C
Contarini
Guest
Or the hero of the book of Daniel may be named after the ancient, legendary figure because the book of Daniel is itself unhistorical. (I have some problems with rejecting the historicity of Daniel, but the evidence against its historicity seems pretty strong. That issue, unlike the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis, is a point of some conflict fo rme.) At any rate, I think it is indeed likely that the “Daniel” mentioned in Ezekiel is probably an ancient, legendary figure, and so are Noah and Job. That is, again, not evidence for the view that Job was written in very ancient times and/or that it is a historical account of things that were done and said in that ancient era. It’s evidence the other way. If Job is, like Dan’el and Noah, an ancient figure of legendary virtue and wisdom, then it is likely that the book of Job was written relatively late to make a didactic point using this ancient figure.
Since you have not done us the courtesy of documenting your source, I don’t know what kind of scholarship supports this claim. It seems highly speculative to me.
The “Babylonian Job” does not contain the name “Job.” It’s called that solely because the text sounds quite a bit like Job. It may be that what your source is saying is that the similarity of *content *indicates that our text may also be very ancient. That’s a serious argument. I would qualify it by saying that the content sounds to me just as much like some of the “Psalms of Lament” as it does like Job. But of course the dating of those Psalms is also debated. The broad point, which is valid, is that we have examples of Ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature that is a thousand years or more older than the standard scholarly dating for the Biblical wisdom literature. (Another very old text which has been compared to Job is the Egyptian “Dispute between a Man and His Soul.”) If the standard dating is correct, then this genre had an extremely long life. However, when one looks at the history of other forms of wisdom literature such as “Aesop’s Fables,” this doesn’t seem by any means impossible. (The legendary Aesop supposedly lived before 500 B.C., and the oldest versions of the fables that we have are from the Hellenistic era, but they are still being reworked today!)
So this last argument is a valid point in favor of the possibility of an ancient date. It is not conclusive argument showing that the text really was written so early, however, and I don’t think it holds up in light of the stylistic arguments in favor of a late date.
Again, I recommend to you a look at some scholarly discussions of wisdom literature by people not already committed to an early dating on theological grounds.
But why should we uphold this? Why are you so afraid of the idea that God inspires the human imagination as well as the human memory?
Again, this is about setting, not date.
I’d like to see this fleshed out. Is the point that the Chaldaeans later settled down? This is not true for the Sabaeans, I believe.
I presume this is talking about the non-Hebrew parallels.
An interesting point that bears further investigation, although again it would only support the view that a person named Job may well have lived in that era–it wouldn’t support an early date for the book itself. I’m sure that there were legends about an ancient figure named Job, and I have no problem with the idea that such a person really lived and was a worshiper of the true God.
The evidence you have discussed does. But you haven’t addressed the stylistic issues.
Edwin