Testament Of Job Research Articles

Jewish and Christian “signature features” in the Testament of Job

Pseudepigrapha research continues to slowly embrace the “default position” when working with texts of uncertain origin: start by investigating the Christian reception of a text, before attempting to work back toward its purported Jewish provenance. Taking a pseudepigraphon as Christian until proven otherwise—as a theoretical and methodological stance—has led some scholars to break with the general consensus concerning the Jewish origins of the Testament of Job, citing a lack of any identifiable Jewish or Christian “signature features” in the work. While sympathetic to the default position, this paper considers features of the Testament that should each be considered distinctively characteristic of Judaism (the intermarriage prohibition, T. Job 45:3) and Christianity (the use of the Greek compounds ἀπροσωπόληπτός, T. Job 4:8 and προσωπολήπτης, 43:13, attested only in Christian texts). The conclusions drawn from this study support the position that the Testament of Job is a Jewish diaspora text and that the instances of Christian language are most satisfactorily explained as later Christian scribal emendation.

The Writings: Job–Sirach

The WritingsJob–Sirach Christopher T. Begg, Fred W. Guyette, and J. Edward Owens 633. [Revelatory Hermeneutics in Wisdom Literature] Mark J. Boda, "Knowledge from Above: Revelatory Hermeneutics within Wisdom Literature," The Spirit Says, 131-47 [see #910]. My study has raised a serious question about the characterization of wisdom by those studying this tradition in the OT. Typically, the core wisdom tradition is identified with the Book of Proverbs and its countless traditional sayings beginning with chap. 10. The Books of Job and Ecclesiastes are then classified as "revolts" against this core wisdom tradition, which call into question the tradition itself or the interpretation of human experience that created it. In the above approach, wisdom is gained by learning the tradition and experiencing activities that require a long life and thus gives preference to the elderly. The court stories of Joseph and Solomon, not to mention that of Daniel, however, stand in stark contrast to this view of wisdom. They depict young people who are given wisdom by God with little or no mention of their acquisition of past tradition. Rather, revelatory experiences are key to these figures' acquisition of wisdom. While such observations might lead us to identify the court stories as further "revolts" against the core wisdom tradition, the fact that so much of the wisdom material must be identified as "revolt" raises serious questions about the legitimacy of what is taken to be the core of the OT wisdom tradition. Indeed, close attention to the Book of Proverbs here has highlighted the way in which even what is deemed "traditional wisdom" is framed by references to revelatory resources for the acquisition of wisdom. [Adapted from author's conclusion, p. 147—C.T.B.] [End Page 215] 634. [Transformation in the Wisdom Books of the HB and its application to the context of Southern Africa] S. Fischer, "Transformation in the Wisdom Books of the Hebrew Bible and its application to the context of Southern Africa," AcTSup 32 (2021) 232-57. My article deals with the transformation of theology and society through biblical wisdom. Its first section explores the various spheres of wisdom and the significance of King Solomon for the biblical wisdom tradition. The second section shows how the Books of Job and Proverbs transformed other parts of the HB. My third part looks at how Southern African theology and society might be transformed by these two books. Specifically, I view the figure of Job as a paradigm for HIV-positive people. I discuss the Book of Proverbs on the basis of the ubuntu principle and the post-colonial approach of imbokodo. I further show that African folk songs can be relevant for the transformation of Southern African university education and how biblical proverbs might transform African folk proverbs. In conclusion, I propose that secular society should function in such a way as to enable a variety of religious traditions. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 635. [Sophia as an anima figure? A Jungian reading of OT texts] Christophe Gripon, "Sophia, figure d'anima? Proposition d'une lecture jungienne de quelques textes de l'Ancien Testament," LavTP 76 (3, 2020) 421-43. I propose an interpretation of biblical personified Wisdom as a anima-figure, i.e., the unconscious feminine part of humans basing myself on C. G. Jung's model of the psyche, while also critiquing Jung's "sophiotology" as he develops this in his Answer to Job. Such a psychological approach to Wisdom can contribute to the discussion concerning its elusive character and the relationship between transcendent and immanent wisdom. [Translated and adapted from author's abstract—C.T.B.] 636. [The Family of Job in MT and LXX Job and the Testament of Job] Walter Bührer, "La famille de Job dans les différents livres de Job. Le texte hébreu, la Septante et le Testament de Job en comparison," TZ 77 (4, 2021) 290-337. My essay discusses the different functions of Job's children, his wife or wives, and Job's family of origin in relation to representations and interpretations of the figure of Job. Comparison of the three documents cited in my title leads...

Job’s Endurance (Jas 5:11b)

Abstract Interpreters have often struggled to account for the way in which the author of James employs the figure of Job as an example of ὑπομονή (Jas 5:11). Since a “steadfast” or “patient Job” is clearly incongruous with the book of Job, the Testament of Job is often forwarded as the preferred source of James’ Joban tradition. This article argues that James’ language of ὑπομονή should be read against its wider Greco-Roman literary background, and when done so, the Greek term emerges as an active, aggressive virtue, best rendered “enduring resistance.” The article posits that the author of James has reread the book of Job within this Greco-Roman literary framework, resulting in a congruent, though thoroughly Hellenistic, reading of Septua-gint Job in which the virtue of endurance takes on a newfound centrality.

The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts by Ronald Charles

Reviewed by: The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts by Ronald Charles Mary Ann Beavis ronald charles, The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts (Routledge Studies in the Early Christian World; London: Routledge, 2020). Pp. xvii + 272. $124. This book sets out to examine a wide range of early Jewish and Christian texts in which enslaved figures are represented and, according to Charles, rendered silent, by their authors, “who had no intrinsic interest in slaves . . . used, abused, and silenced their enslaved characters to articulate their own social, political, and theological visions” (p. 1) The Jewish texts considered all belong to the so-called Pseudepigrapha: Sibylline Oracles, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Testament of Job, Letter of Aristeas, Jubilees, Joseph and Aseneth, and Wisdom writings that include Ahiqar, 3 Maccabees, Pseudo-Phocylides, and the Sentences of the Syriac Menander. The early Christian writings are both canonical and extra-canonical: 1 Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon, the Gospels, Acts, the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas, Acta Perpetuae, Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, and the Acts of Andrew. C. approaches these texts through the lenses of Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing [End Page 330] the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon, 1995), and Subaltern studies, to “uncover small tales constructed around slaves, or better, to consider how particular narratives could be understood differently if the reader pays attention to enslaved persons in their characterizations in the texts” (p. 12). Not surprisingly in a project that covers so much ground, the results are uneven. In my reading, several “small tales” stand out: the slave woman in the Testament of Job who gives her own loaf of bread to Satan, disguised as a stranger, when Job snubs him (7:5). Admittedly, the woman is rebuked for her kind act, but by Satan, hardly a reliable character. C. pays special attention to the slave characters—an unnamed slave girl and Malchus, the male slave of the high priest named in John 18:10—who figure in the scene of the denial of Peter (Mark 14:66–68; Matt 26:69–71; Luke 22:56; John 18:15–26), meticulously detailing the unique features of each narrative. C. highlights both the devalued figure of Rhoda (Acts 12:1–16) and the unnamed fortune-teller of Acts 16:16–18, characters often neglected by interpreters. Although all act/speak truthfully (and, in the case of the slave woman in Testament of Job, righteously), their words are dismissed, like the true words of the women disciples in Luke 24:11. Similarly, the slave Felicitas is sidelined by the freeborn Perpetua in the Passion, and both women are silenced in the Acts. In the Acts of Andrew, the body of the slave woman Euclia is used, abused, and discarded to preserve the chastity of her Christian mistress Maximilla: “The body of the elite woman is protected, while the body of the slave is exploited” (p. 196). Several of C.’s interpretive moves are less compelling. Some of the references to slaves in the pseudepigraphal writings he includes are slight or nonexplicit, as with the figure of Hermon in 3 Maccabees 5, who “is not explicitly called one [a slave] in the text” (p. 47). The observation that “he is an administrative person, who is in danger of being killed because of the king’s caprice” (p. 47), suffices to explain his vulnerability. C. adopts the traditional, but highly contested, hypothesis that Onesimus (Phlm 10) was a runaway slave, although why a fugitive slave would seek refuge by visiting a Roman prisoner is not explained. C. assumes that Epaphroditus (Phil 2:19, 25; 4:18) was a freedman (and thus outside the scope of the study), although he could just as likely have been enslaved or freeborn. To be sure, Eusebius’s construction of Blandina as a Christ figure whose death has cosmic significance (p. 182) subordinates her to a “highly theologized salvation history” (p. 183), but this is no different from his portrayal of other martyrs, enslaved or free. Charles’s study features a conclusion that thoroughly summarizes his analysis, chapter by chapter, seemingly in response to the critiques of...

The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts by R. Charles

Reviewed by: The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts by R. Charles Chris L. de Wet Charles, R. 2020. The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts. Routledge Studies in the Early Christian World. London: Routledge. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0367204341. Pp. xvii + 272. $160.00. The study of slavery, both ancient and modern, has become a theoretically rich and robust field, exhibiting numerous inter- and multidisciplinary approaches to try to "get to the bottom" of texts and contexts related to enslavement. The study of slavery in biblical and extra-biblical material is no exception to this move. Ronald Charles's interesting and important monograph situates itself fully in this critical theoretical stance with regard to ancient slavery, successfully using the work of Michel-Rolph Trouillot, specifically Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon, 1995). The principle in this regard is that within historiographical production, various voices are lifted up, while others are silenced. In order to give voice to the voiceless slaves in some of these historical texts, Charles engages in subaltern readings—reading from below and from the perspective of the oppressed, against the typical elite and imperial/colonial tendencies in the texts. The important contribution of such an approach, for the study of ancient slavery, is that it once again warns us that we cannot take texts about slavery at face value and as adequate representations of the "majority" of ancient life and its inhabitants. What I enjoyed about the book is its reading of seemingly "small tales" of slaves, in order to give these due significance and meaning through imaginative reading. Charles writes: My task is to uncover small tales constructed around slaves, or better, to consider how particular narratives could be understood differently if the reader pays attention to enslaved persons in their characterizations in the texts. Slaves are, for the most part, silent or silenced in the narratives. One may wish there were more precise ways to get at their voices, desires, activities, and personal thoughts in the texts we investigate. The alternative reading of probing silence and of trying to understand unspoken utterances is not an easy task. Reading against the grain requires alertness to the gaps in the texts. Making silence speak requires much patience and attentiveness to minute details by proceeding tentatively and noticing passing or dismissive comments. It also requires a commitment on the part of the historian to actually see the [End Page 193] presence of marginalized and enslaved peoples that are rendered invisible, and hear their voices that are made mute in the texts, around the texts, and outside of the texts. (12; his italics) In my own research on slavery (see De Wet 2015; 2018), I have often experienced the same challenge that Charles highlights here. Because of the fact that slaves are usually not the primary actors in ancient texts, we often need to fill the gaps of silence we see in the historical record. This is not an easy task, and sometimes it is accomplished with more success than at other times. But it remains a necessary task. The implication is that, at times, we need to "read in," or eisegete, certain plausible possibilities into a text, which does hold risks. For instance, Charles allows for the possibility that figures such as Hermon in 3 Macc 5 or Epaphroditus (in Philippians) could have been slaves or former slaves, in the case of the latter, although there is very little evidence to actually confirm or deny this. So, at times, there is an engagement in imaginative reading in order to retrieve some of the possibly lost voices of slaves. Nevertheless, the theoretical approach in the book is a welcome addition to the study of ancient slavery. In terms of the coverage of ancient materials, the book is very ambitious. The book covers slaves in the pseudepigrapha, Pauline literature of the NT, slaves in the Gospels and Acts, slaves in the martyr narratives (specifically the works related to Felicitas and Blandina), and finally, slaves in the Acts of Andrew. The chapter on the pseudepigrapha looks at the Sibylline Oracles, Testament of Joseph, Testament of Job, Letter of Aristeas, Jubilees...

“My Kingdom Lasts Forever”

AbstractIn the field of research on the Jewish background of NT Christology, exalted patriarchs (famous OT figures endowed with transcendent characteristics) play a prominent role. One key figure has been almost overlooked in such comparative work: Job as portrayed in the Testament of Job. As a king with a glorious heavenly throne, a position at the right hand of God, and an eternal kingdom, this Job bears a profile on par with—if not exceeding—that of other important figures in post-biblical Jewish literature (Adam, Abel, Enoch, Melchizedek, Joseph, and Moses). This study argues that Job should be added to the roster of such Jewish figures for future work on early Christology.

The Writings: Job–Sirach

The WritingsJob–Sirach John Thomas Willis, Christopher T. Begg, and William J. Urbrock 1246. [Job] Jan Fokkelman, "Salient Features in the Book," Present State of Old Testament Studies, 47-63 [see #1527]. F. discusses six issues in Job: (1) Job was not an Israelite, but a celebrity from prehistoric times living in the southeast of Transjordan. The author of Job was inspired by Ezekiel for the keywords nḥm, "to console," and ḥnm, "for naught." (2) The crucial keyword in Job is tmm, "integrity," which is itself closely connected to ṣdqh, "righteousness." (3) The genre of the Book of Job is a thought experiment carried out with the tools of poetic art as a variant on the genre of Wisdom. (4) In Job 28, Job uses harsh negations to win the argument: there is no wisdom in the land of the living. (5) Job 29, 30, and 31 are the core of the entire Book of Job, poetically, rhetorically, emotionally, and spiritually. Job's three goals in chap. 31 are to demonstrate his perfect innocence, that his moral and religious principles have not changed, and to challenge God's treatment of himself; and finally (6) Job 42:7-9 states that Yhwh praised Job for speaking to Yhwh plainly and directly, unlike his friends in their words to Job.—J.W. 1247. [Job] Annette Schellenberg, "Warum Hiob trotz Krankheit getrötst kann sein. Beobachtungen zum Thema Ehre und Würde im Hiobbuch," TZ 74 (2018) 48-68. Taking as her starting point the thesis that at the end of the Book of Job the protagonist while not healed of his disease is nonetheless "comforted" (see 42:11), S. argues that the emotional stabilization of Job (his "comforting") spoken of at the end of the book has to do with the fact that in the preceding divine speeches questions of honor and worth are also addressed. More concretely, the divine speeches are of relevance first of all for the honor/worth theme in that they restore Job's feelings of honor and dignity even as they also make clear that Job's previous conceptions of honor were inadequate and that honor is not everything, since alongside this is also dignity, which is grounded in the state of creature-hood as such, apart from the strength and splendor the given creature may (not) possess. Accordingly, the Book of Job is to be seen as a biblical text that deserves a hearing just as much as Genesis 1 in contemporary discussions concerning human (or creaturely) dignity. [Translated from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1248. [Job] Markus Witte, "Hiob als jüdisches, christliches, und paganes Werk. Überlegungen zur Hermeneutik heiliger Schriften," Congress Volume Stellenbosch 2016, 329-53 [see #1517]. W. presents the Book of Job as a document of "Sacred Scripture," which already in its original Hebrew form reflects the interplay of Jewish and "pagan" (ANE) elements. This feature is likewise evident in the book's subsequent redactions (e.g., the Elihu speeches of chaps. 32–37, translations (LXX and Targum Job), retellings (the Testament of Job), and citations in the NT and subsequent Christian literature, in which the book takes on ever-new features that serve to make it accessible to Jewish, Christian, and "pagan" readers. As such, the book constitutes an ongoing invitation to interreligious dialogue about the fundamental questions of the meaning of life, suffering, and God, in which all may join and will find both suggestions about how such a dialogue might be conducted as well as challenges to expand and enrich their own presuppositions and views on the questions at issue.—C.T.B. [End Page 426] 1249. [Job 37:11] Aron Pinker, "Lightening a Cloudy Job 37:11," JNSL 43 (2, 2017) 27-51. P. suggests that the difficulties associated with the interpretation of Job 37:11 can be resolved if one supposes that Elihu in this verse is capitalizing on the puzzling behavior of clouds, such as their constant moving from place to place, production of rain, and seemingly causing the jagged appearance of lightning in his accusing Job of hubris. In making his case, P. proposes to...

Tracce dell’antieroe tragico nell’enigmatica moglie di Giobbe? Sul riuso biblico di un modulo drammatico classico

Son numerosas las analogías entre los grandes protagonistas de las páginas bíblicas y los héroes griegos de la épica arcaica y las heroínas del teatro clásico. En particular, la figura de la mujer del justo, perseguido injustamente e incomprendido precisamente por su incondicional fidelidad, está muy próxima a la del anti-héroe del teatro sofocleo, que se opone con fuerza a la elección del héroe en nombre de la mentalidad del hombre común; en ambos casos, de hecho, el resultado obtenido es exactamente el contrario de las expectativas, dado que ratifica la elección del justo/héroe, contribuyendo a acentuar aún más su aislamiento. Sobre este modelo literario, en consecuencia, podría haberse situado el personaje de su mujer en la historia de Job; de hecho, ella está ausente en la leyenda antigua que sirve de base al prólogo y al epílogo del libro bíblico. La Septuaginta antigua (Old Greek = OG) lo atestigua claramente con el añadido (vv. 9a-e) mediante el cual, algo después, la intervención de la mujer de Job quedó definida de manera más favorable, haciendo de ella una especia de anti-heroína, sobre el esquema dramático de Ismene y Crisótemis frente a sus respectivos héroes, en el teatro trágico de Sófocles. El Testamento de Job apreció esta elección y acentuó el papel de la mujer, reelaborando de manera benévola la imagen que de ella se muestra en la tradición de la Septuaginta.

Satan and Sitis: The Significance of Clothing Changes in the Testament of Job

This article examines the Testament of Job as a literary work within the genre of ancient Jewish novel. It explores the function of clothing changes for the two central characters of Satan and Sitis as providing both entertaining and critical narrative cues for character perception and development. This study is organized into two main sections. The first part examines the figure of Satan and his respective forms and disguises, with appropriate analogues to Apuleius's Metamorphoses. The second part examines Sitis's clothing and its function within the narrative, followed by a brief comparison to Joseph and Aseneth and Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe. This article contends that clothing is an important literary motif for the Testament of Job much like the popular ancient stories of Joseph and Aseneth, Chaereas and Callirhoe, and Metamorphoses. The contention is that a character's exterior clothing often indicates his/her inward character, or depicts a character's transformation within the narrative. In this sense, Sitis's clothing signals both her fall and eventual vindication, and Satan's disguises signal his status as the evil trickster. A character's change of clothing, as one would imagine in a performance or play, offers critical narrative cues to the reader.

The Jewish Pseudepigrapha: An Introduction to the Literature of the Second Temple Period by Susan Docherty

Reviewed by: The Jewish Pseudepigrapha: An Introduction to the Literature of the Second Temple Period by Susan Docherty Bradley C. Gregory susan docherty The Jewish Pseudepigrapha: An Introduction to the Literature of the Second Temple Period ( Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015). Pp. x + 180. Paper $49. In this well-written primer, Docherty provides an engaging introduction to some of the most important Jewish works from the Second Temple period that were not included in most canonical collections. In the introduction, she provides a brief overview of the [End Page 324] historical background to this literature and explains her rationale for the book's structure, which groups these Jewish works by genre rather than by chronology or geography. In chap. 2, D. treats "rewritten Bible," covering Jubilees and Pseudo-Philo; in chap. 3, she explores Joseph and Aseneth and the Life of Adam and Eve as examples of parabiblical literature. In chap. 4, she discusses the non-narrative works of Ezekiel the Tragedian, the Psalms of Solomon, and the Sibylline Oracles and, in chap. 5, treats testaments, including the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Testament of Job, the Testament of Abraham, and the Testament of Moses. Finally, she discusses the apocalyptic works of 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch. Each chapter includes an introduction to the genre, a discussion of the selected representatives, a brief section on other examples of pseudepigraphical works in the genre and on the significance of these works for understanding both Judaism and Christianity in antiquity. Each chapter concludes with a short bibliography for further reading. The strength of this volume is that the discussions of these Jewish works go beyond simply a survey of the contents of the literature to provide an interesting, up-to-date, and judicious introduction. Throughout, but especially in the conclusion to the volume, D. highlights three important implications: the close relationship between these works and those that were or would become Scripture, the ways in which these works witness to the rich diversity of Judaism during the Second Temple period (and slightly later), and the way they probe in interesting ways some of the perennial theological issues such as the problem of innocent suffering and the specter of death. This primer is not intended to be a comprehensive introduction to the Jewish Pseudepigrapha, since some works are not treated (or even mentioned in the "other examples" section of each chapter), but the volume would serve well as an orientation for students to the different kinds of Second Temple literature and their most important representatives. Unfortunately, there is no separate treatment of wisdom literature in the book. Further, in relating wisdom and apocalypticism in the final chapter a few claims are problematic. The statement that wisdom and apocalyptic literature share a view of history as predetermined (p. 126) is puzzling, and the attribution to Sirach of the view that "wisdom is to be solely and completely identified with the Torah" (p. 135) is an overstatement to the point of being incorrect. In addition, the placing of Joel, Zechariah, and 1–2 Thessalonians alongside Daniel and Revelation as representatives of the genre of apocalypse (p. 155) needs significant qualification. Nevertheless, this volume is recommended as a valuable introduction to this important body of literature, especially as a potential textbook for undergraduates. Bradley C. Gregory The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064 Copyright © 2017 The Catholic Biblical Association of America

Textual Cialis

Scholars have overlooked the role that disability plays within Hellenistic Jewish literature. This article looks to fill this gap by analyzing the role of disability in Philo’s Life of Moses, 4 Maccabees, Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Testament of Job. The essay looks specifically at the interrelationship between masculinity and disability in these documents and the strategies employed within each narrative to repair the disabled male body within them. Each narrative, I argue, employs a unique strategy for restoring the disabled male body. Philo reinterprets Moses’ claim of impaired speech as an indication of his modesty. The writer of 4 Maccabees metaphorically repairs the crumbled bodies of its martyrs by casting them as representational athletes of virtue. Repentance eradicates disablement in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. The Testament of Job provides its hero with a magical prosthesis that restores his body to its previous condition. In demonstrating how these four strategies play out in each narrative, I lay out a methodology for unearthing the able-bodied bias underlying many of our biblical and extra-biblical texts.

“I Was Exhausted as a Woman”: The Slippage of Virtue and Gender in the Testament of Job

Abstract The Testament of Job is a Hellenistic reception of the biblical Book of Job written sometime between the first century BCE and first century CE. This paper is attentive to Hellenistic notions of the masculine ideal as one fused with notions of virtue, where gender corresponds to virtue more than to anatomy. Masculinity is a continuum on which one’s masculinity and virtuousness is subject to slippage. It is this dynamic that energizes and dramatizes the narrative of the Testament of Job: Job is engaged in a wrestling match to demonstrate his virtue, and to prevail over weakness and traits associated with femininity.

Textuality between Death and Memory: The Prehistory and Formation of the Parabiblical Testament

This essay revisits testamentary texts and traditions from the Second Temple period in relation to themes of death, memory, and writing. Rather than debating the classification or morphology of the parabiblical testament, it focuses upon its determinative feature—the framing of texts as the first-person teachings of ancient biblical heroes near death. It traces some precedents for this literary choice, and speculates about the cultural worlds in which such a choice made sense. To do so, it surveys the representation and modeling of the written word as a technology of memory, first within Aramaic works with testamentary features from the Hellenistic period (esp., Aramaic Levi, Testament of Qahat, Visions of Amram) and then within some of full-fledged testaments preserved in Greek from the early Roman period (esp., Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs, Testament of Job). In both sets of works, the narrative setting of near-death teaching is used to address challenges of continuity and succession. Representations of textual practices, however, differ; in some, writing and reading are presented as necessary complement to remembered speech and ethical emulation, while in others, books function as safeguard or stand-in. In each, moreover, the intersections of death, memory, and writing are articulated in distinctive ways, often resonating with broader cultural concerns—ranging from Hellenistic ideals of “authorship” to the early Roman interest in wills.

The Testament of Job as an Example of Profeminine Patience Literature

Brent D. Shaw, in his very important and influential article “Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs,” published in 1996, argues that a new means of self-identification emerges in the late antique period, often denoted by the Greek abstract noun hypomonē (ὑπoμovή, the “endurance of suffering”). The first- century pseudepigraphic text Testament of Job offers evidence for this revaluation of suffering, but Shaw goes on to discover “feminized rhetoric” in this work: a phrase that is too dismissive of the Testament’ s profeminine content. Feminine rhetoric, despite Shaw’s slighting of the idea, is a remarkably precocious feature of the Testament of Job ; moreover, the events surrounding the inheritance of Job’s three daughters at the end of this text, taken together, probably represent the most explicit example in biblical or apocryphal texts of engagement with what can only be described as feminine language. Not coincidentally, this text also directly fuses ideas of patience with feminine language, so that the Testament of Job and the early passio s that feature female protagonists demonstrate the generation of an important tradition (and the generation of a literary genre best called patience literature) in Western culture, where women become famous for patience and endurance just as men can gain honor through exhibiting the traditional manly virtues.

Pseudepigrapha Notes IV: 5. The Testament of Job. 6. The Testament of Solomon

This is the fourth in a series of articles intended to present the results of manuscript research or provide bibliographic updates relevant to the study of the ‘Old Testament Pseudepigrapha’. It is usually reported that the Testament of Job is extant in three Old Slavonic manuscript copies, and that the Testament of Solomon is preserved in one Syriac manuscript and one Arabic manuscript, both of which remain unpublished. These statements do not accurately reflect our present knowledge.

Biblical Responses: Past and Present Retellings of the Enigmatic Mrs. Job

AbstractHer namelessness, her uneventful fulfillment of maternal duties, her short and unclear speech, and her departure after the second chapter of the book of Job have piqued, rather than quelled, interpreters' interest in Job's wife throughout history. This article first describes what little we can glean about Mrs. Job from the 'original' Masoretic Text (MT) and then tracks Mrs. Job's appearance in two post-biblical retellings: the ancient Testament of Job and a contemporary short story, “Job's Jobs,” by Aimee Bender. These retellings seem to be, in their own ways, addressing three important questions: “what kind of relationship does she have with her husband Job?,” “what effects do Job's series of tests have on her life?,” and “why might Mrs. Job have said such surprising and seemingly terrible words to her husband amidst his suffering?” It is suggested that the retellings respond in consonant ways—particularly through their development of her relationship with Job, the suffering she experiences because of his tests, and her various speaking parts. Because the similarities are found in more than one retelling, the article argues that readers can rightfully return to the biblical source material, in order to query whether the Bible implied those questions in the first place and to use their interpretations to re-read the book of Job, proffering a rich, viable, and alternative literary interpretation for the character of Mrs. Job.

The Male Soul in Drag: Women-as-Job in the Testament of Job

Scholarship has interpreted the emphatic presence of female characters in the Testament of Job as an extended literary device, symbolizing the limitations of a feminized humanity. The female characters have been understood as foils to Job’s superiority; their only function, to enhance through negative contrast Job’s virtue and spiritual knowledge. Yet the text encourages a reading of the women as representations of several aspects of Job, as figures that mirror his struggles and victories. This article offers a close reading of the function of the female characters-as-Job. It concludes with some reflections on analogous literary traditions whose female characters function similarly, in the context of feminist biblical studies.

Job's Wives in the "Testament of Job": A Note on the Synthesis of Two Traditions

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) When it comes to biblical heroes, biographical details fall into two categories. On the one hand, there are the few details provided explicitly in the biblical text. On the other hand, there are the many facts, episodes, and events that may be deduced from those few explicit details. In the case of Job, his biography is essential to his significance in biblical and subsequent religious tradition. That is, it is his life story taken as a whole that matters-and not merely his role or words in this or that affair (as with many judges and prophets, for example). With Job, then, the interest in biographical details would seem to be that much keener. One especially important yet under-reported figure is Job's wife. She appears briefly in Job 2:9 only to pose one question (Are you still holding on to your integrity?) and to offer one bit of advice (Curse God and die.).1 Moreover, the presence of a wife (where one might expect her) among Job's second family in Job 42:12-17 is never indicated and is, at most, only implied. As a response to this paucity of information, a number of interpretive traditions grew up around the figures of Job and Job's wife. There were, among ancient interpreters, two rather divergent traditions about the identity of Job's wife. One tradition-known from rabbinic commentary, the Targum of Job, and Pseudo-Philo-identifies the wife of Job with Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. A second tradition, witnessed principally in the Septuagint, identifies Job's wife with a wretched Arabian woman. The author of the Testament of Job, a Jewish composition from the first century B.C.E. or C.E., creatively combined both traditions in an attempt to offer a clearer understanding of Job's background, to provide a solution to lingering questions concerning his relation to ethnic Israel, and to elaborate on themes in the book of Job in a way that vindicates the role of women in Job's own moral athleticism. I. DINAH, WIFE OF JOB What, ultimately, was the fate of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob? After the story of her encounter with Shechem ben Hamor and the subsequent destruction of all the males in the city of Shechem (Genesis 34), Dinah is not heard from again. Unlike her twelve brothers, whose life and times dominate the rest of Genesis and whose fortunes are foretold by Jacob in a dramatic deathbed scene (Genesis 49), Dinah disappears from the biblical text.2 The question of Dinah's fate is only made keener by the fact that her well-being and prosperity after the Shechem incident cannot be assumed: as a (Gen 34:13), Dinah's marital prospects must have seemed rather grim.3 One rabbi, in addressing this question, puts the words of Davids daughter Tamar in the mouth of Dinah (Where will I carry my shame? [2 Sam 13:13]) and posits that Simeon, in response to this cry of despair, married Dinah. Their offspring, Shaul, was then referred to as the son of a Canaanite woman (Gen 46:10) because Dinah had been defiled by a Canaanite.4 A rather different, though not incompatible, outcome was envisioned by those interested in the identity of Joseph's wife, Asenath. Victor Aptowitzer has analyzed a complex of later traditions (fourth century C.E.) that make Dinah the mother of Asenath.5 According to Aptowitzer, because Asenath was an Egyptian and the daughter of a heathen priest, her distinguished place in biblical tradition had to be explained; one solution was to demonstrate that she was actually a descendant of Jacob.6 Thus, many rabbinic sources claim that Asenath was the divinely protected offspring of Dinah and Shechem. A third tradition, and the one most relevant here, is that Job married Dinah. We find a clear witness to this tradition in the Targum of Job. In its rendering of Job 2:9, the targum reads: And Dinah his wife said to him, 'Are you steadfast in your integrity until now? Curse [lit., bless] the word of the Lord and die. …

Prayers of Jewish Women: Studies of Patterns of Prayer in the Second Temple Period (review)

Prayers of Jewish Women: Studies of Patterns of Prayer in the Second Temple Period, by Markus McDowell. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. 277 pp. euro54.00. This book is an elaborated Ph.D. dissertation submitted at Fuller Theological Seminary, and its main focus is clear from its title. It discusses some dozens of prayers that appear in a vast literature from non-Rabbinic Judaism from the second Temple Period: Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the writings of Josephus and Philo. The common denominator of these prayers is that they are all attributed to women, either as reflecting a real history or a literary one. The purpose of the book is twofold; neither is less important than the other: liturgy on the one hand and perspectives in Antiquity on the other. McDowell studies prayers and not full books, but he is highly aware of modern study on those books in which the prayers he analyzes are incorporated. The study is a literary criticism combined with theology and studies. Its literary criticism is derived from the German biblical scholarship on the one hand and Israeli scholars on the other. The five chapters are organized very systematically. The first chapter is devoted to methodology, and it discusses prayers according to the following patterns: location, content, form, occasion, and perspective. Though perspective sounds highly relative, McDowell explains that he means: 1) gynocentric perspective; 2) feminine imagery and vocabulary and 3) gender-specific language. In other words, this perspective is none other than a sub-issue of content, and the main problem is to what extent words such as handmaid or female body parts disclose the gender of the text, if there is such, or even reveal the gender of the author. McDowell presents his findings, as well as former scholarship in this subject, in a very balanced way. After discussing methodology he writes on prayers attributed to females according to the books divided in time and origin: Palestinian or Diaspora origin. The analyzed prayers come from additions to Esther, Judith, Jubilees, Susanna, Tobit, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Testament of Job, Joseph and Asenath, Third Maccabees, the works of Philo of Alexandria, Fourth Maccabees, second Baruch, Fourth Ezra, Sibylline Oracles, and the Writings of Josephus. After discussing each and every prayer in a very systematic way, including all sorts of statistical data that add to the findings, McDowell comes to Chapter 5: Summaries and Conclusions. It is true that almost all the texts analyzed by McDowell have already been subject to study, and what is even more frustrating is that almost none of his conclusions might be characterized as new. Moreover, McDowell is very cautious in his conclusions, and he is reluctant to say if any of the documents analyzed by him had been written by a woman. McDowell focuses on prayers from a specific era and thus he almost ignores biblical predecessors (see M. Bar-Ilan, Some Jewish Women in Antiquity, 1998), nor is he interested in more modern Jewish women's prayers (to which the term Rabbinic might be applied very loosely) (see Chava Weissler, Voices of the Matriarchs, 1998, and Aliza Lavie, Tefilat Nashim [Jewish Women's Prayers Throughout the Ages], 2005 [Hebrew]), as if all that data might not help in his analysis. …

Points and Lines: Thematic Parallelism in the Letter of James and the Testament of Job

This study re-examines the proverbial ‘patience of Job’, its function in the letter of James, and the hypothesis that the author derives the motif from the pseudepigraphical Testament of Job. Particular attention is paid to the use and abuse of the category of parallelism in the study of the NT and the literature of antiquity. While there is not sufficient evidence to settle the source-critical question, the recontextualization of the Job tradition in James sheds light on the relationship between eschatology and ethics in early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism.