Dan O'Connor

The Cunning Hand: Repetitions in Job 42:7, 8

At the very beginning of the Russian text of Tolstoy’s great novel Anna Karenina the word &dquo;house&dquo; occurs eight times in six sentences. But strange as it may seem the word &dquo;house&dquo; occurs only once in some English translations of this passage, once in the French, and only twice in the Czech, according to Milan Kundera’ who adds: &dquo;translators are crazy about synonyms&dquo;, and, may I add, are sometimes so embarrassed by repetitions in the original, that they, Chertkovwise, try to improve on it. V. Nabokov, whose shrewd eyes spotted Tolstoy’s eight &dquo;houses&dquo;,

The Keret Legend and the Prologue-Epilogue of Job

Among the cuneiform documents found between 1929-1939 at the ancient site of Ugarit on the north coast of Syria one poem contains the legend of Keret, king of a place called Khubur. When G. R. Driver published his translation of the Keret poem in his Canaanite Myths and Legends,’ he noted the similarity between the opening scenes of Keret and Job, when both men lament the loss of their property and children (p. 5). There are, however, several other significant similarities between the Keret poem and the prose Prologue-Epilogue of Job which would support the hypothesis that an ancient folk-tale lies behind the PrologueEpilogue of Job. The following list of parallels may be noted:

Psalms 1-50, Vol. 19 Word Biblical Commentary,

rcad, then concluding with a summary of the chapter’s contents and a number of appropriate questions to which the group could direct itself. The format is quite reminiscent of Lawrence Bright’s New Testament Discussioii Series some years ago, also from Sheed and Ward. The specifically synoptic material is treated in chapters 6 to 13. The method in each case is to give us an over-view of the evangelists’ work and style, followed by his central theological message: in Mark’s case the mysterious identity of Jesus, in Matthew’s the church as the true Israel and in Luke’s the message of peace and goodwill to men. The concluding chapter, entitled “The Gospel and our Lifestyle” is homiletic in tone, reflecting the author’s concern that the bible be used as a source of genuine spirituality. When all is said and done, the gospel is a personal message rather than some kind of historical record. Just as Peter and Paul did before them, the evangelists interpreted the gospel message for their particular readers. The challenge to us who read their gospels today is to work out the practical consequence of their message in terms of our own lifestyle . . and thereby to make the gospel the dominant force in our life. It would perhaps, have been helpful had Crane offered more concrete examples of how how a modern reader should respond specifically to the message of Matthew, Mark or Luke. Nevertheless, what he has done has provided a splendid popularisation describing the origins, stylistic qualities and central point of each of these three synoptic gospels.

Job's Final Word-“I Am Consoled …” (42:6b)

When the voice of that noble man of sorrows Job, whose defiant cries against his friends and his God have constituted the major element in the great poem of his name when this voice finally fades away in self-loathing and submission (42:6), the listener is left with a certain sadness that the mighty has fallen, the brave and honest man has been broken by superior force. Another sad scene leaps to mind, perhaps, of the forced submission of the genius of Galileo before the threatening power of the Inquisition, and one may ask the unhappy question: Is this how religion reduces a great man to dust and ashes? The crushing of conscience by sheer might? And if so, is not the moral grandeur of the Job poem diminished somewhat by the collapse of the protagonist’s dignity at the end ‘‘I despise myself?” Who would accept the self-loathing of the hero as a fitting finale to the great poem of Job? While sentiments of self-abasement and repentance have their proper place in the approach of man to God, what I am questioning, from the perspective of literary artistry, is the fittingness of placing such sentiments on the lips of the hero in the final scene. The poet had all through the long poem won his listeners over to sympathise with the innocent sufferer. How then at the final scene could the same poet expect us to acquiesce in the humiliation and self-loathing of the hero? When Aeschylus’ hero Prometheus was finally cast down into the waves he was still true to his conscience, still insisting that he was wronged, still heroic. But Job . . .? Has he now retracted, under divine pressure, what he had so strongly maintained? If the RSV and other versions like it (e.g. the Vulgate)’ presented the only possible translation of the MT one would have to accept the harsh ending, but, as many other translations indicate, another translation is grammatically possible, and, I suggest, harmonises better with the pervading mood of the poem. By way of anticipation may I indicate one such rendering which would give an ending more consistent with the poem’s own momentum:

Book Review: What Does The Old Testament Say About God? By Claus Westermann. Edited by F. W. Golka; S.P.C.K., London 1979, pp. 107. Price £4.95

This book contains six lectures delivered by Prof. Westermann in 1977 and translated from the German by the editor and others. They are written in the easy style of which Claus Westermann has already shown himself a master in his popular Genesis Account. of Creation and many other shorter publications. Behind the popular presentation of the Old Testament we can see the scholarly research of his great commentary on Genesis in the BKAT series. His ten years as a parish pastor in Berlin has helped the Heidelberg professor to speak clearly to his audience in language at once simple and profound not a common gift among the learned el te... The first chapter has the same title as the book itself. Here W. confronts the problem of Old Testament theology: &dquo;What is the theological centre of the Old Testament?&dquo; While the New Testament has its centre in the death and resurrection of Christ, the Old Testament has no such structure. Scholars must start their quest for a centre by observing how the Old Testament presents itself: it presents itself &dquo;as a story&dquo;, and so the structure of an Old Testament theology must be based on events rather than on concepts. But what really gives cohesion to the story, what gives the story a beginning and an end is the oneness of God (&dquo;Yahweh, our God, Yahweh is one). The same God is the creator, the saviour, the judge. Chapter 2 (&dquo;The Saving God and History’) pleads for a broader concept of history which is able to embrace both historical and religious events as more appropriate to the Old Testament. The saving from Egypt dominates the whole of God’s history with Israel and is presented by the Biblo using the personal category of meeting, dialogue, encounter. All parts of the Old Testament (excepting the Wisdom literature) are permeated by the lasting memory of the Saving God. Distinct from salvation is the blessing of God. Chap. 3 examines this action of God in creation. Here W. draws on his very important investigation of Gen 1-X l

Book Review: Absalom Absalom! Narrative and Language in 2 Sam 13-24. By Charles Conroy, M.S.C. Rome, Biblical Institute Press, 1978. Price

Testament (by B. M. Metzger), as well as introductions and annotations for individual books of the Bible. Also we find special articles e.g. &dquo;How to Read the Bible with Understanding&dquo; (H. H. Rowley), and &dquo;Survey of Geography, History and Archaeology&dquo; (L. A. Weigle -this contains the only lapsus this reviewer noticed on p. 1544 where Herod Antipas is made Ruler of Samaria instead of Galilee). These Articles are brief but of great value to the general reader. The emphasis is on ecumenical use of the Bible. When the late Cardinal Cushing gave his imprimatur over ten years ago to the first edition of the Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha it was acclaimed by some as a Common Bible for Protestants and Catholics. There was, no doubt, the advantage of including in one volume the books regarded as authoritative by both sides. This ecumenical momentum has been taken a step further now by the inclusion of three other works, viz 3 and 4 Maccabees and Psalm 151 with the approval of His Eminence Athenagoras, Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain, so that we have the complete canon of the Septuagint Version as used among Orthodox Churches. The ecumenical movement may have lost some of its former impetus, and some Catholics will not feel flattered by the label apocrypha for books we regard as canonical (even if they are deuterocanonical), still there is no doubt that this volume represents a most helpful tool of scholarship for the intelligent and devotional use of the Bible. In format it resembles the Jerusalem Bible (Standard Edition), and it has the advantage of giving the R.S.V. I think it is clear now that the text of an ancient book like the Bible cannot be appreciated even by an intelligent reader without the illumination of a brief comment and explanation such as that contained on every page of this volume. Perhaps a brief word on Psalm 151 may be of interest to Catholic readers. As it stands in the Septuagint it is quite short seven verses in Ralfs’ edition. It celebrates David’s victory over Goliath. The superscription has: &dquo;This psalm is ascribed to David as his own composition (idiographos) but it is outside the number&dquo; (i.e. of the 150). As well as being found in the Greek Bible the psalm was included in many ancient translations such as the Old Latin, Syriac, Armenian and Arabic. Then in 1956 came the collection of 35 psalms in Hebrew from Qumran Cave XI and this collection included an expanded form of Psalm 151~ thus deepening the mystery of the Canon of Scripture in a most unexpected way by baring the Hebrew roots in Palestinian soil of writings hitherto known only in Greek. The Oxford Annotated Bible very helpfully includes not only a translation of the Greek Ps. 151 but also an English translation (by J. A. Sanders) of the Hebrew form. All in all a delightful volume, giving not only the excellent R.S.V. text of the Bible but much scholarly help to enrich our appreciation of the great Book. -

13.75; Lire 11,000

at once by excess and defect. By excess in that hubristic rationality that leads if not to rationalism then to the intellectualism which &dquo;adequates&dquo; the conceptual and the real. By defect in the limiting of rationality to the discursive, cerebrating surface tenth of the cognitive apparatus. The remedy? The author’s ’project’ of completing discursive reason by the complementary mode of the imagination in a ’poetics’ that will take account of mystery. Not before time, one could say. A number of ultra-modern instances are

Book Review: ISRAELITE AND JUDAEAN HISTORY. Edited by J.H. Hayes & J. Maxwell Miller. Old Testament Library, S.C.M. Press, London 1977, pp. XXXI, 736. Price £15:

What he seems to be doing, in treating of the doctrine of God in the way that he does before he treats of the doctrine of Christ and the Spirit, is to establish the limits of Christian theological discourse in advance of any detailed discussion of its principal subject-matters. In other words, is he not doing just what, in his introductory chapter, he told us it was not permissible to do: namely, applying an ’external’ criterion? Is the general pattern or character of Wiles’ account of Christian theology ’reductionist’? In intention, I have suggested, the answer is ’No’. He wants to enable us newly to see the whole face of God in Christ. In execution, at one level the answer is again ’No&dquo;, in that he has deliberately refrained from eliminating or, as he puts it, ’dispensing with’ the concept of God (p. 108). At another level, however, the answer seems to be ’Yes’. I have been suggesting that, at the heart of the sustained attempt to eliminate the necessity of ’belief in a specific incarnation in the person of Jesus’ (p.l 13), on

Jewish-Christian Dialogue in Jerusalem

The term berith in the Hebrew Bible presents such a complexity of meanings that no one translation in modern (or ancient) languages has been found sufficient. In recent biblical translations two different lines of approach can be discerned. The first emphasizes the mutuality of the relationship involved in the term berith by translating it as ’covenant’ (in English), ‘Bund’ (in German) and ’Alliance’ (in French). A second line, however, gives the following explanation of berith: ’Entscheidung, Bestimmung, Festsetzung’. These three words, decision, determination, settlement, do not necessarily imply mutuality, but unilateral action. -