Who Is This That Darkens Counsel Cross-Talk in the Book of Job

Abstract

Abstract In any discussion of the Bible as literature, the Book of Job is apt to figure prominently. Although rabbinic commentators were not much interested in the literary qualities of this (or any other) biblical book, the Church Fathers, developing approaches of Hellenistic Jews like Philo and Josephus, were appreciative of its artistic dimensions. Jerome believed that the bulk of the book was com­ posed in Hebrew poetic meters analogous to Greek meters, and Theodore of Mopsuestia introduced the idea, still occasionally proposed today, that Job was modeled on Greek drama. the Renaissance, with the renewed appreciation of biblical and classical models and the deliberate merging of biblical and classical traditions with one another, it became commonplace to include the Book of Job among the great works of Western literature: as epic, as drama, or as lyric poetry. Job was not the only book of the Bible whose poetic qualities were highly esteemed. Sidney mentions “David in his Psalms; Solomon in his Song of Songs, in his Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs; Moses and Deborah in their Hymns; and the writer of Job.”