Have You Considered My Servant Job? , livre ebook

Have You Considered My Servant Job?
STUDIES ON PERSONALITIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
James L. Crenshaw, Series Editor
Have You Considered My Servant Job?
Understanding the Biblical Archetype of Patience
SAMUEL E. BALENTINE
2015 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Balentine, Samuel E. (Samuel Eugene), 1950-
Have you considered my servant Job? : understanding the biblical archetype of patience / Samuel E. Balentine.
pages cm. - (Studies on personalities of the Old Testament)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61117-451-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-1-61117-452-6 (ebook)
1. Bible. Job-Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Job (Biblical figure) 3. Patience- Biblical teaching. I. Title.
BS1415.52.B35 2015
223 .106-dc23
2014044828
To Betty, Graham, and Lauren, thank you for the support and understanding that makes it possible for me to do what I do
Contents
Series Editor s Preface
Preface
Introduction

Prologue
There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job

Part I
Introduction to the Characters in the Didactic Tale (Job 1-2 + Job 42:7-17)

1 The Job(s) of the Didactic Tale
A Saint in the Making

2 God and the Satan
Have you considered my servant Job?

3 There Was Once a Woman in the Land of Uz
Job s Wife

Part II
Center Stage : The Wisdom Dialogue (Job 3-42:6)

4 Job s Words from the Ash Heap
The Scandalous Voice of Defiance

5 God on Trial
Who ever challenged Him and came out whole? (Job 9:4)

6 Job s Comforters
Do not despise the discipline of the Almighty (Job 5:17)

7 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind (Job 38:1, 3)

Epilogue
Job s Children (Job 42:7-17)
Notes
Bibliography
Author Index
Subject Index
SERIES EDITOR S PREFACE
Critical study of the Bible in its ancient Near Eastern setting has stimulated interest in the individuals who shaped the course of history and whom events singled out as tragic or heroic figures. Rolf Rendtorff s Men of the Old Testament (1968) focuses on the lives of important biblical figures as a means of illuminating history, particularly the sacred dimension that permeates Israel s convictions about its God. Fleming James s Personalities of the Old Testament (1939) addresses another issue, that of individuals who function as inspiration for their religious successors in the twentieth century. Studies restricting themselves to a single individual-for example, Moses, Abraham, Samson, Elijah, David, Saul, Ruth, Jonah, Job, Jeremiah-enable scholars to deal with a host of questions: psychological, literary, theological, sociological, and historical. Some, like Gerhard von Rad s Moses (1960), introduce a specific approach to interpreting the Bible, hence providing valuable pedagogic tools.
As a rule these treatments of isolated figures have not reached the general public. Some were written by outsiders who lacked a knowledge of biblical criticism (Freud on Moses, Jung on Job) and whose conclusions, however provocative, remain problematic. Others were targeted for the guild of professional biblical critics (David Gunn on David and Saul, Phyllis Trible on Ruth, Terence Fretheim and Jonathan Magonet on Jonah). None has succeeded in capturing the imagination of the reading public in the way fictional works like Archibald MacLeish s J.B. and Joseph Heller s God Knows have done.
It could be argued that the general public would derive little benefit from learning more about the personalities of the Bible. Their conduct, often less then exemplary, reveals a flawed character, and their everyday concerns have nothing to do with our preoccupations from dawn to dusk. To be sure some individuals transcend their own age, entering the gallery of classical literary figures from time immemorial. But only these rare achievers can justify specific treatments of them. Then why publish additional studies on biblical personalities?
The answer cannot be that we read about biblical figures to learn ancient history, even of the sacred kind, or to discover models for ethical action. But what remains? Perhaps the primary significance of biblical personages is the light they throw on the imaging of deity in biblical times. At the very least, the Bible constitutes human perceptions of deity s relationship with the world and its creatures. Close readings of biblical personalities therefore clarify ancient understandings of God. That is the important data that we seek-not because we endorse that specific view of deity, but because all such efforts to make sense of reality contribute something worthwhile to the endless quest for knowledge.
James L. Crenshaw Robert L. Flowers Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Duke University
PREFACE
In one way or another, I have been immersed in the story of Job for most of my professional life. For me, and perhaps also for the many others who instinctively resonate with Job s plight, his story is like a tar baby ; once you enter into it fully, you never escape. The scars of engagement may fade over time, but they always leave a footprint. Tracing some of these footprints in the reception history of Job is the objective of this book.
My journey with Job and his interpreters will no doubt continue, for life itself seems to demand it. Even so I confess that after a lifetime s work, Job s story still unsettles me. I continue to pause before answering God s opening question, Have you considered my servant Job? (Job 1:8), because I know that any answer I may offer can be countered by a whirlwind voice. Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? (38:2). Like Job my first instinct is to retreat in silence (40:5). But also like Job, I am compelled to move beyond silence to explore what I can see and understand, limited as it may be, about the God who afflicts the righteous for no reason (2:3). I read and reread this ancient story because I must.
I am grateful to my friend Jim Crenshaw for inviting to me to contribute this volume to this distinguished series, and to Jim Denton and his colleagues at the press for their help in moving the manuscript to publication. Special thanks go to Grant Holbrook and Joe Perdue, who helped me in untold ways to prepare the manuscript for final submission.
INTRODUCTION

Oh, there s always Someone playing Job.
Archibald MacLeish, J.B.

Job is no longer man; he is humanity! A race which can feel, think, and speak in such a voice is truly worthy of a dialogue with the divine; it is worthy of conversing with its creator.
Alphonse de Lamartine, Cours familier de litt rature
House, M.D. is an Emmy Award-winning American television drama series that began airing in 2004. The lead character, Dr. Gregory House, is an infectious disease specialist at the fictitious Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH). A modern-day Sherlock Holmes, House is a brilliant, Vicodin-addicted diagnostician who thrives on solving medical puzzles, even as he alienates patients and colleagues with his antisocial behavior and unconventional thinking. In an episode broadcast in February 2009, House takes on the case of a young priest, Daniel Bresson, who claims to have seen a crucified, bleeding Jesus hovering on his doorstep. 1 In conversation with Bresson, House learns that he has been moved from one diocese to another, dogged at each stop along the way by the accusation that he had inappropriate contact with a boy in his first parish. Bresson insists he is innocent of the charge, and he continues to serve the church by working at a homeless shelter, but he survives day-to-day more by the scotch that numbs his despair than by faith in God s justice.
Bresson s symptoms suggest at first little more than an alcohol-induced hallucination. Additional symptoms quickly complicate his medical situation, however, so House begins to search for other causes. He runs an EEG to check for epilepsy, a CT scan to check for brain tumors; the results are negative. He tests Bresson s home for toxins, suspecting carbon monoxide poisoning but finds no corroborating evidence. When Bresson loses sight in his right eye, House runs a nerve conduction study, and when this also proves inconclusive, he suspects the spleen is the problem. Finally when Bresson breaks out in inflamed red welts all over his body, House zeroes in on the diagnosis: Job s disease. It is the term used since the 1960s to describe persons suffering from chronic granulomas, manifest as severe abscesses of the skin, tissue, and organs. Based on his lingering suspicion that the molestation charges against the priest are true, House orders a blood test. Father Nietzsche has AIDS, House announces. Ultimately this diagnosis also proves to be inaccurate, and with additional tests House finally determines that Bresson has Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome, a genetic but treatable immune deficiency that is not connected to the HIV-AIDS virus.
As with all the episodes in this television series, this one is laced with subplots that connect to various philosophical and psychological issues. The episode begins not with the priest in the ER but with the invitation to House from Dr. Cuddy, the hospital administrator and dean of medicine at PPTH, to attend her daughter s Simchat Bat celebration. House has no desire to attend this ceremony-he believes in medicine, not metaphysics -and so he spends much of the rest of the episode thinking up ways to get out of going. With this lead-i