A. Brenner

God's Answer To Job

Gods answer to Job (chs. xxxviii-xli) is, at best, enigmatic. It seems to raise problems instead of solving them. Placed as it is after Elihus speeches, and not directly following the dialogues of Job and his friends, how does it relate to those cycles of arguments and counterarguments? In what way is the answer relevant to Jobs problems as he himself defines them within the main body of the book? Does it provide a satisfying solution? Conversely, in what way-if at alldoes Jobs reply to Gods speeches clarify Gods intent? Presumably, Gods words should constitute the climax to the book as a whole, and elaborate the religious philosophy of the author who composed these chapters. In order to answer these preliminary questions we must first consider the following points: a. What are Jobs problems, as he himself sees them? They can be schematically divided into three main categories. They are, first and foremost, the practical hardships of which we hear from the prose narrative (chs. i-ii) onwards: Job suffers physically, economically, socially, and emotionally. On the next level, and intertwined with the mundane ones, his problems are spiritual-religious and intellectual. Job interprets his undeserved misfortune as a sign of religious isolation, of disharmony with and removal from God. Finally, he suffers from a strong sense of moral injustice. Throughout his complaints he repeats his accusations that God is remote and unfeeling, and that he has done him a great injustice, for Job feels that he does not deserve this excessive measure of suffering. Therefore Job turns himself into an example of the inapplicability of the traditional theory of reward and punishment, a theory that advocates both divine providence and divine justice. All three aspects are summarized in Jobs final plea, chs. xxix-xxxi.

Job the Pious? The Characterization of Job in the Narrative Framework of the Book.

of Job (prologue and epilogue, chs. 1-2 and 42.7-17) and the rest of the book is puzzling. The narrative sections differ from the poetic main body of the book on several counts. Also, within the narrative itself there is a certain lack of harmony between the prologue and the epilogue. After describing the main problems, I shall investigate these puzzles with the following crucial questions as my main

Aromatics and Perfumes in the Song of Songs.

A few years ago Professor C. Rabin advanced a theory of Tamil influence on the Song of Songs. His hypothesis includes a tentative dating of the poems to a period during which there existed trade relations between ancient Israel and India, i.e., the era of the First Temple, possibly even the reign ofKing Solomon. The theory is based mainly on similarities of theme and tone between the love lyrics of Tamil ~angam poetry and the Song of Songs, and is supported by information about trade with Southern Arabia and-through it-with Southern India in Solomon’s time. (Cf. the story of the Queen of Sheba’s visit and the account of Solomon’s wealth and trade, 1 K 10 = 2 Ch 9.) As part of his argument Rabin cites names of luxury products imported from India which occur in the Song of Songs, and whose etymology can be related to Dravidian or Sanskrit. Among these there

To See Is to Assume: Whose Love Is Celebrated in the Song of Songs?

Three characteristic features of the Song of Songs are its (a) disjointed or absent plot, (b) gynocentrism and (c) lack of theocentrism. Recognition of these features facilitates a reassessment of the books allegorical readings, be they ancient or modern, Jewish or Christian, religious or ostensibly secular. The principal readings discussed are Rabins reconsideration of the Songs intrinsic allegorical properties with reference to Tamil love poetry; M. Cohens on the Song and Jewish mystical literature (the Shiur Qomah and Hekhalot Rabbati); Murphys position of reading mutually reflected human love and divine love in the Song; Popes identification of the Songs assumed, single female protagonist as a black goddess; and Foxs rejection of allegory because of his definitions of metaphor, metaphoric distance and meaning. In conclusion, some reflections on the (ancillary) development of the Jewish allegorical tradition and its links with the Songs cannonization are offered.

From Ruth to the “Global Woman”: Social and Legal Aspects

In this short study, the Scroll of Ruth, and especially Ruths undisclosed motives for following her mother-in-law, are read alongside the situation of foreign, female migrant workers in contemporary Israel—and vice versa. This allows a bi-directional reading that supplies a possible context both for the biblical text and for the evaluation of todays issues.

Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode

Robert Kawashima asks a perennial though pertinent question: What is it that makes Hebrew Bible storytelling so compelling, so special? In other words, what are the Bible’s “literary origins,” and how does it compare to its predecessors and contemporaries? To answer, Kawashima makes the following moves. His introduction immediately puts forward his premise: that the Hebrew Bible is unique not for confessional but for literary reasons. In this introduction, he sets out further assumptions and arguments: that biblical narrative, as he summarizes, constitutes “a radical break between the Bible and epic by ... a shift from the medium of the spoken to the written word” (14). To show this, he describes biblical literature against the backdrop of Homeric and Greek epics, on one hand, and modern literary theory—especially that of storytelling and the novel—on the other. In that journey, Kawashima makes it easier for readers to follow his intellectual and scholarly background—or kit bag, if you wish—by stating the theoretical resources he uses in his acknowledgments, as well as by supplying extensive mottos at the beginning of each chapter. Chapter 2, “From Song to Story” (17–34), is a case study analysis of Judges 4 and 5. In it, Kawashima arrives at the conclusion that the characterization is typical of a written mode: “Biblical narrative comes after [Walter] Benjamin’s storyteller, after the epic rhapsode” (34). Chapter 3 deals with “Narration and Discourse” (35–76), making a distinction in written storytelling (i.e., literature) between language and discourse and discussing the implications for biblical as opposed to Homeric or Ugaritic literature. He concludes that the biblical storytellers “uncannily anticipate[d] the modern novel” (76). Chapter 4 examines how consciousness is represented in biblical narratives (77–123). Represented consciousness in the Bible is seen as a “historical innovation” (111), and space is properly given to the issue of syntax as opposed to context, with an engagement of Berlin and Anderson’s analyses (114 ff.). Chapter 5 is about “Biblical Time and Epic Time” (124–60). Homeric time is characterized as linear in its forward movements, whereas biblical time is historical and simultaneous in its innovative temporality. In Chapter 6, Kawashima discusses the “Art of Biblical Narrative as Technique” (161–89): In analyzing the literary convention known as the “type-scene,” especially the Hero’s Birth annunciation scene, Kawashima uses Walter Benjamin’s notions about storytelling and Shklovsky’s concept of “defamiliarization” to distinguish between the epic/oral and the biblical/written modes. He concedes that both share certain traditions, but he points to different techniques and achievements. Chapter 7 is his conclusion (190–214). Here, finally, the issue of biblical religion is discussed, focusing on the conception of God that emerges from the biblical narrative. Here, we are not surprised to learn that this conception is novel and rather discontinuous with neighboring cultures. Kawashima attempts an admittedly modest “archaeology of ancient Israelite knowledge” (197); Book Reviews

In Memoriam Dr Fokkelien Van Dijk Hemmes 1943-1994

Our friend and colleague Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes loved her work as theologian and Bible scholar with a passion. She brought into it a liberal’s awareness of weak social groups, especially but not only women. For instance, her feminist convictions extended to teenage girls in trouble (for whom she and her husband provided a half-way home for years) as well as to her peers. The same emotional force, social conscience, and quest for justice and the recognition of the underprivileged’s plight, motivated her community work and her academic work. There was no demarcation line between the two aspects of her life, the professional and the personal; no boundary between work/duty and pleasure/play. Work was pleasure and pleasure was work. She was dedicated to whatever she did. She considered workaholism a natural state of being and great fun. The remarkable integration of all facets of her life had far-reaching consequences for her work: it enhanced her scholarly accomplishments in a way that a more aloof personality, a more compartmentalized way of thinking and feeling, could not have done. Fokkelien consciously brought her personal experience as woman, wife and mother to bear on her scholarly (and communal) work, thus greatly amplifying its value. Praise is due to her for being intuitively and later deliberately subjective rather than ’objective’ in her work, a position

LACOCQUE, A. and P.-E. Jonah: A Psycho-Religious Approach to the Prophet. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1990. Pp. xxv, 264. Cloth, n.p. ISBN 0-87249-674-0

every instance makes the work so handled end up seeming trivial, remote and of no concern to any but the age in which it was written’ (p. 303). He finds Augustine’s City of God ’entirely poisonous’ (agreed!). The book has excesses and weaknesses, but we could do with more commentaries that address the intelligent layperson-especially if they replaced the numerous and predictable homiletic tracts which offer such people the major alternative to the products of guild scholarship.

The Song of Songs

The ten essays in this volume, the majority specially written, engage with questions of voice (whose?) and interplay (what kind?) between received interpretation and resisting female reader, and venture into methodological territory familiar.