The Book Of Job And How El Made Job From Clay

A Reconstructive-Reading Of The Book Of Job

I recently saw that @amateurexegete recommended listening to @The2Testaments (T2T), so I listened to their series on Job and decided to do a preliminary reconstructive-reading of the book in hopes of getting Ben to roll his eyes at me once again.

@RonyKozman and @WillKynes do an excellent job hosting experts and discussing the Book of Job and I’ll try to incorporate some of that discussion into my comments below.

In the Introduction to Job episode of T2T, they talk about the importance of identifying the genre(s) of a book and the impact it has on one’s understanding of it. I couldn’t agree more, and I believe that there are enough indications in the text to say that the genre of the Book of Job is propaganda. Identifying whether this propaganda masquerades as “wisdom literature” or another genre, has value but is secondary.

It was disappointing that T2T did not discuss source/redaction criticism more in their episodes. It was mentioned occasionally but for the most part they seem to treat the text as a cohesive whole. The confusing nature of the text is presented as a masterful way of getting the reader to deal with the difficult issues that the text deals with. However, I can assure you that this narrative dissonance was not intended by the author(s), and they would have made their talking points crystal clear, but since they were repurposing existing texts and oral traditions, narrative glitches were unavoidable. I’ll highlight some of the glitches as I go along.

One of the other disappointments with T2T is that there was no mention of the different deity names in the text: El, Shaddai and Yahweh. They are all referred to as “God” and it is a sign of how successful the propaganda has been. The different deity names are important for understanding Job as each layer in the text promotes a different deity.

It’s interesting that there may be remnants of other deities in the text as well. Jeff Leonard on T2T mentions this about Day and Night and it brings to mind Death and Decay, Sheol and Abbadon as well as Leviathan and Behemoth.

There seems to be at least 3 layers to the text: An oral tradition about Job and El, a pro-Shaddai layer and a pro-Yahweh layer. The dating of these layers range from very early (El tradition) to very late (post-exilic).

The Oral Tradition

So, let’s start with the 1st layer: The oral tradition about Job and El. To summarize: Job was created out of clay by El, became wicked, was killed by El, descended into Sheol and cursed El, repented of his wickedness and was resurrected by El. Since the text only contains elements of this tradition, we’ll need to reconstruct it using the text we have. Let’s take it piece by piece.

Job was created out of clay:

One of the things that the text is adamant about is that Job was born of a woman. When referring to Job, we find repeated words like “human”, “mother”, “born”, “conceived”, “of the womb”, “of a woman” and “baby”. This repetitiveness is usually a signal that the author is trying to change the narrative. If you’re not familiar with my work, I call this technique “The Redundant Lie”.

But if Job was not born of a woman, where did he come from? He was created by El with clay. In Job , we find “Your hands formed me and made every part of me, then you turned to destroy me. Please remember that you made me out of clay and that you will return me to the dust again”, “You will long for the person your hands have made”, “the work of your hands” and “Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you”. This is usually taken to mean that Job is a descendant of Adam, who was created from the ground, but that’s not what the text says and so it sits awkwardly in the text as a glitch in the narrative. Perhaps the broken pottery that Job uses to scratch himself was originally a reference to Job himself.

A later author tries to change the clay references to a metaphor by saying that we are all made by God, referring to Job as a descendant of Adam and having Elihu claim he was also made from a piece of clay. This is another propaganda technique of changing the literal to metaphor.

Job was wicked:

Another “Redundant Lie” in the text is that Job was innocent. This is probably the most frequent claim in the text and it is made in various ways. But I propose that this innocence of Job is a change in the narrative by a later author. This creates tension in the text as Job’s “friends” level accusations of wrongdoing against Job. This tension is resolved, if, in the oral tradition, Job was wicked. Suddenly, those sons of bitches picking on an innocent man become wise men correcting a fool.

El killed Job:

Although there are a few instances in the text that indicate that El killed e.g. “you turned to destroy me” . El may have killed him with poisonous arrows. “I’ve been wounded by a deadly arrow” and “For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison” It also seems that Job was young when he died since one of the other layers puts an emphasis on how old Job was. “those who are younger than I am” and “Then at a very old age, Job died” (this is added after his death in the oral tradition).

There is another glitch regarding Job’s children. Job says “I stink to my own children”, but his children were killed earlier in the narrative. This could indicate a remnant from the oral tradition.

Job descended into Sheol and cursed El:

Sheol is mentioned in the text 8 times and there is a lot of wording that seems to describe Sheol (night, darkness, shadow, covered with water, etc) and those who live there, throughout the text. I found one article that claims that Job’s friends should be translated as “Rephaim” or spirits of the dead.

Also, Scott Jones on T2T talks about how the translation of Job 28 doesn’t work very well in terms of mining. I agree and think that the text may be describing the underworld instead.

It is in Sheol that Job curses El. A later author repeatedly denies that Job curses God and switches the curse to the cursing of Job’s day of birth. This hits 2 birds with one stone as it shifts the curse away from El and it promotes the idea that Job was born of a woman (as discussed above).

Both @brentastrawn and Jeff Leonard talk on T2T about how the word for “curse” is actually the Hebrew word for “bless”. I considered that it may have originally been “blessed” in the oral tradition but it really doesn’t make any sense in the broader scope of things, so I have to agree with them that it is being used as a euphemism.

Job repented and was resurrected by El:

As we see in the text, Job repents (even though he was innocent according to later authors), but since Job was in Sheol, El then resurrects him. This resurrection prompts later authors to push back and put heavy emphasis (especially in Job 14) on the idea that once someone dies, there is no coming back until the heavens end: “so each person lies down and does not rise until the heavens cease to exist” and “If a person dies, will he go on living?”

This layer refers to not only El but other mythical elements from what seems to be an early tradition such as Rahab, Leviathan and Behemoth. As discussed on T2T, one of the many translation issues is that many of the words used in Job are the only instance in all of the Hebrew Bible. That may be because this layer contains older Hebrew words that had fallen out of favor by the time the majority of the Hebrew Bible was written.

Altogether, Job may originally have been a tale of foolish hubris that the original hearers would have laughed at. Later authors try to spin that aspect by providing new context for Job being a “laughing stock” and “And now they make fun of me with songs. I have become a joke to them.”

The Pro-Shaddai Layer

That concludes the 1st layer and now we move onto the pro-Shaddai layer. I’ve already discussed much of the pro-Shaddai layer by describing how the 1st layer has been changed, so I’ll just write briefly about the merging of the identities of El and Shaddai.

Using parallelisms is a propaganda technique to combine the identities of 2 separate things. I discussed this in detail regarding Israel and Jacob as well as Zion and Jerusalem in this blog post.

In the same way, I think this layer is attempting to combine a local deity (Shaddai) with El. There are numerous parallelisms describing the two gods in an effort to make them into one god. I think that Ēl Shaddāi, Ēl ‘Ôlām, and Ēl ‘Elyôn may all be attempts to combine El with local deities. In the same way, I think the Yahwist and others combine Yahweh and Elohim by assimilation of the Elohist traditions into the Yahwist narrative and by the use of the name Yahweh Elohim.

The Pro-Yahwist Layer

Finally we come to the Pro-Yahwist layer. At least parts of the prologue and epilogue seem to be later additions. It’s not just the narrative/poetic switch that sets it apart but the name “Yahweh” is only used in these sections with the exceptions being a couple of places in the poetry that attributes some of the dialogue to Yahweh and a reference to Yahweh making creatures, which seems oddly out of place.

Furthermore, right before Elihu speaks, it says “This is the end of Job’s words”. It’s not however, and Job speaks again after Yahweh’s response, which could be another indication this layer is a later addition. Elihu also repeatedly claims that what he says are “my words” and we are repeatedly reminded that the words are addressed to Job e.g.“Open your ears to this, Job.” which may indicate that at least some of Elihu’s words were originally Job’s.

It’s also interesting that Yahweh and Elohim could be read as two different characters in the prologue and epilogue. I’m not saying that they should be but that they could be. It reminded me of a similar issue in Deuteronomy 32:8–9

This layer also remedies (or attempts to remedy) the problem of bad things happening to a now innocent Job. This is done by shifting the conflict between Job and El to a bet between Yahweh and The Satan.

This layer achieves two common goals of post-exilic writers: Portray Yahweh as Creator of the cosmos and eliminate or assimilate other gods.

I hope you enjoyed this post! Let me know your thoughts and if I got anything wrong (or right!). If you liked this, be sure to check out my YouTube channel