Job the Silent: A Study in Historical Counterpoint - Hardcover

Zuckerman, Bruce

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195058968 ISBN 13: 9780195058963

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1991

Synopsis

Offering an original reading of the book of Job, one of the great literary classics of biblical literature, this book develops a new analogical method for understanding how biblical texts evolve in the process of transmission. Zuckerman argues that the book of Job was intended as a parody protesting the stereotype of the traditional righteous sufferer as patient and silent. He compares the book of Job and its fate to that of a famous Yiddish short story, "Bontsye Shvayg," another covert parody whose protagonist has come to be revered as a paradigm of innocent Jewish suffering. Zuckerman uses the story to prove how a literary text becomes separated from the intention of its author, and takes on quite a different meaning for a specific community of readers.

About this title

About the Author

Bruce Zuckerman is at University of Southern California.

From the Back Cover

One of the great literary classics of biblical literature, the book of Job is best know as a story which exemplifies the virtue of patience in the face of suffering. Indeed, the patience of Job is so well celebrated as to be a cliche. But here one encounters a problem; for throughout the greater art of the book that bears his name, Job is clearly one of the most impatient characters in the Bible.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195058968
• ISBN 13: 9780195058963
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304