Scott C. Jones

Rumors of wisdom : Job 28 as poetry

This study brings together literary and philological criticism to offer a reading of Job 28 as poetry. The heart of the study consists of two major sections. The first is an interpretation of the poem against the heroic deeds of ancient kings described in Mesopotamian royal narratives, especially the Gilgamesh epic. The second is a thorough philological and textual commentary which employs an aesthetic rationale for restoring the text of the poem as a work of art. The study reveals a multileveled masterpiece whose complexity impacts how one reads Job 28 as poetry and theology.

Wisdom's pedagogy: A comparison of Proverbs VII and 4Q184

Proverbs vii is undergirded by a complex pedagogical process. The teacher uses the Strange Woman as a pedagogical vehicle and surrounds her figure with erotic language and themes. Thus reality is construed indeterminately. By attaining the skills to deconstruct the Strange Womans speech, the student may perceive the shadow-side of her invitation. This process thereby serves to prepare the student to adapt to more complex obstacles along the path to wisdom. 4Q184 displays a significantly different approach to achieving a similar pedagogical goal. While utilizing both the language and themes of Proverbs vii, the ambiguities surrounding the Strange Woman are objectified and regularized. In this way, the description of this figure comports with the dualistic view of reality which the teacher at Qumran seeks to impress upon the young. Thus the pedagogy of 4Q184 minimizes the students ability to adapt to indeterminate obstacles on the way to wisdom.

Corporeal Discourse in the Book of Job

Corporeal metaphors are central to the theology of the book of Job, especially in relation to the themes of divine power and human dignity. Job’s body is the testing ground of the śāṭān’s hypothesis about Job’s self-interested piety and the compass point from which Job narrates his place in the world. Job’s experience leads him to describe his body as disintegrated and dishonored. He imagines God as a warrior who brutalizes him with an outstretched arm, a powerful hand, and a sharp eye. The divine speeches, however, offer Job a new orientation to his body and the cosmos through the bodies of animals. While the powerful beasts and monsters that populate God’s creation are reined in and kept in their proper places, God also cares for them and celebrates them as glorious and proud. This is a universe in which the wild and chaotic are restrained without being shamed. In light of this vision, Job recants his earlier view about the insignificance and shame of his body and confesses that God governs the world according to an order that is quite different from the one he had imagined.

The Values and Limits of Qohelet’s Sub-Celestial Economy

AbstractQohelet draws upon the metaphors of a mercantile economy in order to assign values to human life. The primary context in which he calculates these values is time-under-the-sun. In the economy of time-under-the-sun, there are both absolute and relative credits. On the one hand, the inevitable onset of death reduces all credits or debits to zero. Yet on the other hand, Qohelet claims that the enjoyment of one’s profits during one’s lifetime is a relative credit. The sage, however, also perceives another sort of reckoning which reaches beyond his empirical observation. He speaks of a matrix outside of the rule of the sun, which he calls עולם. In this space beyond time God has ordained a judgment in which the pious will profit and the impious will suffer loss. The onset of a new order beyond the sun raises the possibility that zero might not be the final answer after all.

Solomon’s Table Talk: Martin Luther on the Authorship of Ecclesiastes

ABSTRACT Martin Luther’s comments in a section of Table Talk continue to be used as evidence that he denied the Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes. A comparison of the passage with Luther’s “Preface” to Jesus Sirach demonstrates that the majority of Luther’s comments in that section of Table Talk pertain to Sirach. However, the passage also has clear parallels in Luther’s “Preface to Solomon’s ‘The Preacher,’” suggesting that it is a mixture of Luther’s comments on Ecclesiastes and Sirach. The portions of Table Talk which do pertain to Ecclesiastes have commonly been misinterpreted. Luther does not deny that Solomon was the author of Ecclesiastes; he denies that Solomon was the scribe. He thought that Ecclesiastes was written down by students on the basis of the oral teachings of their master, much like his own Table Talk.

Job 28 and Modern Theories of Knowledge

This article offers an interpretation of Job 28 in terms of modern theological discourse, with a focus on epistemology. The poem sets two ancient models of wisdom and knowledge in opposition: wisdom through individual exploration and wisdom through revelation. The first model finds its contemporary analogue in the Cartesian quest by a rational mind to possess objective knowledge. The second model, which the poem commends as its solution, is analogous to Michael Polanyi’s articulation of personal knowledge as submission to and embodiment of the superior knowledge of another.

Lions, Serpents, and Lion-Serpents in Job 28:8 and Beyond

In the 1963 Festschrift for G. R. Driver, Sigmund Mowinckel argued that Biblical Hebrew שחל originally denoted a mythical serpent dragon and later came to be used as a poetical term for a lion. That meaning, he believed, was evident above all in Job 28:8.1 He states, Originally שחל may have meant the serpent dragon, the mythical wyvern or Lindwurm. Because of the combination of serpent (dragon) and lion in mythopoetical and artistic fancy, it has also been adopted as a term for the lion.2 Few have been convinced by Mowinckels argument that שחל denotes a snake, and still fewer by his mythopoetical explanation of the terms resultant double meaning: lion and serpent.3 Mowinckels position is no doubt weakened by some

Book Review: A Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (with CD). By Jo Ann Hackett. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010. Pp. xxv + 302. Cloth,

Hackett’s teaching grammar is the result of more than thirty years of instruction in Biblical Hebrew. It is a worthy representative of the “Lambdin approach” she learned at Harvard, yet, happily, it also lives up to the descriptor “basic” in its title. The grammar consists of thirty lessons, which makes it ideal for an easy-paced introduction to Biblical Hebrew over two 14–15 week semesters or for an intense one-semester course. Some might object to its slow start, with five chapters on the alphabet and one more on syllabification and reduced vowels; but it is hard to overestimate the importance of mastering orthography and phonology before moving on to morphology and syntax. The strong verb in all its forms is presented first; weak forms follow. This approach offers the advantage of facilitating mastery of the majority of forms students will encounter in the Hebrew Bible, and it allows them to focus on the primary characteristics of each stem without simultaneously having to take into account various weaknesses in verbal roots. One disadvantage, however, is that the last five chapters are remarkably long, consisting primarily of numerous paradigms of various weak verbs in the Qal and the derived stems, which begins to feel like a miscellany of information. One wonders whether the student will be able to soak all this in, especially at the tail-end of a year of language instruction. As with Thomas Lambdin’s grammar (Introduction to Biblical Hebrew [New York: Scribners, 1971]), the approach is deductive and oriented toward those who can memorize paradigms. Yet Hackett’s grammar is more distilled than others in the same vein. The CD included with the book, which contains answers to the exercises, printable files of the appendices, and audio files, is the first clue of a more student-friendly pedagogy. But this stance permeates numerous features of the textbook as well. For example, Hackett communicates finer points of grammar through boxes set throughout the lessons, distinguishing visually information which must be memorized and that which may be recognized. The use of non-technical transliteration also reduces the number of alphabets the beginning student has to master to one; more technical diacritics are treated in an appendix. The paradigms throughout the grammar are presented 13rd person, rather than the traditional 3rd1st person, in part as a concession to the fact that the book’s primary audience is accustomed to thinking from “I” to “she” rather than the reverse. The grammar uses Genesis 22:1-19 as a sort of running exercise, and the text is laid out according to Masoretic accentuation in Appendix C. Besides its usefulness for teaching Hebrew grammar, it is hard to think of a more interesting passage in the Hebrew Bible for students to familiarize themselves with. The remainder of the Hebrew to English exercises are artificial, but, for the most part, do not feel contrived. At about the halfway point, Hackett begins to incorporate actual biblical examples, including some poetry in the final chapters. The introduction of the imperfect forms early in the grammar also facilitates acquisition of the wayyiqtol and jussive forms needed to engage biblical prose. Some features of the grammar, however, may introduce small hurdles to the acquisition of Biblical Hebrew. For example, the terminology chosen for the wayyiqtol is the “consecutive preterite.” Though this term has some precedent in older grammars, it has no currency today. The waw + suffix conjugation is called the “və-qatal.” Both of these are good terms, but they may not smooth the way into standard reference works, which employ different terminology. While it must be admitted that few related reference works employ a shared terminology, none of them uses Hackett’s terms. Finally, the very logical orientation of the grammar is sometimes a weakness, such as in the paragraphs on pp. 116–17. The listing of twelve sub-points as 19.3.1, 19.3.2, and so on is more of a distraction than a help in subordinating material, and this pops up again in later lessons. These quibbles aside, Hackett’s is a fine grammar that deserves wide use. Despite the cynicism expressed by some biblical scholars over the proliferation of Hebrew grammars in the recent past, I am very happy to have Hackett’s among them. It is an excellent piece of work, and my students will be using it this year. Scott C. Jones Covenant College Lookout Mountain, GA 30750