The book of Job and the origins of Judaism

Biblical Theology Bulletin, May, 2009 by James A. Sanders

Abstract

Recently developed tools of intertextual analysis show that the dialogues in the Book of Job were in effect echoes of major debates in the early to middle Persian Period about the worth and responsibility of the individual in the new Judaism scattering throughout the empire. They expose the fallacy of the "conservative" tendency to apply past truth literally or statically to new realities without first making the necessary adjustments needed to address new problems. The earlier prophetic and deuteronomic arguments why Israel and Judah had been destroyed still served well to explain the national disaster, but the truth of them had to be refocused to apply to the new situation of individual experiences in widely dispersed Judaism. The Joban dialogues may thus have served as guide for Early Jewish debates about the role of the past when contemporized to the present, the critical function of canon.

Key Words: Judaism, Canon, Job, Persia, Intertextuality, Deuteronomy.

**********

The Book of Job marked a crucial moment in the emergence of Judaism in the early Persian period after Cyrus had presented the exiles with a problem hardly anticipated in the waning years of the reign of Nabonidus, the last king of the neo-Babylonian empire, when the remnant of old Israel and Judah was still in a shambles.

Cyrus' edict (538 BCE), after he had conquered Babylonia and liberated peoples earlier taken captive, allowed Judahites to repatriate, and called for thinking in new ways about what survival finally might mean. The Isaiah of the Exile (Isa 40-55) took it to mean a joyous return to the land, which some yet believed Yahweh had given their ancestors centuries earlier. Those ancestors had also lived in Mesopotamia; so the trek back to Palestine would parallel Abraham's and Sarah's journey there (Isa 41:2-10). Others were not so sure, as the same prophet recognized (Isa 46:12), those whom he called "stubborn of heart" (Isa 51:7) and the unrighteous (55:7). He even pled with the recalcitrant to seek Yahweh during this theophany marked by Cyrus' advanced foreign policy, to forsake their doubts and to join the caravan headed back home (Isa 55:6-9).

Others chose not to return but to settle down in the Babylonia where they were born and had grown up, now governed by Cyrus' Persian satraps, and make their permanent home there. Many had adopted Babylonian names and customs, and they all now followed the Babylonian calendar. Most apparently so accommodated to their Mesopotamian context that they no longer felt themselves attached to the old sod, and many simply lost their identity with the past. Even so, some of the latter kept their old identity to the extent that they could and in the measure that their new life allowed. They didn't want to go back to that desolate place down there, but they also did not feel themselves to be either Babylonian or Persian. Most apparently stayed, for the largest Jewish community in the world from then, the sixth century BCE, until the sixth century CE was the Babylonian--twelve centuries. The official Jewish Talmud was developed and codified in Babylonia (the Bavli). Along with those who did go back they would be called the "remnant," those who had suffered loss and destitution but kept ties to the past whether they stayed or returned. Most, however, no longer spoke or even knew Hebrew. Aramaic was the official common language of the Persian court and government (there were many local languages, but only one lingua franca), and they were comfortable with that. In fact, the Babylonian Talmud is in Aramaic. There wasn't much drawing them to uproot themselves now that life looked considerably more promising right where they were. After all, Jeremiah had written their grandparents soon after they had been taken into exile that they should settle down, build houses, and marry off sons and daughters right there in exile. He had even urged them to pray for Babylon and to find their welfare there (Jer 29:5-7). They were told their grandparents had not liked the prophet's advice, but, after all, he was a prophet and all the rest he said turned out right. They would stay put.

Torah

As things turned out, most freed Judahites, now called Jews, stayed in Babyonia and were in a position to help shape the Judaism that arose to accommodate both them and those who chose to go back. Down in Judah the returnees would build a shrine to operate as the new temple where a priestly religion would function sponsored by their new over-lords, the Persians (Haggai I-2 and Zechariah 1-8). This new temple would replace the one that was destroyed by the Babylonians down there, but another icon was in the works up in the growing Jewish community in Babylonia, and that new icon would be called the Torah. A number of the old pre-exilic traditions, considerably modified to make sense in the new situation, were pulled together by the new priestly leaders, and then finally edited by Ezra, the Scribe. It would start with some adapted Mesopotamian accounts of creation, followed by their understanding of the great flood, and then a story explaining the Zigurrat tower which they called the Tower of Babel (Babylonia), with their own meanings attached. Then it would continue with some of the old stories about the patriarchs who had come from Mesopotamia in the first place, the promises of Yahweh to Abram and Sarai, then the descent into Egypt in the time of Jacob and Joseph, the Exodus and Wanderings in the desert, led by an Egyptian Jew named Moses, and the giving of the Law.