CrossCurrents

The Book of Job: A Biography. By Mark Larrimore. Princeton University Press, 2013, 286 pp. $24,95

One thing practically all readers and students of the Book of Job can agree on is that it raises a host of problems (apart from the often corrupt Hebrew text). When was it written? Is there any organic connection between the matter‐of‐fact prose frame‐narrative (ch. 1–2, 42) and the fierce poetic central section (ch. 3–41)? Since Job's “comforters” recite orthodox Deuteronomc theology, why does the Lord chide Eliphaz the Temanite at the end: “My wrath is kindled against thee and thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath” (42.7, KJV)? But hasn't YHWH just laced into Job for his rash arrogance, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” (38.2). And hasn't Job twice abased himself in shame (“Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” [42.6])? The “patience of Job” (James 5.11) is proverbial, but when do we ever see it? What are we to make of the long sermonizing interruption by Elihu (ch. 32–37)—who (like Satan) isn't even mentioned in the final scene? Who is addressing whom in the Hymn to Wisdom (ch. 28)? Is Job's second set of ten children (by which mother?) supposed to be the perfect replacement for his original slaughtered ten? Why did God let Satan torment Job so dreadfully in the first place? And why didn't he answer any of Job's questions or explain the source of his sufferings?

From a logical point of view it just doesn't add up. Since Job is described as morally flawless, what's the point in torturing him? Is Job's God anything more than a gigantic bully? How not take Job's part against his totalitarian (though breathtakingly eloquent) Judge‐Jury‐Executioner? Doesn't the Book of Job show once and for all that there's no solution to the problem of evil?

Mark Larrimore, who's the director of the Religious Studies program at Eugene Lang College The New School of Liberal Arts, is more than familiar with all this. But, as the subtitle suggests (and this volume is also part of a series called “Lives of Great Books”), he's not offering yet another critical interpretation, but surveying the great historical span of interpretations, from the Testament of Job (composed at some point between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE) to the many 20th and 21st century commentators, such as René Girard, Margarete Susman, and Gustavo Gutiérrez. Larrimore displays his considerable erudition with casual grace; but he seems to have never met a reading of Job, however far‐fetched, that he didn't like. So he cheerfully lets a hundred flowers bloom and invites us to sniff them all.

The Testament of Job reworks the biblical text in various ways. Its hero is called Jobab, a king of Egypt who destroys a shrine to Satan (now the more familiar, full‐fledged “devil,” rather than one of the Bible's “sons of God,” or lieutenants of the Lord). Jobab knows that Satan will exact terrible vengeance for such zeal; and in fact, his torments last a full forty‐eight years; but Satan eventually has to admit his failure to make Job curse God. Among other weird twists, Bildad questions the justice of the Lord's doings, and Elihu of all people is revealed to be a spokesman for Satan. In general, The Testament of Job sounds like a response to some of the issues that have always frustrated readers of the Scriptural version. As Larrimore says, “Testament's colorful details and named characters answer many questions raised by the canonical story. Why did Satan attack Job? How was Job able to endure the trials from day to day after the loss of his worldly goods? Did not his wife [Sitidos] too suffer, and could she have borne ten more children? … Could God really have instigated the whole thing?”

Larimore sees The Testament of Job as...