Transcript Chapter One - Missouri Western State University

A Way of Seeing



Chapter 4 Outline
Preliminary Considerations
Major Genres and Related Definitions







Genre Criticism
Source Criticism and Documentary Hypothesis
Narrative




Poetry
Prose
Fiction
Nonfiction
Stories with Structured Plots
Linking Episodes
Episodes in the New Testament Linked to the Old Testament
Genesis





Genre
Stories
Groups of Stories
Cycles in Genesis
Drama and Poetry
Preliminary Considerations
 The Bible has been regarded as a model for literary
genres, the overriding genre being that of an anthology
made up of diverse genres.
 Both the Old and New Testament have some degree of
documentary and didactic purpose: to get historical
facts before the reader and to impart theological ideas
and moral imperatives.
 Modern readers unfamiliar with biblical genres will
recognize the familiar genres of prose, poetry, and
drama.
Definitions, Cont.
 A French term, genre means "type," "sort," or "kind" and designates
the literary form into which works are classified according to what they
have in common, either in their formal structures or in their treatment
of subject matter, or both.
 Genre criticism belongs to the more encompassing “form criticism,”
which directs attention to four elements: 1) the plot, structure, or shape
of the passage in question; 2) the identification of genre or category to
which a text will be assigned such as narrative, prophecy,
poetry/psalmody, wisdom, law, proverb, satire, parable, and drama
(The New Testament expands the types with the addition of travelogue,
oratory, sermon, and courtroom forensics; the Letters mix epistolary
conventions, exhortation, and lyric; Revelation, for example, includes a
collage of genres, mixing epistolary, visionary, poetic, narrative, and
dramatic.); 3) the history of the text being analyzed and its genre,
positing a setting in actual life; and finally, 4) form criticism addresses
the purpose of the genre in the passage under scrutiny. Form criticism
overall then addresses structure, genre, setting, and intent
Definitions, Cont.
 In classical times (Plato, Aristotle, and later, Horace), the
major genres, from which other genres have proliferated,
were known as lyric (clearly identified as poetry), drama
(relating to performance, with characters speaking for a
writer in prose or poetry), and epic (in its classical form,
referring to poetic narrative, but broadened to include
poetry and prose). Bible [and] Old Testament” and use
them without prescribing the use of either.
 In literature, narrative has been applied to prose which
presents chronological or sequenced events to tell a story
or stories (what happens) in a particular way. Stories can be
based on actual fact or made-up imaginatively.
Definitions, Cont.
 Stories that have been made up imaginatively belong
to the genre called fiction, which, too narrowly, has
been interpreted as “not true.”
 Fiction, metaphorically, tells the truth of human
experience, and should not be classified as false in the
sense that it has no correspondence to historical
reality.
 Imagination takes actual events from history and
reorders them deliberately into a fiction that often tells
profound truths about human beings, the world they
inhabit, and the human condition.
Definitions, Cont.
 Plot refers to the story or succession of events, including conflict, suspense,
and conclusion, these events linked explicitly or implicitly in a cause-and-effect
structure. The arrangement of plot in narrative emphasizes chronological order
(sequentiality) and themes (a unifying quality or idea). Characters people the
story and generate the actions that make up the plot. Both theme and character
will be explored in later chapters.
 Setting includes time, location, and everything in which a story takes place; it
can also influence characters.
 A narrator is the entity that tells the story to its readers.
 Point of view refers to the perspective from which the story is told and can
exist in first-person (I, we) or third-person (he, she, it, and they). In firstperson point of view, the narrator participates as a character in the story. In
third-person, the narrator functions as an “all-knowing mind” standing behind
the stories. Biblical narrative has its own set of narrative devices: repetition
(words, motifs, themes, whole scenes) which provides coherence and
composite unity; omission (a tendency to omit information); dialogue
(narrating through dialogue, using dialogue to reveal psychological and
ideological points of view, often with two-character dialogue dominating); and
irony.
Genre Criticism
 Genre criticism has been plagued by a number of
critical attacks over its two thousand years of use.
 A first doubt arises from the way one understands
reality. Do genres exist objectively, or are they merely
constructions?
 For the most part, genre theory has been concerned with
dividing the world of literature into types and naming
those types, similar to the scientific process of
establishing genus and species. Types, however, may be
viewed as timeless essences or ephemeral as opposed to
time-bound.
Genre Criticism, Cont.




Is the taxonomy finite or infinite? Cultural-bound or transcultural?
Descriptive or proscriptive? T
The Renaissance through the eighteenth century tended to view
genres as fixed and timeless; with the Romantics, imagination and
experimentation were preferred to rules, genres, and decorum, and
genre criticism fell into disuse.
Complex discussions revolve about whether genres should be viewed
as extrinsic or intrinsic to their content or as having both an outer
and inner dimension; most today view them as generic conventions
from which authors draw to set up reader expectation.
The argument can be made that genre will be affected by the one
making the grouping and that types cannot be clearly distinguished
one from another since they may overlap and become mixed.
Source Theory
 You should be aware that a fairly standard approach to
the Bible, since the eighteenth century, has looked
predominantly at originating sources, usuually referred
to as source criticism.
 Generally, source criticism may be said to focus upon
texts and textuality and to belong to a view of reality
that sees truth as external and discovered by reason and
science; against this view, what has been described as a
rhetorical view sees human beings as creating meaning,
fashioning, and manipulating what is construed as
reality.
Source Theory, Cont.
 At bottom of much of the discussion about sources is an ongoing debate
about whether the Bible is one book or consists of many books
 A product of source theory has been a growing understanding of the Bible as
a composite text, evidence for this growing out of repeated accounts of
actions or stories, different names for God and variations in political
assumptions, diction and style, incompatible or inconsistent statements,
and different viewpoints on religious matters. A focus upon historical study
leads to a search for originating sources.
 The traditions or sources giving rise to the Bible have a close relationship to
the existing forms or genres of biblical literature as they developed out of an
oral history. Biblical writing, some suggest, mingles, subverts, renews, and
sometimes rejects these traditions. Usually, biblical scholars have argued
that the first five books of the Old Testament were not written by one person
Moses, but that multiple strands of traditions were woven together to
produce these books (composites).
Source Theory, Cont.
 The Documentary Hypothesis usually presents the Torah (the
first five books) as composed by a series of editors out of four
literary traditions known as J (Yahwist or Jerusalem source), E
(Elohist or Ephraimitc), P (Priestly), and D (Deuteronomic).
 The New Interpreter’s Study Bible dates the Yahwist and the Elohist
traditions to the monarchy (1000-800 BCE), and the Priestly, to the
exile and restoration (587-500 BCE).
 The Deuteronomic is usually dated to the era of King Josiah in the
600s BCE.
Biblical Narrative.
 Biblical narrative distinctively consists of episodes that
link together chains of stories to form an overarching
framework with its own story and plot.
 Defined simply, an episode consists of phases and
steps grouped into a complete story, and results in
some form of problem/resolution that can often be
subdivided into rising, turning, and falling action.
The HarperCollins Study Bible xxiii emphasizes an “odd concentricity” in
the Bible, its tensions held in check by some common framework.
Biblical Narrative, Cont.
 Stories with Structured Plot (Luke 19. 1-10; 2 Kings 4)
 An example of a short story in the New Testament that has all
the characteristics of story—structured plot, protagonists,
and theme—is that of Zacchaeus, a favorite with children
(Luke 19. 1-10). In this story, the conflict involves the main
character (protagonist) Zacchaeus, who wants to see Jesus,
but is prevented from doing so because he is too small to see
over the heads of the crowd. The exposition gives the setting,
Jericho, and introduces Zacchaeus, who resolves (resolution)
his conflict by climbing a tree. This decision brings the plot to
its crisis or turning point: Jesus talks (dialogue) with
Zacchaeus and asks him to descend and host him for lunch, a
life-changing event for Zacchaeus.
Biblical Narrative, Cont.
 Linking Episodes (1 Kings 17; Jer. 35. 8-16; 2 Sam. 1: 2 Sam. 18: Job 1; 2
Sam. 12)
 Story exists at the level of the simplest unit of narrative, displaying
significant independence from the larger context;.
 Narratives also have larger structures whereby episodes can be arranged
thematically, chronologically, as parallel stories, and as stories in a
cluster.


The story of Elisha and the poor widow (2 Kings 4) becomes an episode when
placed into the greater whole of both 1 and 2 Kings and of the Old Testament
itself.
Elisha’s story parallels that of Elijah in 1 Kings 17. 14-16). In this story, the prophet
Elijah is commanded to go to the widow Zarephath, who will feed him. The widow
shares her predicament, having only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a
jug. She expresses her desperate state: after she takes this little bit home to eat,
she expects that both she and her son will die from starvation. Elijah, like Elisha
later, provides a solution: a jar that will not be emptied and a jug that will not fail.
The story ends happily: Elijah, she, and her son eat for many days.
Biblical Narrative, Cont.
 Some scenes and episodes occur so often that they can
be called type-scenes
An example of this can be found in 2 Samuel 1. An
Amalekite servant brings news to David of the
deaths of Saul and his son Jonathan. The servant
then tells David that he, at Saul’s request, helped
him to commit suicide. Mourning follows the
news, including the traditional tearing of clothes,
weeping, and fasting. The lament then occurs in
17-27.
Biblical Narrative, Cont.
 Episodes in the New Testament Linked to the Old Testament
(Mark1.21-28; Mark 1. 29-31; Mark 5. 21-24, 35-43; Mark 7. 14-30;
Mark 10. 13-16; Mark 1. 12-13; 1Kings 19.15-17; Ex. 4. 27-28; Exod. 18;
Mark 3.21; Mark 4.35-41; Jonah 1; Mark 6. 1-6; 1 Sam. 10. 1-27;
Mark 6.30-44, 8. 1-10; 2 Kings 4.42-44; Mark 6. 45-52; Exod. 8:1421)
 Once familiar with the Elisha and Elijah stories above, readers
will immediately pick up on similarities in stories in the Gospel
Mark. In Mark (1. 21-28), a man with an unclean spirit cries out to
Jesus, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you
come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”
In a later passage in Mark, a Syro-Phoenician woman (7.24-30)
begs Jesus to cast a demon from her daughter. Jesus tells her to
let the children be fed first just as Elijah tests the widow by
asking her to take her remaining meal and to feed him first.
Biblical Narrative, Cont.
 Other stories in Mark activate memories of the Elijah and Elisha narratives. In
the case of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1.29-31), echoes from
both stories can be heard.
 In this story, Jesus hears that Simon’s (Peter) mother-in-law has a fever; Jesus
takes her by the hand, lifts her up, and the fever leaves her, and she begins to
serve the disciples.
 The woman of Zaraphaeth, after Elijah provides for her and her son, serves him.
The Shunammite woman, after her son has been raised from the dead, serves
Elisha. In this case, Mark uses similar ideas but makes the mother herself the
recipient of the restorative act.
 The Shunammite story is also echoed in the raising of Jarius’ daughter in Mark
5.21-24 and 35-43. In this account, Jairus comes to Jesus, begging him to heal his
daughter who lies at the point of death.
 In both cases, the Shunammite prototype and her New Testament counterpart
are ecstatic when the children are rescued from death. The writer of Mark
clearly expected the audience to recall the account of the Shunammite so that
they know what to expect from Jairus, whose name means “he will awaken.”
Overarching Biblical Structure
 At an overarching level, biblical narrative consists of larger, more comprehensive parts,
such as the primary story of the Old Testament consisting of Genesis to the end of 2
Kings, the story being that of a people chosen to realize its vision of land and
nationhood, this ending in its succumbing to competing nations.
 A second major narrative consists of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, which give an
account of Judah from the death of the first king of the monarchy to Judah’s restoration
from exile.
 When the New Testament is included, expanding the narrative framework to the Bible as
a whole, it can be divided into epic-like stories that include Moses (the exodus and
conquest), the Monarchy (Kings Saul, David, and Solomon), the Divided Kingdom
(kings, prophets), the Exile and Restoration, and the advent of Jesus and the
establishment of the Church. The story has also been described as paradise, paradise lost,
and the redeeming activity in Israel and through Jesus, concluding with paradise
restored.
 The Bible can also be understood through three “macro-stories”: the exodus from Egypt,
the story of the exile and return from Babylon, and the priestly story of temple,
priesthood, and sacrifice, all of these building the foundation for the New Testament.
Genesis
 As literary genre or type of literature, it has similarities to
ancient, pre-scientific historiography, a type of writing
intended to raise in readers a sense of identity and
citizenship; a consciousness of belonging to a great and
noble city or race.
 Like historiography, Genesis interweaves elements of
myth, legend, and historical fact; unlike historiography,
though, the Bible presents God as the primary character
and human beings as foolish creatures, not always heroes
and heroines, who frustrate God’s intention toward them.
 The Bible differs from Greek and Mesopotamian epics
(written in narrative verse) by intermingling prose and
poetry
Genesis, Cont.
Note: Understanding that Genesis resembles historiography should enable you
to accept the genres of legend, myth, and tale without concluding that these, in
some way, diminish its importance for explaining the Primeval Age or the
beginning of the world’s civilizations.
You will note that from general beginnings, the Bible moves more specifically
into concrete details about the lives of the patriarchs and to increasingly shorter
life spans, making these stories more historical in nature.
Understanding that Genesis cannot be described as belonging to the genres of
science and history as they have emerged in the modern world will also free you
from troubling issues such as assigning an exact chronology to the beginning of
the world and to the appearance of the first man and woman.
Accepting the Bible’s often symbolic use of numbers (seven, for example,
signifying completeness and perfection) may give you another tool for
understanding the six days of creation and the Sabbath.
Overall Structure of Genesis
 The first chapters of Genesis, known as the Primeval
History, certainly can be described as bringing
together in narrative prose the genres of fable, legend,
and myth, using formal rhetorical devices that may
echo ancient epic poetry. Early chapters (1-11) contain
several stories: the creation of the world and human
beings, human beings expelled from the Garden of
Eden, Cain and Abel and the first murder; the
beginnings of civilization, the generations from Adam
to Noah, and the wickedness of humankind.
Overall Structure Genesis, Cont.
 The next major section of Genesis may be referred to as
Patriarchal Tales, its narrative accounting for the
beginnings of the Israelite nation, chapters 12-36
presenting loosely strung together sagen, or folktales, of
the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It (12.21-25.18)
describes the relationship of God to people through a series
of promises to the patriarch Abraham and his son Isaac.
The promise of posterity, a land, and people makes
Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac one of the Bible’s most
poignant and moving stories, and raises questions about
the character of God. With progressively greater specificity,
the Jacob cycle (25.19—36.43) tells the story of the events
leading to the people of Israel, the descendants of Jacob’s
twelve sons.
Overall Structure Genesis, Cont.
 Chapters 37-50 tell the story of Joseph, a narrative
containing plot, character development, and realizing
a more complete closure and having the form of a
novelette. These chapters tell the story of Joseph with
the Israelites settled in Egypt.
Stories in Genesis (Gen. 1-2)
 As has already been remarked, the first eleven chapters
of Genesis consist of several stories that can be read
independently. The first two involve the creation of the
world and the creation of human beings. An
examination of these stories reveals several differences
in tone and scope that have led to the idea that they
originated from different original sources, the Priestly
(Genesis 1-2.4a) and the Yahwist (2.4b-24).
Stories in Genesis, Cont.
 A story normally consists of five parts:
 1) exposition, the beginning section in which the
author provides the necessary background
information, sets the scene, establishes the situation,
and dates the action, and usually introduces the
characters and the conflict;
 2) complication, or rising action, develops and
intensifies the conflict;
Stories in Genesis, Cont.
 3) crisis, the moment at which the plot reaches its
point of greatest emotional intensity, the turning point
of the plot that directly leads to resolution;
 4) falling action, the point at which tension subsides,
and the plot moves towards its conclusion;
 and 5) resolution, the final section of the plot,
recording the outcome of the conflict and establishing
some new equilibrium, also referred to as
denouement.
 The second creation story evidences all of these
features.
Groups of Stories in Genesis
 The Primeval History of Genesis includes two groups
of stories (“group” usually meaning five to six stories
that can be referred to as an act): chapters 1-4 and
chapters 6-11, each of these ending with a genealogical
register (5, 11).
Cycles in Genesis and the
Macro-Plot
 Genesis is structured into four cycles that consist of
three to five groups of stories:
 the first consisting of the Primeval History (1-11);
 the next three found in the Patriarchal History (12-50):
Abraham (11-25), Jacob (25-35), and Joseph (35-50).
 The cycle in each of these contains an over-riding
macro-plot (a plot larger in scale) that helps to unite
their several stories.
 As part of the Abraham cycle, the account of Isaac
demonstrates how multiple stories and cycles become
intricately linked..
Cycles and Macro-Plot, Cont.
 The near sacrifice of Isaac becomes a link in the chain of
stories that follow, for without Isaac, no Jacob or Joseph
cycle would exist.
 More than a link, the emphasis upon continuity of the
family line and fulfillment of God’s promise becomes an
overarching or macro plot.
 The story of the near sacrifice of Isaac takes place in the
context of more extended narrative
Drama and Poetry
 One book in the Bible brings readers into contact with all the leading literary
forms. Job, composed in its present form sometime between the seventh to
second centuries BCE, has the narrative shape of beginning, middle, and end,
much of it consisting of poetry, and much of its poetry existing as dialogue.
 It presents on one level theodicy or moral issues (explores the justice of God and the
traditional morality of retribution) and on another, legal issues, or duties and
rights.
 It provides a philosophical answer in poetry and prose through the vehicle of drama,
sometimes said to be comedy with restoration as the final outcome; it has also been
described as tragedy. A
 s a literature of contemplation and philosophical discussion, it belongs to the
wisdom tradition—personal rather than national, existential rather than historical,
experiential rather than revealed, reflecting the movers and shakers rather than the
marginal and dispossessed.
Drama and Poetry, Cont.
 Its prose prologue and epilogue have been thought to be ancient folktale.
 It contains speeches (colloquies and soliloquies or monologues), aphorisms,
parable, hymns, laments, and legal disputation.
Structure of Job
 Structured dramatically into prologue, epilogue, a cycle of speeches and actors, scenic
effects, and an ash-mound serving as the stage,





Job addresses itself purely to the imagination. The sky and atmosphere serve as the
dramatic background, and its spectators resemble a chorus.
Its omniscient, all-knowing, point of view permits approach on two levels: the
omniscient divine and the limited view of Job and his friends, with Job presenting God
as man sees him and as God sees himself.
The prose prologue establishes Job as a blameless and upright man, who fears God and
turns from evil.
The scene shifts to a heavenly council where an enemy or adversary called Satan raises
doubt about Job’s reason for serving God and suggests that if he were deprived of
prosperity, he might refuse to worship God. The prose section addresses human
integrity. The idea of Satan as a personification of evil does not yet exist.
The experiment proceeds, and in a few verses, Job finds himself deprived of wealth,
posterity, and health. (1.13-21). The dramatic movement consists of poetry in which Job
and his three friends take different positions and each presents different theological
points of view about human suffering. The poetry, exploring philosophically how God
can allow evil to exist, asks about the justice or fairness of God.
Job, Cont.
 In a spectacular theophany, dramatically arranged by the
approach and crescendo of a storm, God steps into the debate,
not to solve the mystery of human suffering as in the divine
intervention of the gods in Greek drama, but to justify Job, to
show his displeasure with the friends’ reliance upon
conventional answers
 Structurally, the book proceeds through colloquies in two series
(chs. 3-14, 15-22) in which Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad speak in
this order (in seven speeches) and monologues (chs. 23-42) in
which Job speaks seven times followed by Elihu and God in
another seven speeches. It should be noted that Eliphaz argues
that revelation supports God’s goodness; Zophar, from a
philosophical stance, argues for the power and wisdom of God;
Bildad upholds the authority of the fathers (tradition) and
argues for God’s justice.
Job, Cont.
 As narrative and poetry, the book of Job represents a superbly
blended poetic drama of the human encounter with God.
 What makes the book drama consists of the characters (including
God) theme, plot, dialogue, setting, scenic effect, spectators, and
structured prologue, argument, and epilogue.
 Job has the classic U-shape of comedy, except, as everyone admits,
the ending remains bittersweet: what was taken cannot be restored,
and new-found prosperity will itself be subject to the storm and
stress of a contradictory universe.
 What makes Job poetry consists of imaginative vision and a “sheer
expressive power” that pushes, soars above the ordinary, and reveals
“the panorama of creation… with the eyes of God.” Much of Job
seeks to grasp the ungraspable, to span the unbridgeable gap
between the infinite God and finite human beings, to see through
poetry into “an immense world of power and beauty and awesome
warring forces,” all of this in metrical symmetry.
Job, Cont.
 Job has long been considered literature that captures the sublime and engages
the emotions and imagination, accomplishing this with a dazzling array of
poetic techniques that include repetition, allusion, figurative language,
imagery, and formal structure
 Chapter 28 perfectly illustrates the impossibility of achieving wisdom except
through fearing God and shunning evil, both attributes ascribed to Job. The
hymn consists of a formal structure of three strophes or stanzas: the first
stanza presents an extended image of the accessibility of ores and gems, setting
the stage for the question raised in verse twelve, “Where is wisdom to be
found?” Strophe two describes wisdom as being more precious than gems
(simile). The final strophe (verses 20-28) concludes that wisdom, unlike gold
and gems, cannot be found in the physical world; only God knows the source of
all things and, thus, the source of wisdom. The aphoristic conclusion states
“See! Fear of the Lord is wisdom; to shun evil is understanding” (28). In light of
describing poetry as “a way of seeing,” the command “See!” in verse twenty-eight
captures the essence of the full revelation that humbles Job into declaring “I
have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I
did not know” (42.3).
Job, Cont.
 While literalist readings of the Bible may fear the mythological, the
fact that myth addresses death, the changing seasons, the passage of
the sun and moon, and the origin of the universe and life may provide
enhancement and appreciation for the Bible as literature.
 It should be stated that the Bible has also been approached in yet
another way: the Bible as history, this generally contrasted to the Bible
as mythology, and this approach leads to a discussion of truth and
fiction in the Bible. Actually, mythology predates scientific method and
the discipline of logic and may, in fact, provide the foundation for
them.
 Northrop Frye, Words with Power 5-12, xv identifies the verbal modes
as descriptive (perceptions, facts, experience), logical (concepts,
dialectical opposites), rhetoric (persuasion, convention, and ideology),
and poetic (metaphorical and mythical), explaining that modern
thinking has favored descriptive, logical, and rhetorical modes even
though mythology preceded them.
Job, Cont.
 Job exhibits the prominent binary form of biblical
poetry, so much so that it can be described as an
example of “extreme parallelism.”
 Parallelism refers to lines that use different words to
express the same or similar ideas in grammatical form;

it can be synonymous, expressing similar content in similar
grammatical form;
 antithetic, in which a second line expresses the truth of the
first in a negative way;
 climatic, where the second line completes by repeating part of
the first and then adds to it;
Job, Cont.

and synthetic, where a pair of lines form a unit and the second
line expands or completes the first. This form of parallelism, or
“seconding,” may in fact describe most of the poetry in the Old
Testament.
 Modern readers must shift from viewing poetic verse
as made up of a particular number or quality of
syllables to viewing verse as a parallelism of two or
more clauses. These can occur in couplets, triplets, as
quatrains, sextets, and octets.
Job, Cont.
 Job further illustrates a form of poetry, the chiasm
which, as explained in the chapter on rhetorical
devices, takes on an X-shape like the Greek letter chi,
representing the crossing of two objects in reverse
order.
 Two short examples illustrate the pattern: “As for me, I
would seek God, and to God, I would commit my
cause” (5.8) and “he sets on high those who are lowly,
and those who mourn are lifted to safety (5.11). In each,
a middle term connects concepts repeated in reverse
order.
Job, Cont.
 Source criticism would argue that the time of composition makes all the
difference in how readers interpret Job. The seventh century BCE date would
point to a reconciliation of the suffering brought upon Judah by the
Babylonian captivity. Source critics argue that the book is ambiguous, telling
one story in prose and another in poetry, the first presenting a patient Job, who
persists in integrity, and the latter, an impatient Job, who openly attacks the
deity for injustice.
 Considered as genre, wisdom literature, the book of Job belongs to a tradition
of debate and legitimizes the human quest for understanding. Its very form
participates in this debate: the book begins by asking about the proper reason
for serving God, and Job proves he serves God out of a sense of integrity; the
second question asks about the reason for suffering, exploring the traditional
belief that suffering is punishment for sin and, its flip side, that righteousness
is rewarded by prosperity.
 While the book seems to argue against suffering as punishment and
righteousness as rewarded by prosperity, the conclusion re-opens the debate by
restoring Job’s fortunes. As theodicy, a treatise about God’s justice and the
existence of physical and moral evil in the world, Job gets a special pride of
place in responding to God’s mystery and imperfect human knowledge of God.