Between agency and event the book of Job as a Greek tragedy

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this study, I explore a pragmatist and processualist perspective on the interpretation of historical sources. By analyzing Horace M. Kallen’s 1918 book, ‘The Book of Job as a Greek Tragedy’, regarded as an instance of pragmatist historical inquiry, this paper engages with recent processual and evental approaches to history. It elucidates a conceptualization of historical sources as ‘actor-events’. Through Kallen’s example, the paper demonstrates how cultural historians can effectively perceive sources as both actors that evoke meaning and as events that unfold. From this perspective, Kallen’s work illustrates how diverse temporalities hold simultaneous significance and how cultural and social struggles related to what is emerging, in the future, give rise to the emergence of truth in historical sources.