| The book of Job consists of interrelating but disjunctive parts. Disorientation is an inherent characteristic, key to understanding what is being communicated. The Joban text is in dialogue with other texts. Many allusions are subversive, referring to antecedent texts antagonistically with the intention of undermining the earlier text's message. By subversive use of earlier texts, the Joban text questions the traditional understanding of the divine character: God as creator-sustainer of the cosmos, author of societal order, and friend. The purpose of subversion is ultimately transformation: A world cannot be transformed without first being disrupted. The study method is new literary criticism, which views the text as an object, and seeks to comprehend how form, structure, language, and imagery convey meaning. This study argues that the text's message may lie in the sub-genres' alteration of generic convention. Three forms are examined: the didactic narrative of the prose frame, the lawsuit, and the lament. Each has been altered in such a way that the prevalent beliefs concerning the nature of God are questioned.; Three speeches by Job are examined: Job 9: 2--13, 12: 7--25, and 16: 7--17. Job 9 is a subverted doxology. Divine attributes offered for praise are instead questioned by a litany of God's destructive cosmic actions. The idiomatic expression "he stretched out the heavens" is divorced from its usual context of redemption. Hymnic function is subverted: this dispraise hymn rebuts Eliphaz's earlier doxology. Job 12, a second segment in the rebuttal of Eliphaz, is also a subverted hymn of praise, functioning as an indictment against God. Subversion is accomplished challenging the witness of two ancient traditions, by the use of the "hand" motif, by the employment name of Yahweh, and by a list of destructive actions portraying Yahweh as creator of social disorder. Job 16 is a lament devoid of all elements but complaint. Collapse of the lament's formal order signifies the collapse of order in Job's life. Lament function has been subverted. Not dialogic, this lament emphasizes God's silence. Unlike traditional laments presuming the trustworthiness of God's rule, this perceives God's rule to have gone awry. Vocabulary, chosen for assonance, is employed non-traditionally. Consonantal repetition emphasizes God's repeated bombardment of Job. Job 16 relates to Lamentations 3, but whereas the Lamentations passage ends in hope, Job has no such hope.; Job's subversive view of God---God as cosmic destroyer, author of social chaos, and personal enemy to humanity---does not stand unchallenged. Yahweh offers alternate cosmic metaphors: master-builder, extravagant dispenser of rain, and controller of the sea. Animals testify that God orders existence within the animal world. Using Behemoth and Leviathan, Yahweh offers an alternate image of the creator-creature relationship: one marked by covenant, supplication, and gentle words, and in which the creature is not afraid, even in life's turbulence. Job changes his mind about the God-human relationship: It is not marked by hopelessness. As Job's experience of God clashed with his preconceived God-concepts, Job had three options: to deny the validity of the experience, to reject God, or to enlarge his God-concept. Job chose the latter route. The reader, set up as omniscient and predisposed to identify with Job, is drawn into the fray and presented the same three options as Job. |
