Job the Silent A Study in Historical Counterpoint

by Zuckerman, Bruce

• ISBN13: 9780195121278
• ISBN10: 0195121279
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-07-23
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Offering an original reading of the book of Job, one of the great literary classics of biblical literature, this book develops a new analogical method for understanding how biblical texts evolve in the process of transmission. Zuckerman argues that the book of Job was intended as a parody protesting the stereotype of the traditional righteous sufferer as patient and silent. He compares the book of Job and its fate to that of a famous Yiddish short story, "Bontsye Shvayg," another covert parody whose protagonist has come to be revered as a paradigm of innocent Jewish suffering. Zuckerman uses the story to prove how a literary text becomes separated from the intention of its author, and takes on quite a different meaning for a specific community of readers.

Author Biography

Bruce Zuckerman is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California. He also directs the University of Southern California Archaeological Research Collection as well as the West Semitic Research Project

Table of Contents

Introduction	3	(10)
PART I	13	(74)
1. The "Patience" Problem	13	(3)
2. The Akedah Model	16	(9)
3. The Case against a Linear Reading	25	(9)
4. Super-Job	34	(12)
5. Anti-Job	46	(13)
6. Super-Reality	59	(18)
7. The "Sincerely Wrong" Approach	77	(10)
PART II	87	(94)
8. Barriers to Interpretation and the "Bontsye-Model"	87	(6)
9. The Art of Parody: The Dialogue/Appeal	93	(11)
10. The Art of Parody: The Legal Metaphor	104	(14)
11. The Art of Parody: The Death Theme	118	(18)
12. Supplemental Themes	136	(30)
13. Intervening Themes	166	(9)
14. Conclusion: The Joban Fugue	175	(6)
Appendix: The Text and Translation of Y.L. Perets' "Bontsye Shvayg"	181	(15)
Abbreviations	196	(3)
Notes	199	(84)
Index of Authors	283	(5)
Index of Ancient Sources	288