(3) The third chief line of argument is drawn from a view cf the scope and design of ' Job ' which is by no means proved. It assumes that the book in its first conception was a poem of revolt, the utterance of a genuine 'sceptic of the Old Testa- ment,' who rebelled against the current doctrine of reward and punishment, and that it has only assumed its present shape under the hands of a number of 'orthodox' manipulators, who, by various additions and interpolations, have contrived to dress up the original product of a Sturm und Dranij period into a shape in which it might appear in the sacred Canon. Without discussing this hypothesis m full, two remarks may be made. One is, that writers in the OT are not in the habit of disguising their moods of doubt and murmuring, and even rebellion against the will of God. The psalmists give the account of their gloomy periods of unsettled faith and positive denial; while Jeremiah from time to time 'waxes very bold,' and, like Ktijah in his despondency, is driven by the pressure of the problems of life to doubt and to deny the goodness of Him who controls life. This supposed dressing up of doubt into decent orthodoxy is a device of modem days. It should be noticed, also, that this U* ;ory of the origin and history of ' Job'
JOB, BOOK OF
JOB, 1500K OF
065
It hampered with the furtherdifflculty that these large additions were made to tiie ori^nal text by a poet or pocta whose 'imaginative power was at least not inferior to that of the original writer' (Ifatch, op, cit, p. 244) — a somewhat large demand to make, when the original and sublime character of the book as a whole is borne in mind.
Siegfried, without going so far as Bickell, is yet very severe in his castigation of the MX. He classifies some passages — wliich may be repre- sented by ch. 28, and tlie Elihu speot-lies, chs. 32-37 — as ' polemical interpolations directed against the tendency of the poem.' Other passages found in the 12th, 27th, and other chapters, are styled ' correcting interpolations, conforming the speeclies of Job to the orthodo.\ doctrine of retribution ' ; while others, aj^ain, are ' parallel compositions,' amongst them being found the section 4U*-42*. Some fifty separate passages are banished from the text as scattered interpolations of editors, inserted durin" the process of 'working over' the poem, which de Wette was the first to suggest nod been freely employed. The shorn remnant of the te.\t is, especially in chs. 13 and 14, 20 and 21, and again in 30 and 31, rearranged as regards the order of its clauses and paragraphs, according to the critic's judgment. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to say that for this wholesale reorganization there is no e.\temal evidence, the primitive form of the LXX text givin" very little assistance in the places where serious ailliculties in subject-matter are supposed to require radical changes in the text. Studer (1881) reconstructs the whole book, making chs. 29 and 30 the original prologue — a process which A. B. Davidson describes as leaving a mere trunk, ' so misshapen that its shoulders are found in the region of its bowels.'
Twc recent monographs, representingtheprevailingcurrent of contemporarycriticisni, may he mentioned : Grill, Zur Composi- tion des B. Hiob (18i»n); and Laue, />i> Composition tirs B. liiob (1896). The former rejects, as not belonging to the original book, the Elihu speeches, the descriptions of iJehemoth and I-eviathan, also 12-''a 24»-9- l*-2i 263-27 2-7-ai, and chs. 29 and 80. Ljiue holds that ch. 91-M and ch. 12 are out of place, and that the former paragraph should be placed after ch. 25, and the latter after ch. 27. Ch. 24 is condemned in part as having been ' worked over,' only a portion of it representing the original tendency of the poem. From chs. 2&-28 he admits only 261-* and 271-S OS genuine. I>aue, like many other critics, pro- nounces the Elihu speeches and the * Behemoth and Leviathan episodes' to be interpolations, but he holds both prologue and epilogue to be genuine and indispensable parts of the original poem.
Merx, Bateson Wright, and Cheyne may stand OS representing those who advocate less sweeping but very considerable changes. Some of the chief modifications proposed are, that as Bildad's speech in ch. 25 is very short, ch. 26''* miglit be better placed as a continuation of it. To supply the place of Zophar's third speech, which is lacking, ch. 27'''' — very awkwardly placed where it stands — might be read as coming from him. Cli. 28 is held to be a later insertion, as well as the whole episode of Elihu. The few verses, ch. SI*"", even Dolitzsch considers to be misplaced, forming an anti-climax in their present connexion. He would transpose and read them between w. " and ".
A. B. Davidson is still more moderate ; he is, in fact, one of tlie most conservative critics of the book. He holds that, with the exception of the speeches of Klihu, no serious objection can be brought against any of the five great divisions of the poem, but the Klihu episode he, in common with nearly all moderns, pronounces to be a later addition. Further, ho entertains somewhat serious suspicions concerning ch. 27'", ch. 2S, and the descrii)tions of Behemoth and Leviathan in the epeecliea of the Almiglity, but apparently would not, on the whole, remove these from the text. A view nearly coinciding witli this will be advocated in the jiresent article ; but the tiltimate decision of iuch a question as this largely depends, it is clear.