4. Jobs Ancient Near Eastern Context

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4. Jobs Ancient Near Eastern Context
2
1. Egyptian Parallels

• 1.1 The Admonition of Ipu-wer (ANET, 441-444
  Lichtheim, 149-163)
• 1.1.1 A section of The Admonition of Ipuwer
  cites conventional belief (He God is the
  herdsman of all there is no evil in his heart.
  His herds are few, but he spends the days herding
  them) only, to lament the wickedness that the
  deity allowed to stand. Because of social
  upheaval, the author denies the existence of a
  providential deity guiding human affairs. He
  asks Where is he today? Is he asleep? and
  insists that his power is not seen. Although
  the god possesses authority, knowledge, and
  truth, turmoil is what you let happen in the
  land, and the noise of strife. Death naturally
  follows, and the poet entertains the possibility
  that the divine herdsman loves death. Crenshaw,
  Job, Book of, ABD

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1. Egyptian Parallels

• 1.1.2 The book of Job may also be compared with
  The Admonitions of Ipu-wer. The sage Ipu-wer
  protests the upheaval in society and is
  distressed at the decline of morality. The desire
  of this Egyptian sage, though, is more for stable
  social order than for moral justice. Hartley,
  John E. The Book of Job, 7

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1. Egyptian Parallels

• 1.2 The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba (ANET,
  405-7 Lichtheim, 163-169)
• 1.2.1 A man who suffers from life longs for
  death. Angered by his complaints, his ba
  threatens to leave him. This threat fills the man
  with horror, for to be abandoned by his ba would
  mean total annihilation, instead of the
  resurrection and immortal bliss that he
  envisages. He therefore implores his ba to remain
  with him, and not to oppose him in his longing
  for death, a death that he does not appear to
  contemplate as suicide but rather as a natural,
  through greatly welcomed, death, to be followed
  by a traditional burial. The ba counters his
  pleas by telling him that death is a sad
  business, and that those who have fine tombs are
  no better off than those who have none. It urges
  him to stop complaining and to enjoy life. And it
  tells two parables designed to drive home the
  point that life is worth living. The mans final
  answer is delivered through four exquisite poems,
  in which he deplores the miseries of life and
  exalts death and resurrection. In a brief
  concluding speech the ba agrees to remain with
  him. Lichtheim, Miriam, Ancient Egyptian
  Literature Volume 1 The Old and Middle Kingdoms,
  pp. 163

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1. Egyptian Parallels

• 1.2 The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba (ANET,
  405-7 Lichtheim, 163-169)
• 1.2.2 . . . Egyptian literature, we seek in vain
  for any discussion of theodicy. The vivid
  descriptions of the social revolution of the
  First Intermediate Period (2280-2050 B.C.)
  contained in the Admonitions of Ipuwer or the
  Suicide contain no attack on the divine
  government, but rather accuse men of perverting
  Ma(at, the divinely ordained order. Williams,
  Roland J., Theodicy in the Ancient Near East,
  47

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1. Egyptian Parallels

• 1.3 The Eloquent Peasant (ANET, 407-10
  Lichtheim, 169-184)
• 1.3.1 The Egyptian Tale of the Eloquent
  Peasant, dating from the early second millennium
  B.C., has certain affinities with the Book of
  Job. The text is introduced by a prose prologue
  and epilogue and the central portion of the text
  is composed of nine semi-poetic appeals for
  justice on the part of the eloquent peasant. The
  peasant, having been maltreated and robbed by a
  vassal of the Chief Steward, has his complaint
  brushed aside as a matter of no consequence. The
  persistent peasant, however, refuses to be
  squelched. He argues his case before the Chief
  Steward himself and even charges the high
  official with lack of concern for justice.
  Justice, he argues, should be

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1. Egyptian Parallels

• done for the gods sake. Do justice for the
  sake of the Lord of Justice. Justice is
  immortal. Now justices lasts unto eternity it
  goes down into the necropolis with him who does
  it. When he is buried and interred, his name is
  not wiped out on earth, (but) is remembered for
  goodness. That is a principle of the word of
  god. Though the peasant fears that he may be put
  to death for his bold insistence, he nevertheless
  persists in his demand for justice and welcomes
  death as a thirsty man goes for water or a
  suckling child for milk. Justice at last triumphs
  and the wronged peasant is rewarded with the
  property of the villain who had despoiled him.
  Although the issue of this Egyptian story is
  social justice and no complaint is made against
  the gods, still the attitude of the peasant is
  similar to that of Job. He prefers death rather
  than submission to injustice. Pope, M., Job
  Anchor Bible, LVIII

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2. Mesopotamian Parallels

• 2.0 Introduction
• 2.0.1 According to E. A. Speiser the major
  Mesopotamian treatments of the problem of
  theodicy share the common conclusion that
  although the blameless may be exposed to
  suffering, deliverance is sure to come to him in
  the end. The ways of the gods are indeed
  inscrutable, but the truly meritorious need never
  despair of ultimate salvation. The emphasis, in
  short, is not so much on the trials of the
  sufferer as on the miracle of final deliverance.
  Our three versions of the Mesopotamian
  counterpart of Job, spread though they are over a
  total span of more than a millennium, are in full
  agreement on this significant affirmation Pope,
  M. Job Anchor Bible, LXIX

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2. Mesopotamian Parallels

• 2.1 Man and his God (2d millennium ANET, 589-91)
  
• 2.1.1 In the Sumerian Man and his God (2d
  millennium ANET, 589-91), a sufferer complains
  to the gods but confesses guilt and is restored.
  He accuses the deity, here called a righteous
  shepherd, of becoming angry, thereby encouraging
  human enemies to conspire against the sufferer
  without fear of divine retaliation. Appealing to
  the intimate relationship of father and son, the
  sufferer asks how long the deity will leave him
  unprotected. Nevertheless, he surrenders all
  right to protest divine conduct and subscribes to
  conventional wisdom Never has a sinless child
  been born to its mother a sinless workman has
  not existed from of old. Crenshaw, Job, Book
  of, ABD

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2. Mesopotamian Parallels

• 2.1 Man and his God (2d millennium ANET, 589-91)
  
• 2.1.2 The Mesopotamian view that evil is an
  integral part of the cosmic order is well
  illustrated by the poem quoted above. Basic to
  Sumerian theology was the notion that mans
  misfortunes result from sin which taints all. The
  problem of justice is not so acute in such a
  view, since any human suffering could be regarded
  as merited. When evil befalls a man, there is no
  mercy. The god to whom the man addresses himself
  is his personal god who acts as an advocate on
  behalf of his human client in the assembly of the
  great gods where fates are decided. This
  Mesopotamian notion appears to be very much like
  that implicit in Jobs appeal for an umpire
  (9.33), a heavenly witness (16.19, 21), or a
  vindicator (19.25-27). The attitude of Jobs
  comforters in the Dialogue is essentially the
  same as that presupposed in the Sumerian
  composition that the victim must have sinned and
  has no hope but to confess and plead for
  forgiveness and restoration. Pope, M., Job
  Anchor Bible, LX

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2. Mesopotamian Parallels

• 2.2 I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom (ANET
  434-37)
• 2.2.1I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom discovers
  a solution in the inscrutability of the gods and
  the necessity for human beings to perform proper
  cultic acts. The sufferer believes in divine
  compassion (I will praise the Lord of wisdom ...
  whose heart is merciful ... whose gentle hand
  sustains the dying) despite his own wretched
  state. Contrasting his earlier prestige with his
  present dishonor, he complains about inability to
  discover the face of the one to whom he prays.
  Circumstances compel him to conclude that the
  gods may have a different value system from the
  one constructed by human beings. This concession
  leads him to ask Who can know the will of the
  gods in heaven? Who can understand the plans of
  the underworld gods? Where have humans learned
  the way of a god? Crenshaw, Job, Book of,
  ABD

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2. Mesopotamian Parallels

• 2.3 The Babylonian Theodicy (ca. 1100 B.C.E.
  ANET, 601-4)
• 2.3.1 The Babylonian Theodicy resembles Job in
  that a sufferer engages in a dispute with a
  learned friend. An acrostic poem of 27 stanzas
  with 11 lines each, this dispute entertains the
  possibility of divine culpability (Narru king of
  the gods, who created mankind, and majestic
  Zulummar, who pinched off the clay for them, and
  goddess Mami, the queen who fashioned them, gave
  twisted speech to the human race. With lies, and
  not truth, they endowed them forever). The
  sufferer complains of having been orphaned early,
  and his friend reminds him that we all die. When
  told that wild asses trample fields and lions
  kill, the friend points out that the wild animals
  pay with their lives and that the plan of the
  gods is remote. The sufferer insists that his
  good deeds have not brought favorable response
  from the gods, and this remark arouses the
  friend's anger over such blasphemy.

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2. Mesopotamian Parallels

• The friend does concede that the one who bears
  the god's yoke may have sparse food, but this
  situation can change for the better in a moment.
  The sufferer lingers on the notion that morality
  yields no profit. In the end, the complainant
  prays that the shepherd (i.e., god) who abandoned
  him will yet pasture his flock as a god should.
  Crenshaw, Job, Book of, ABD

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2. Mesopotamian Parallels

• 2.4 Dialogue Between a Master and his Slave (ANET
  437-38)
• 2.4.1 The Dialogue Between a Master and his
  Slave resembles Ecclesiastes more than the book
  of Job, but some features of the Dialogue echo
  the conditions underlying Job's distress. A
  master determines to pursue a course of action
  and his servant, the proverbial aye-sayer,
  encourages him. The master changes his mind and
  the slave defends this decision. Nothing
  commends itself to the master-not dining,
  marrying, hunting, philanthropy, or anything
  else-except suicide, better still, murdering the
  slave. This poor wretch, caught in his rhetoric,
  seems to say that the master would gladly join
  him in death within three days. Crenshaw, Job,
  Book of, ABD

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3. Canaanite Parallels

• 3.1 Canaanite Epic of Keret (ANET, 142-49)
• 3.1.1 The Canaanite epic of Keret (ANET 142-49)
  bears some resemblance to the book of Job. The
  hero loses his wife and sons but eventually finds
  favor with the gods and acquires a new wife and
  additional children. More remote parallels such
  as Prometheus Bound have been compared with Job,
  but differences stand out (Prometheus was a
  Titan, not a human being, and he suffered the
  wrath of Zeus through willful conduct). An
  Indian tale about a discussion among the gods
  over the existence of pure goodness among earthly
  creatures singles out a certain Harischandra,
  whom the god Shiva submits to a test that
  demonstrates his incredible virtue. Crenshaw,
  Job, Book of, ABD

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4. Biblical Parallels

• 4.1 Parallels in the Joseph Story
• 4.2 Parallels in the Story of Abraham (Genesis
  12, 20, and 26)
• 4.2.1 a situation of need, problem or crisis
• 4.2.2 a plan to deal with the problem (wise or
  foolish)
• 4.2.3 the execution of the plan with some
  complication
• 4.2.4 an unexpected outside intervention
• 4.2.5 fortunate or unfortunate consequences