Where Can I Find Consolation? A Theoretical Analysis of the Meaning of Consolation as Experienced by Job in the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible

2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-127
Author(s):  
Åsa Roxberg ◽  
David Brunt ◽  
Mikael Rask ◽  
António Barbosa da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Book Of Job

scholarly journals Textual Criticism, Translation Studies, and Symmachus’s Version in the Book of Job

Textus ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Alison Salvesen
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Variant Reading ◽  
Descriptive Translation Studies

Abstract The late second century CE translator/reviser Symmachus took a very different approach to the versions of his predecessor Aquila. His renderings do not appear to have survived in Jewish circles but were much admired by early Christian scholars, thanks to their preservation in Origen’s Hexapla. However, for textual critics of the Hebrew Bible Symmachus’ free approach has limited his value since his readings cannot be easily retroverted, unlike those of Aquila or Theodotion. In the case of the book of Job, although Symmachus’ “transformations” (to use a term from Descriptive Translation Studies) differ in nature from the freedoms observed in OG Job, while rejecting the narrow isomorphism of Aquila and Theodotion he nevertheless adheres quite closely to his Hebrew Vorlage. This offers the possibility of identifying elements significant for textual criticism in his rendering, including variant reading traditions or a different consonantal text.

The Hebrew Bible

2020 ◽  
pp. 47-76
Author(s):  
Jon Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
Divine Justice ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Universe

Chapter 2 presents an account of the nature of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible. This includes a brief analysis of its historical context, tradition, and authorship. It treats a few episodes from the beginning of Genesis, specifically, the Creation, the Fall, the Tower of Babel, and the Flood. Comparisons are made with similar stories in The Epic of Gilgamesh. An interpretation is given of the Hebrew anthropology as it appears in the account of the creation of humans and original sin. It is argued that this is the story of how humans first separated themselves from nature and became self-conscious. The second half of the chapter gives a reading of The Book of Job. This story raises similar questions to those found in Gilgamesh about the issue of divine justice. An account is given of the different layers of the text and the different views of its authors. Both works represent a human protest against the divine and the nature of the universe, where humans suffer and die.

The Bible and the avant-garde: the search for a classical tradition in the Israeli theatre

2001 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
FREDDIE ROKEM
Keyword(s):  
Classical Tradition ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
The State ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Theatrical Performances ◽  
State Of Israel

The Israeli theatre has frequently employed the Hebrew Bible as a source for theatrical performances. Analysing three such performances, this article shows that the Bible, with its charged ideological implications for the establishment of the state of Israel, has perhaps somewhat unexpectedly inspired avant-garde productions that have frequently criticized the accepted ideological and aesthetic norms. The first of the three performances analysed is Hanoch Levin's play based on the book of Job called ‘The Torments of Job’ (Yisorei Iov), which Levin directed at the Cameri theatre in 1981. The second is the play ‘Jehu’ by Gilead Evron, directed by Hanan Snir at the Habima National Theatre in 1992, and the third is the ‘Bible Project’ directed by Rina Yerushalmi, which consists of two independent, but interrelated productions: ‘And He Said And He Was Walking’ (Va Yomer Va Yelech), which premiered in 1996, and ‘And They Bowed. And He Feared’ (Va Yishtachu. Va Yerra) which premiered in 1998.

Biblical Questioning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Diamond
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Human History ◽  
Highest Good ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Independent Investigation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives

Questions posed by God and biblical characters in the Hebrew Bible are often philosophically empowering moments. They transpire from the very inception of human history, according to the Bible’s own reconstructed version of it. Rather than divinely imposed law, biblical questioning is a vital tool initiating the decisive biblical way toward truth through independent investigation. Questions then recur throughout various biblical narratives, revealing the Bible’s philosophical dimension. As such, they may indicate the Bible’s conception of the essential expression of humanity, or where the Bible locates the beginning of serious thought, and how it suggests proceeding in the search for truth and the highest good. This chapter explores specific episodes where questions are posed, beginning with the Garden of Eden and ending with the book of Job.

Wisdom in Dialogue with Greek Civilization

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-172
Author(s):  
Michael C. Legaspi
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Wisdom Literature ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
Greek Civilization

This article surveys attempts to explore the relation of the so-called Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible—the books of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes—to figures and texts within Greek civilization. “Classical” and “biblical” texts have furnished a two-sided wisdom discourse within Western culture throughout the late antique, medieval, and early modern periods. Nevertheless, focused, comparative examinations of Wisdom texts in the two streams of tradition have not featured prominently in modern critical treatments of Wisdom in the Hebrew Bible. This article provides a brief review of essential backgrounds: the old dialectic between “Athens” and “Jerusalem” as well as modern attempts to distinguish “Hebrew thought” from “Greek thought.” The final section of the article turns to more recent examinations of specific parallels between the book of Ecclesiastes and Greek skepticism, the book of Job and Greek tragedy, and the book of Proverbs and virtue ethics.

“Like a Garment Eaten by Moths” (Job 13:28): Clothing, Nudity and Illness in the Book of Job

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Laura Quick
Keyword(s):  
Medical Anthropology ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
The Body ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Functional Roles ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
Experience Of Illness ◽  
Made In

The book of Job provides the most complex and detailed descriptions of illness in biblical literature. Less explored are the frequent references made in the text to dressing and undressing. These references demonstrate the various dimensions, contexts and functional roles of clothing in the world of the Hebrew Bible. But as well as references to actual textile items, the book of Job also refers to clothing in a much more symbolic sense. Drawing on sociological and anthropological approaches to dress and the body, I argue that dress and nudity are connected to and in fact a key part of Job’s experience of illness. By unpacking these ideas, we can better comprehend ancient Israelite conceptions of medical anthropology, as well as embodiment more generally.

Living with Unanswered Questions: The Meaning of the Queries about the Book of Job in Isaac Nathan’s Ḥazut Qashah (“Grievous Vision”)

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 193-212
Author(s):  
Ram Ben-Shalom
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Jewish Intellectual ◽  
Medieval Text ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Literary Innovation

Hazut Qashah (Grievous Vision) is one of a number of studies on the Hebrew Bible by the fifteenth-century Jewish intellectual Isaac Nathan of Arles. This peculiar Hebrew text is composed of a list of thirteen questions about the book of Job without answers. An analysis of this work on the backdrop of Christian and Jewish scholasticism along with possible Eastern precedents such as Masaʾail, demonstrates its literary innovation, which is derived not from the questions it poses, but rather, from the author’s willingness to acknowledge that the Bible had failed to provide adequate answers to them. Some of the questions were liable to provoke skepticism and raise doubts, but in contrast to the corpus of critical and heretical Jewish literature, Nathan had no interest in destroying the foundations of Judaism by attacking the biblical infrastructure. The significance and power of Hazut Qashah does not issue from any theological insights, but from its novel format. There is no similar medieval text, be it Jewish or Christian, which presents a set of theological problems without offering any corresponding explanations. As such, living with an open question—the existential solution presented in Hazut Qashah—becomes just one more facet of Nathan’s own rich intellectual project.

The Book of Job as Metaprophecy

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-547
Author(s):  
James Edward Harding
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Book Of Job ◽  
Divine Council ◽  
Definition Of

This article argues that the conventional definition of the book of Job as an example of a ‘‘wisdom’’ text unhelpfully closes off other possibilities. In particular, the book may be read as a penetrating critique of the idea, central to the prophetical books of the Hebrew Bible, that knowledge of the justice of Israel’s god is authentically revealed by ‘‘true’’ prophets standing in the divine council. The book of Job is thus best read as ‘‘metaprophecy.’’

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