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 JOB

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JOB

■wicked suffer In tills world, while elsewhere he has declared the contrary. The answer is: Job teaclies that tiod is accustomed even in this world to reward the good in some measure and to punish the wicked. In other passages he does not deny this rule, but merely says it has many exceptions. Consequently there is no contradiction. [See above, IV (2).] Be- sides it may be conceded that Job is not always logical. At the beginning, when his depression is extreme, he lays too much emphasis on the prosperity of the god- less; gradually he becomes more composed and cor- rects somewhat his earlier extreme statements. Not everything that Job says is the doctrine of the book. [Seeabove, II (2).]

(.3) Many regard ch. xxviii as doubtful, because it has no connexion with what goes before or follows and is in no way related to the subject-matter of the book. The answer to this is that the poet has to show how the suffering of Job does not separate him from God, but, against the intent of Satan, drives him into closer ■dependence on God. Consequently he represents Job, after his complaints (xxiii-xxv), as glorifj'ing God again at once, as in x.xvi-xxvii, in which Job lauds God's power and righteousness. The praise of God is brought to a climax in xxviii, where Job extols God's power and righteousness. After Job has thus surrendered himself to God, he can with full confidence, in xxix-xxxi, lay his sorrowful con- dition before God for investigation. Consequently xxviii is in its proper place, connects perfectly with what precedes and follows, and harmonizes with the subject-matter of the book.

(4) Many regard the description of hippopotamus and crocodile (xl, 10-xH) as later additions, because they lack connexion with xxxix, 31-xl, 9, belonging rather to the description of animals in xxxix. In reply it may be said that this objection is not without force. Whoever agrees with the present WTiter in this opinion need only hold that xxxix, 31-xl, 9, origi- nally followed xli. The difficult}- is then settled, and there is no further reason for considering the splendid description of the two animals as a later insertion.

(5) There is much disagreement as to the speeches of Eliu (xxxii-xxx vii). With the exception of Budde, nearly all Protestant commentators regard them as a later insertion, while the great majority of Catholic investigators rightly defend them as belonging to the original work. The details of this discussion cannot be entered upon here, antl the reader is referred to the commentaries of Budde and Hontheim. The latter sums up his long investigation in these words: "Tlie section containing the speeches of Eliu has been care- fully prepared bj- the poet and is closely and with artistic correctness connected with the previous and following portions. It is united with the rest of the book by countless allusions and relations. It is dominated by the same ideas as the rest of the poem. It makes use also of the same language and the same method of presentation both in general and in detail. .\11 the peculiarities exhibited by the author of the argumentative speeches are reproduced in the ad- dresses of Ehu. The content of this portion is the saving of the honour of Job and is essential as the solution of the subject of discussion. Consequently there is no reason whatever for assuming that it is an interpolation; everything is clearly against this" (Hontheim, op. cit., 20-39. Cf. also Budde, "Bei- trage zur Kritik des Buches Iliob", 1876; Knaben- bauer, "In Job"). Anyone who desires to consider the speeches of Ehu as a later addition must hold, by the teaching of the Church, that they are inspired.

(6) There is in general no reason whatever for con- sidering any important part of the book either large or small as not belonging to the original text. Equally baseless is the supposition that important portions of the original composition are lost.

IX. Condition of the Text. — The most important VIII.— 27

means for judging the Massoretic Text are the old translations made directly from the Helirew: the Targum, Peshito, Vulgate, Septuagint, and the other Greek translations used by Origen to supplement the Septuagint. With the exception of the Septuagint, the original of all these translations was essentially identical with the Massoretic Text; only unimportant differences can be proved. On the other hand, the Septuagint in the form it had before Origen, was about four hundred lines, that is one-fifth shorter than the Massoretic Text. Origen supplied what was lacking in the Septuagint from the Greek transla- tions and marked the additions by asterisks. Copy- ists generally omitted these critical signs, and only a remnant of them, mixed -n-ith many errors, has been preserved in a few manuscripts. Consequently knowl- edge of the old form of the Septuagint is very imper- fect. The best means now of restoring it is the Copto-Sahidic translation which followed the Septua- gint and does not contain Origen's additions. This translation was published by Ciasca, "Sacrorum Bibliorum fragmenta Copto-Sahidica" (2 vols., Rome, 1889), and by Am^hneau in "Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archajology", IX (1S93), 409-75. Hatch and Bickell claim that the shorter text of the Septuagint is in general the earlier one, consequently that the present Massoretic Text is an expansion of a shorter original. Nearlyall other investigators hold the opposite, that the Septuagint was produced by cutting down an original which varied but little from the Massoretic Text. This was also Bickell's view in earUer years, and is the real state of the case. To avoid repetition and discursive statements, the trans- lators of the Septuagint omitted much, especially where the reading seemed doubtful, translation diffi- cult, the content anthropomorphic, unworthy of Job, or otherwise objectionable. In doing this the trans- lation frequently disregards the fundamental principle of Hebrew poetry, the parallelism of the lines. In brief the critical value of the Septuagint is not great; in almost all instances the Massoretic Text is to be pre- ferred. Taken altogether, the Mpssoretic has pre- served the original form of the consonantal text fairly well, and needs but a moderate amount of critical emendation. The punctuation (vowel signs and ac- cents), it is true, frequently requires correction, for the punctuators did not always rightly understand the often difficult text; at times also words are not prop- erly divided.

X. Technical Skill of the Author and the Metre. — Chapters iii-xlii, 6, are poetical in form. This partof the bookconsistsotabout 1020 lines. The verses, which do not always correspond with the Massoretic verses of our editions, are generally divided into two clauses or lines which are parallel in content. There are also a number of verses, about sixty, of three clauses each, the so-called triplets. It is an unjusti- fiable violence to the text when a critic by removing one clause clianges these triplets into couplets. The verses form the twenty-eight speeches of the book which, as already stated, make four series of seven speeches each. 'The speeches are divided, not directly into lines, but into strophes. It is most probable that the speeches formed from strophes often, perhaps al- ways, follow the law of "choral structure" discovered by Father Zenner. That is, the speeches often or always consist of pairs of strophes, divided by inter- mediate strophes not in pairs. The two strophes forming a pair are parallel in content and have each the same number of lines. For a further discussion of this subject see Hontheim, op. cit. Investigators are not agreed as to the construction of the line. Some count the syllables, others only the stresses, others agam the accented words. It would seem that the last view is the one to be preferred. There are about 2100 lines in the Book of Job, containing generally three, at times two or four, accented words. Besides