Job and the Disruption of Identity Reading Beyond Barth

by Ticciati, Susannah

• ISBN13: 9780567041135
• ISBN10: 0567041131
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-12-08
• Publisher: Bloomsbury T & T Clark

Summary

This book offers an original and provocative reading of the book of Job, shifting attention away from what is most often seen as the burden of the book - the problem of evil or unjust suffering - and arguing that its central concern is the question of obedience, sanctification or transformation of self before God. This shift in emphasis was outlined in one of the most significant theological interpretations of Job in the 20th Century, that of Karl Barth. Ticciati brings Barth's theological commentary into engagement with a wide range of current critical work on Job, allowing the divergence between these approaches to stimulate critique and enrichment on both sides. The theological concentration of Barth's commentary is broadened by a psychological and philosophical reading of the text, and by a literary, philological and historical-critical inquiry that sets Job firmly in its biblical context. This interdisciplinary approach finds its focus in an emergent understanding of Job's self, which is at once biblical, psychological, philosophical, historical and theological. Reading beyond Barth, Ticciati provides a thoroughgoing reappraisal of the notion of obedience - or, in Joban terms, of what it means to "fear God for naught." This book will appeal not only to systematic theologians seeking to re-engage with Scripture, and biblical scholars desiring to re-engage with the theology of the Bible, but also to those from other disciplines concerned about the increasingly fragmentary nature of academic research and its concomitant evasion of questions of wider and more fundamental concern.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vi
Abbreviations	viii
Introduction	1	(10)
Part I: The Problem of Obedience: Barth on Job	11	(38)
Barth's Job as both Right and Wrong	13	(22)
Obedience as Self-Examination: Barth on the Story of the Rich Man	35	(14)
Part II: Does Job Fear God for Naught? A Rereading of Job	49	(68)
The Prose Narrative: Transforming Piety	53	(26)
The Poem	79	(1)
The Dialogue: Testing Integrity	80	(21)
The Whirlwind Speeches: Encountering Creation	101	(16)
Part III: God, Job and Justice	117	(42)
Calling God to Account	119	(20)
An Integrity Beyond the Law	139	(20)
Part IV: The Disruption and Transformation of the Self	159	(32)
The Problem of Obedience Revisited	161	(22)
Epilogue: Self, Society and World	183	(8)
Bibliography	191	(6)
Index of Subjects	197	(5)
Index of Biblical References	202