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The Trials of Job: Relitigating Job's ‘Good Case’ in Christian Interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2013

Will Kynes
Will Kynes*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Theology and Religion, St Peter's College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2DL, [email protected]
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Abstract

Applying the legal metaphor integral to the book of Job, this article re-evaluates the evidence for Job's innocence (Job 42:7). After examining the conflicted testimony of the book itself, the article focuses on exemplars of Christian interpretation throughout history (the author of James, Ambrose, Gregory the Great, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Kierkegaard, and Barth) to discuss the various attempts made to come to terms with the final form of the book of Job, including its testimony to Job's complaints. Though some interpreters simply ignore the complaints in their attempts to hold up Job as an exemplar of patience, following, it is often argued, the example of James 5:11, for those who wrestle with Job's apparent blasphemy, three general approaches emerge. The first, denial, refuses to acknowledge Job's accusations of divine injustice. The second, mitigation, attempts to minimise the force of Job's arguments against God. The third, absolution, acknowledges Job's defiance of God but claims that this wrong is not beyond God's grace, and that it may in fact highlight it. However, none is able to satisfactorily reconcile Job's accusations with the innocent verdict God delivers at the end of the book (42:7) and affirm that Job has indeed said what is right about God. Even so, the broader biblical testimony offers evidence to exonerate Job by testifying to divine favourable response to and even initiation of complaint in a tradition of ‘faithful revolt’. Job joins the heroes of Israelite faith, Abraham (Gen 18:17–33), Jacob (Gen 32:6–12, 22–31), and Moses (Exod 32:1–14), the psalmists who dare to cry ‘Why?’ and ‘How long?’ and prophets such as Amos (e.g. 7:1–9), Jeremiah (e.g. 20:7–18), and Habakkuk (e.g. 1:2–4, 12–17) in confronting God and demanding that the deity make things right. Jesus endorses this tradition through both his parables of the importunate friend (Luke 11:5–9) and the importunate widow (Luke 18:1–8) and his cry of dereliction from the cross. Instead of reading Job's complaints in line with this tradition, when these Christian interpreters grapple with Job's accusations against God, Job's ‘friends’ once again become his accusers due to their application of a limited view of God and God's relationship to humanity.

Keywords

complaintinnocenceinterpretationJamesJobpatience
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 174 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2013

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References

1 See Glatzer, Nahum N., ‘Introduction: A Study of Job’, in Glatzer, Nahum N. (ed.), The Dimensions of Job: A Study and Selected Readings (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

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3 von Rad, Gerhard, Wisdom in Israel, trans. Martin, James D. (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1993), pp. 238–9.Google Scholar

4 For H. L. Ginsberg, these confessions are enough to prove that the author of the dialogue (or an edition of the book very similar to it) did not hold that Job had spoken properly of God: Ginsberg, H. L., ‘Job the Patient and Job the Impatient’, in Congress Volume Rome, 1968, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 17 (Leiden: Brill, 1969), p. 89.Google Scholar

5 For a response to the view that God aims in the speeches to overpower Job and that Job is responding subversively, see Fox, Michael V., ‘Job the Pious’, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 117 (2005), pp. 352CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 356.

6 The same judgement applies to the possible admissions of sin in Job's speeches in the dialogue (e.g. 7:20–1; 10:14; 13:26). Job appears only to confess hypothetical sin, with the exception of some youthful peccadilloes, which he does not believe merit the affliction he is suffering (13:26). Having occurred prior to the dialogue itself, these youthful iniquities are not relevant to determining whether his complaints are sinful.

7 See e.g. Clines's, David A. trans.: ‘So I submit, and I accept consolation for my dust and ashes’: Job. 3 vols. Word Biblical Commentary 17–18B (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1989, 2006, 2011), vol. 3, p. 1205Google Scholar.

8 I am persuaded by those who argue it was intended primarily to set the stage for an exploration of the proper response to unjust suffering. See e.g. Fohrer, Georg, Das Buch Hiob, Kommentar zum Alten Testament 16 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1963), p. 549Google Scholar; Westermann, Claus, The Structure of the Book of Job: A Form-Critical Analysis, trans. Muenchow, Charles A. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), pp. 1–2Google Scholar, 59, n. 4; Heckl, Raik, Hiob: Vom Gottesfürchtigen zum Repräsentanten Israels, Forschungen zum Alten Testament 70 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), pp. 205Google Scholar, 215.

9 E.g. Fohrer, Hiob, p. 539.

10 E.g. Ginsberg, ‘Job the Patient’.

11 Ibid., p. 88.

12 Davids, Peter H., The Epistle of James: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 187.Google Scholar

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15 Glatzer, ‘Study of Job’, p. 11.

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18 Ibid., p. 341.

19 Ibid., p. 342.

20 Gregory the Great, Morals on the Book of Job, ed. C. Marriott, trans. anonymous, 4 vols, A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church 18, 21, 23, 31 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1844–50); trans. of Moralia in Job, preface, 6.13, vol. 1, p. 25.

21 Gregory, Morals, 23.1.2, vol. 3, pp. 3–4. See Hester, Kevin L., Eschatology and Pain in St. Gregory the Great: The Christological Synthesis of Gregory's Morals on the Book of Job, Studies in Christian History and Thought (Bletchley: Paternoster, 2007), p. 57.Google Scholar

22 Gregory, Morals, 9.46.70, vol. 1, p. 546.

23 Gregory, Morals, 32.3.4, vol. 4, p. 510. Here he is commenting on Job's first ‘confession’ in 40:5.

24 Gregory, Morals, 24.24.51, vol. 3, p. 89. Emphasis mine.

25 Aquinas, Thomas, The Literal Exposition on Job: A Scriptural Commentary Concerning Providence, ed. Yaffe, Martin D., trans. Damico, Anthony, Classics in Religious Studies 7 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989).Google Scholar

26 To demonstrate this deficiency, Job's complaints indicate how unjust the world would be without the doctrine of immortality. Schreiner, Susan Elizabeth, ‘“Why Do the Wicked Live?”: Job and David in Calvin's Sermons on Job’, in Perdue, Leo G. and Clark Gilpin, W. (eds), The Voice from the Whirlwind: Interpreting the Book of Job (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1992), p. 134.Google Scholar Thus, for Aquinas, 10:3 contributes to Job's argument in the chapter, which is intended ‘to induce his opponents necessarily to posit another life in which just men are rewarded and evil men are punished, since if that position is not posited, no reason can be given for the trial of just men, who, it is certain, are sometimes troubled in this world’. Aquinas, Literal Exposition, pp. 185, 193.

27 Aquinas, Literal Exposition, p. 156. See Young III, William W., ‘The Patience of Job: Between Providence and Disaster’, Heythrop Journal 48 (2007), p. 599.Google Scholar

28 Aquinas, Literal Exposition, p. 415; cf. 441.

29 Young, ‘Patience of Job’, p. 600.

30 Luther, Martin, Luther's Works, 55 vols (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955)Google Scholar, ‘Preface to Job’, vol. 35, p. 252.

31 Luther's Works, on Gal 3:1, vol. 26, p. 194.

32 See Luther's Works, on Gal 2:18, vol. 27, pp. 230–1.

33 Calvin, John, Sermons on Job (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1993)Google Scholar; repr. of Sermons on Job, trans. Arthur Golding (London: George Bishop, 1574), p. 1. In quoting from these sermons I have modernised the 1574 trans.

34 Calvin, Sermons on Job, p. 1.

35 Ibid., pp. 175–7.

36 Kierkegaard, Søren, Fear and Trembling: Repetition, trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H., Kierkegaard's Writings 6 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 207.Google Scholar

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38 Ibid., p. 198.

39 Ibid., p. 212.

40 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, IV: The Doctrine of Reconciliation, 3/1, trans. Bromiley, G. W. (London: T & T Clark International, 2004), p. 388Google Scholar.

41 Ibid., pp. 405–6.

42 Ibid., pp. 402–3.

43 Ibid., p. 427.

44 Ibid., p. 406. By referring to Job's ‘sayings’ here, Barth may be attempting to avoid a weakness of the Lutheran understanding of Job as a justified sinner, since God does not merely approve of Job as a person in 42:7, but explicitly mentions his speech. Susannah Ticciati argues, however, that Barth's view does not do justice to Job as a human being within history, instead making his obedience ‘reducible to the status conferred upon him as one eschatologically elected and justified by God’. Ticciati, Susannah, Job and the Disruption of Identity: Reading beyond Barth (London: T & T Clark International, 2005), pp. 4Google Scholar, 7.

45 Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3/1, pp. 406–7.

46 Ibid., p. 427.

47 Ibid., p. 433. Emphasis mine.

48 Kierkegaard, Repetition, p. 208.

49 Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3/1, p. 433.

50 See Davidson, Robert, The Courage to Doubt: Exploring an Old Testament Theme (London: SCM Press, 1983).Google Scholar

51 Murphy, Roland E., The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature, 3rd edn (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 34Google Scholar. Similarly, Miller, Patrick D., ‘Prayer and Divine Action’, in Linafelt, Tod and Beal, Timothy K. (eds), God in the Fray (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), pp. 211–32.Google Scholar

52 Gerald Janzen, J., Job, Interpretation (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1985), p. 159.Google Scholar

53 See Davidson, Courage to Doubt.

54 Thus, even the widespread use of parody in the book, such as the parody of Ps 8:5[4] in Job 7:17–18, can be interpreted, not as an indication of scepticism, but of faith. See Kynes, Will, ‘Beat your Parodies into Swords, and your Parodied Books into Spears: A New Paradigm for Parody in the Hebrew Bible’, Biblical Interpretation 19 (2011), pp. 303–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 E.g. Ambrose, ‘Prayer’, p. 374; Calvin, Sermons on Job, p. 191.

56 E.g. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3/1, p. 406.

57 E.g. Aquinas, Literal Exposition, p. 415; Calvin, Sermons on Job, p. 1.

58 E.g. Aquinas, Literal Exposition, pp. 415, 441.

59 E.g. Calvin, Sermons on Job, p. 248; Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3/1, p. 406.

60 E.g. Luther, Luther's Works, on Gal 3:1, vol. 26, pp. 193–4.

61 For the similar combination of responses to God in Abraham and Job, see Boström, Lennart, ‘Patriarchal Models for Piety’, in Penchansky, David and Redditt, Paul L. (eds), Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do What Is Right? Studies on the Nature of God in Tribute to James L. Crenshaw (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2000).Google Scholar Note also David's response to his child's illness in 2 Sam 12:22–3. He acts in the hope of changing God's ways, but upon seeing that they will not change, he submits.

62 See Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Beveridge, Henry, 2 vols (London: James Clarke, 1957)Google Scholar, 1.17.4, vol. 1, p. 187.

63 Nicholas Adams, ‘The Goodness of Job's Bad Arguments’, Journal of Scriptural Reasoning 4 (2004): http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/ssr/issues/volume4/number1/ssr04-01-e03.html.