understandable.
This rule of thumb is called the rule of lectio difficilior "the difficult reading"
So, you're back to square one, with a gibberish text.
Job is overflowing with textual problems. Words that only occur once. Strange grammar. Weird spellings. You name it, it is there.
And this makes translating Job your basic, scholarly nightmare.
To translate right, you need to know what the general trust of the piece is.
To find out what the general trust of the piece is, you need to understand what it says.
... Catch 22 ...
And caught between the rock and the hard place, I have reached the point, where I need to re-think the entire book. Need to find out what I think the book of Job is all about.
Is it about the unjust and unjustified suffering of the righteous man ? the problem which is known as theodicé ? Or might there be other issues that are as important ?
But that will have to be the next post.
Textual criticism.
There are many issues when reading Job.
One of the fairly serious ones is : Which Job are you reading ?
Just try reading the King James version and the RSV-version (and probably even the NEW RSV-version), and you will see that they differ greatly from each other at some points.
... and yet, they are both translations of the same, basic, Hebrew text.
With Job, the trouble lies not so much in the translations, but in the Hebrew.
You see, the Hebrew text is ... difficult.
There are passages in there that are well nigh impossible to get any sort of meaning out of. There are passages where every other word is one that only occur in the book of Job, and half of those are words that only occur this once.
When things like this happens, scholars turn to text-critique. Try to establish a firm text, one that is as close to "the original" as possible, and to do this, a battery of options are available.
The first one is : could there be a simple error of spelling. These texts have been handed down to us in written form, certainly, but ... errors occur. Letters are mis-read, repeated, omitted. Whole passages were repeated or omitted, not because the scribe/s were incompetent, but because they were human beings.
And when the next scribe along the line started copying, he knew, that he had to copy completely accurately, so ... a chance error was continued, now as (pardon) gospel truth.
And another couple of errors occur with the next scribe ... and the next ... and the next ...
Now, in scholar-speak, all the many possible scribal errors have each their name, and I'm not going to bore you with those. Just take my word for it, that haplography and dittography are just a few of them.
One way to deal with this is, to make a hyper-text. That's what New Testament scholars have in the Nestle-Aland edition of the New Testament. That is a text where you take many different old manuscripts of the same text, and see if there is a concensus.
When there is no consensus, you generally go with the version found in the older manuscripts ... but other options are noted in a text-critical apparatus.
Old Testament scholars don't have that ... yet. In this country we use a print-version of the manuscript usually known as the "Leningradensis", which is the oldest known manuscript containing the entire Old Testament, as we know it. There is a manuscript called the "Aleppo" which is about a century older, but that one doesn't have Genesis, since it has been in a fire. SO, we work with an annotated version of Leningradensis (which is - and you may be surprised here - a medieval manuscript from the 12th century)
ANYway. You still look at what other manuscripts and fragments of manuscripts, have, and if most of the others have a different version, you may choose to go with that.
If this one doesn't work (every script writes the same gibberish), you go to what is called "the versions" : the Septuagint (ancient Greek version of the Old Testament) and the Vulgate (Latin version of the Old and New Testament) are the most important, but there are others. You turn to those and check what they have translated.
Sometimes - quite frequently in fact - this can solve the issue.
You can see, from their translation, that they had a word added (or not there), or where the spelling error is, or that they assumed a different vocalization, simply by translating backwards.
BUT, there are pit-falls in this one too.
One of the "solid" pillars of textual critisism is, that any copyist is more likely to change gibberish to sense than the other way around ... which again means, that the - to us - gibberish text might well be the "real" thing, whereas the ancient versions changed an original text to something more easily understandable.
This rule of thumb is called the rule of lectio difficilior "the difficult reading"
So, you're back to square one, with a gibberish text.
Job is overflowing with textual problems. Words that only occur once. Strange grammar. Weird spellings. You name it, it is there.
And this makes translating Job your basic, scholarly nightmare.
To translate right, you need to know what the general trust of the piece is.
To find out what the general trust of the piece is, you need to understand what it says.
... Catch 22 ...
And caught between the rock and the hard place, I have reached the point, where I need to re-think the entire book. Need to find out what I think the book of Job is all about.
Is it about the unjust and unjustified suffering of the righteous man ? the problem which is known as theodicé ? Or might there be other issues that are as important ?
But that will have to be the next post.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Reading the book of Job. Part 2
First commentary
Well, the first commentary on Job is read.
Anthony and Miriam Hanson : "The book of Job. Introduction and Commentary". SCM Press Ltd. London 1953 and later. Part of the Torch Bible Commentaries.
Now, don't get me wrong. It's a nice enough commentary, BUT ...
For scholarly work it is all but useless.
But then, it does not have the ambition to be scholarly. It is meant as a sort of self-help book on reading Job for the interested (and educated) lay (Christian) reader. As such it stands the test of time. There are some interesting parallels and similes drawn, the comparison between Job and Jonah in the implied picture of God is interesting, as is the drawing attention to the implied use that Paul makes of Job in his arguments in 1 Corinthinans and Romans.
So ... and uplifting book to use for personal, faith-determined study, but not a book that is useful for a scholar.
First commentary
Well, the first commentary on Job is read.
Anthony and Miriam Hanson : "The book of Job. Introduction and Commentary". SCM Press Ltd. London 1953 and later. Part of the Torch Bible Commentaries.
Now, don't get me wrong. It's a nice enough commentary, BUT ...
For scholarly work it is all but useless.
But then, it does not have the ambition to be scholarly. It is meant as a sort of self-help book on reading Job for the interested (and educated) lay (Christian) reader. As such it stands the test of time. There are some interesting parallels and similes drawn, the comparison between Job and Jonah in the implied picture of God is interesting, as is the drawing attention to the implied use that Paul makes of Job in his arguments in 1 Corinthinans and Romans.
So ... and uplifting book to use for personal, faith-determined study, but not a book that is useful for a scholar.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Reading the book of Job. Part 1
I like to read. I could do it more or less all day ... if it wasn't for other things getting in the way. Things like housework, using my hands, being a mother to my children and a wife to my husband ... and all the other things that make up the woman that is me.
And at the present, I'm trying to prepare a class on the master-degree-level on the book of Job from the Old Testament. Now, I haven't worked with this for 6 or 7 years. The Hebrew of the book of Job is - at the best of times - difficult (at the worst of times it's horrible). What is more, its one of the most loaded books in the Old Testament.
At the core of every modern commentary is - naturally - the big question : If Job is righteous, and he is, both God, Satan and Job claims this, why does he suffer ?
Put in fancy words, this is the problem of theodice, the unjust suffering of the just. The fact that s*** happens, even to good people. The fact that bastards may live well and happily while good people suffer in many ways.
Well. I've just finished what can only be called and early commentary on it. A narrative on why Job suffers and why his freinds are judged unjust and sinful. It's called "Testament of Job" and is a so-called apocrypha. It's not part of the bible, but the book is old, and deals with biblical material. The versions we know all come from manuscripts that are 11-14th century c.e. and they do not in any way agree with each other on the finer details. What they do agree on is, that the single thing that makes "the satan" (see below) seek to destroy Job and his faith is an act of faith, done by Job, turned against idolatry.
... this, naturally, does not deal with the still-remaining problem of why God allows the satan to have his wicked way.
BUT I'll try to keep you posted :-) as I wind my way around this text and the various large lines and fine details :-)
And then : why does she write "the satan" ...
well ... I do because in the book of Job, "satan" is not a name. It's a job-description :-) and it simply means "the contradictor". In the canonical book of Job, what happens is that God is full of pride in the righteousness of Job, and the contradictor, the satan, says : huh ! a man's righteousness and piety will only last as long as things go his way.
So, the satan has a clear function, he is (lame but pardonable pun) the devil's advocate with God, and it is his job to contradict everything and anyone :-) to question, to contradict, to counteract.
What is more, in the framework story, he is one of the sons of God (yes, it does say so, even if some translators shy away from this and translate "angels"), and is part of the heavenly household depicted in chapter 1.
I like to read. I could do it more or less all day ... if it wasn't for other things getting in the way. Things like housework, using my hands, being a mother to my children and a wife to my husband ... and all the other things that make up the woman that is me.
And at the present, I'm trying to prepare a class on the master-degree-level on the book of Job from the Old Testament. Now, I haven't worked with this for 6 or 7 years. The Hebrew of the book of Job is - at the best of times - difficult (at the worst of times it's horrible). What is more, its one of the most loaded books in the Old Testament.
At the core of every modern commentary is - naturally - the big question : If Job is righteous, and he is, both God, Satan and Job claims this, why does he suffer ?
Put in fancy words, this is the problem of theodice, the unjust suffering of the just. The fact that s*** happens, even to good people. The fact that bastards may live well and happily while good people suffer in many ways.
Well. I've just finished what can only be called and early commentary on it. A narrative on why Job suffers and why his freinds are judged unjust and sinful. It's called "Testament of Job" and is a so-called apocrypha. It's not part of the bible, but the book is old, and deals with biblical material. The versions we know all come from manuscripts that are 11-14th century c.e. and they do not in any way agree with each other on the finer details. What they do agree on is, that the single thing that makes "the satan" (see below) seek to destroy Job and his faith is an act of faith, done by Job, turned against idolatry.
... this, naturally, does not deal with the still-remaining problem of why God allows the satan to have his wicked way.
BUT I'll try to keep you posted :-) as I wind my way around this text and the various large lines and fine details :-)
And then : why does she write "the satan" ...
well ... I do because in the book of Job, "satan" is not a name. It's a job-description :-) and it simply means "the contradictor". In the canonical book of Job, what happens is that God is full of pride in the righteousness of Job, and the contradictor, the satan, says : huh ! a man's righteousness and piety will only last as long as things go his way.
So, the satan has a clear function, he is (lame but pardonable pun) the devil's advocate with God, and it is his job to contradict everything and anyone :-) to question, to contradict, to counteract.
What is more, in the framework story, he is one of the sons of God (yes, it does say so, even if some translators shy away from this and translate "angels"), and is part of the heavenly household depicted in chapter 1.
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