Meanwhile in the Job course, building on last week's riveting experience of hearing the words of Job, today I had students speak words of Job themselves. First, as part of explaining the pros and cons of separating the "impatient Job" of the poetic center from the "patient Job" of the frame story, I had them read aloud David Rosenberg's version of Job 3 in the style of William Carlos Williams and John Coltrane. Later, as we explored further textual complexities, they got to read aloud the King James Version translation of Job 28, first as the sort of disembodied "interlude" as which it is usually marked in Bibles today, and then again, with a lead-in from the end of Job 27, as the continuation of the words of the person speaking before (there's not indication in the text itself of a change of speaker) - which would be Job himself. How the story changes, how the character of Job changes, how the dialectic of patience and impatience changes!
This left us ready, I thought, to try to formulate some words of our own. Carol Newsom, our guide through the texts' perfectly calibrated challenges, suggests that the Book of Job works its magic as a "polyphonic" text because its different parts keep each other in a kind of constant check. Far from forcing us to choose one as authentic, they are incommensurable, operating simultaneously to remarkable dialogic effect. She introduces this way of approaching the text with a better take on the contrast between the folk tale-like frame story and the jagged brilliance of the poetic speeches. The frame story leads us to expect a certain kind of story, an expectation which is shaken but not replaced when the dialogue intervenes. The speeches don't offer an alternative narrative shape, and in fact rely for their continued shock value on their continued pushing against the frame's story expectations.
Newsom illustrates this with a cool illustration (The New Interpreters Bible, IV:324). The frame story continues in the background even as the poetic dialogue grabs the mike. But - and this is where it gets really fun - there must have been a dialogue between Job and his friends displaced by the poetic dialogue, and we can, with a little effort, reconstruct what kind of dialogue it must have been. So I asked the class to try to do just that, giving them for orientation Job's last words before the intrusion of the poetic dialogue
and the God's works after the intrusion ends
I'm not sure everyone understand what we were doing but enough got it so we could have a useful discussion afterwards. This Job is more like chapter 28. He doesn't complain that things don't make sense, and certainly does not protest or wish he had never lived. As Newsom and other intepreters have pointed out, the Job of the frame story doesn't have a retributive view of divine justice, where good behavior is rewarded and bad punished. This is the Job, rather, of 1:21's “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” He could easily have said wisdom is inaccessible to mortals except as the fear of the Lord and leading a good life (28:28). It makes perfect sense that God should, in the aftermath, commend this way of speaking which, when you think of it, even squares with the divine speeches.
But what, then, might Job's friends have said - something God instead condemns in anger? To perform this exercise we had to take seriously what the text tells us but people routinely dismiss, that they were truly friends. (You know this is an old refrain of mine.) A student nailed it: "what's happening to you isn't fair!" and we were off. We didn't have as much time as last time I tried all this but I think I explained Newsom'e argument better today...
This left us ready, I thought, to try to formulate some words of our own. Carol Newsom, our guide through the texts' perfectly calibrated challenges, suggests that the Book of Job works its magic as a "polyphonic" text because its different parts keep each other in a kind of constant check. Far from forcing us to choose one as authentic, they are incommensurable, operating simultaneously to remarkable dialogic effect. She introduces this way of approaching the text with a better take on the contrast between the folk tale-like frame story and the jagged brilliance of the poetic speeches. The frame story leads us to expect a certain kind of story, an expectation which is shaken but not replaced when the dialogue intervenes. The speeches don't offer an alternative narrative shape, and in fact rely for their continued shock value on their continued pushing against the frame's story expectations.
Newsom illustrates this with a cool illustration (The New Interpreters Bible, IV:324). The frame story continues in the background even as the poetic dialogue grabs the mike. But - and this is where it gets really fun - there must have been a dialogue between Job and his friends displaced by the poetic dialogue, and we can, with a little effort, reconstruct what kind of dialogue it must have been. So I asked the class to try to do just that, giving them for orientation Job's last words before the intrusion of the poetic dialogue
Shall we receive the good at the hand of God,
and not receive the bad? (2:7)
and the God's works after the intrusion ends
My wrath is kindled against you [Eliphaz] and your two friends;
for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. (42:7)
But what, then, might Job's friends have said - something God instead condemns in anger? To perform this exercise we had to take seriously what the text tells us but people routinely dismiss, that they were truly friends. (You know this is an old refrain of mine.) A student nailed it: "what's happening to you isn't fair!" and we were off. We didn't have as much time as last time I tried all this but I think I explained Newsom'e argument better today...
