REVIEW Katharine J. Dell, the Book of Job As Sceptical Literature

REVIEW

Katharine J. Dell, The Book of Job as Sceptical Literature, BZAW 197. x + 259 pp. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York, 1991. DM 104.

Katharine J. Dell's dissertation on Job, written under the supervision of John Barton, will long remain an important landmark in Job research. Dell argues that the book of Job is the major example of sceptical literature in the Old Testament and that this classification has important conse- quences for all areas of study connected with this biblical book (p. 3). Ch. 1 provides a survey of traditional and critical exegesis of Job. Here the reader is given a bird's eye view of Jewish interpretations, the understanding of Job in the LXX, the apocryphal and pseudepigraphical ,Job tradition and Christian exegesis of Job. In the critical exegesis of the last century, the primary stress was placed on Job as an innocent sufferer, because of an overemphasis on the importance of the narrative frame (p. 31). By the 1940s, however, the dialogue section was commonly seen as the true kernel of the book, a view which shifted the problem of retribution to centre stage in scholarly discussion (p. 35). Dell notes that "in recent times there has been an emphasis on the content of the speeches of Yahweh and the issues raised by the portrayal of an omnipotent and largely indifferent Creator" (p. 40). The final section in this survey deals with recent contributions to the discussion which view Job as a protest. Special attention is given to the works ofJ.L. Crenshaw and R. Davidson. The recent monograph by L.G. Perdue, Wisdom in Revolt. Metaphorical Theologyin the Book of Job (Sheffield, 1991), is a fresh and original represen- tative of this approach, one that appeared too late for inclusion in Dell's work. After surveying previous attempts to find an overall unifying message in Job, Dell examines a number of possible ways of classifying the book on a literary level. Here in ch. 2 Dell first discusses the view that Job should be placed in the category of "wisdom literature". However, it turns out that the book displays a wide variety of forms: "Wisdom, hymnic and legal forms appear to be accorded equal importance in the book... In mainline wisdom books, on the other hand, there is no such mixture of forms" (p. 72). Thus Job cannot be unequivocally viewed as "wisdom literature". Dell identifies six themes characteristic of the content of wisdom literature (pp. 75-83): (1) "order in the world", (2) "the ambiguity of events and of the meaning of life", (3) "punishment and reward", (4) "life as the supreme good", (5) "confidence in wisdom", 416

(6) the "personification of wisdom". The conclusion she draws from her perusal of Job with an eye to these themes is that Job "questions the wisdom tradition to such an extent that it breaks outside its bounds" (p. 83). The next part of this chapter deals with the quest for an overall genre for,Job. Here Dell points out two main errors of previous research on the genre question. The first pitfall is "the assumption that the overall genre of Job is the most predominant 'smaller' genre (p. 89), e.g. C. Wester- mann's understanding of Job as a "dramatized lament"-cf. A. Bent- zen's "dramatization of the psalms of lamentation" (p. 92)-and H. Richter's classification of the book as a judicial process. The second pitfall is "deciding the overall genre before studying the smaller genres which make up the whole" (p. 93), an error that resulted in, e.g. G. von Rad's "Streitgesprach", H. Gese's "Klageerhorungsparadigma", and J.W. Whedbee's "comedy". Ch. 3, where Dell makes one of the most important contributions by proposing a fresh forrn-critical approach to Job, has two parts. The first deals with what Dell calls "the deliberate misuse of forms". Dell distinguishes between a simple "reuse" of an established form and the deliberate "misuse" of a form. The first term refers to a traditional form being used in a new setting. The second is a traditional form being used with a different content and context (p. 110). Dell relies heavily on G. Fohrer's article of 1959 in ZDMG 109, pp. 31-49, "Form und Funktion in der Hiobdichtung", and generously gives credit to Fohrer for the merits of his argument. She also refers to R. Gordis's studies of quotations and especially to his category "oblique restatement" (p. 124). Dell's quest for the "misuse" of forms results in an examination of a number of passages in Job: iii 11-26 contains the misuse of a lament form; ix 5-10 parodies hymnic praise of God's creative power; x 2-12 contains a misuse of the kind of form in Ps. cxxxix; xii 13-25, again is a negative description of God's wisdom presenting a parody of positive praise in texts like Ps. cvii; xiii 20-2 contrasts with psalm-like passages which seek the face of God; xiv 1-12 parodies Ps. viii; xvi 7-14 parodies passages where God is praised for giving strength to a man, e.g. Ps. xciv 18-19. The study of these and other passages leads Dell to two conclusions (pp. 136-8): first, every example of the misuse of forms is found in one of Job's speeches. No such misuse is found in the speeches of the friends. Second, this techni- que is used only when Job is making general statements about life and man's lot, not in passages where he is simply describing his own con- dition. The second part of this chapter has the heading "A new overall genre for Job, the parody". Dell suggests that " Job indeed does not belong to a genre EXCEPT IMPROPERI,Y" (p. 148). In Job there is a deliberate,