Reading for 3/16 (Ruth, Ezra, Job)

Posted on March 10, 2006

Lisa was providing something like a study guide for previous weeks; I will continue the practice.

We will spend the first half of class for 3/16 on the Book of Ruth (material from Ezra--a priest who essentially ruled Judah as a sort client state of the Persian Empire ... you met him in the video last night--is mainly in support of our understanding of Ruth); the second half of class on Job (but, as the syllabus notes, you don't have to read all of Job). For Ezra, take special note on the new policy on foreign wives--mentioned in the video from last night.

Alter understands Ruth as an extended type-scene. You only have to read the short section of his ch. 3 on type-scenes that is on Ruth, but if you don't remember what a type-scene is, you should re-read the full chapter; I will certainly ask you to be able to explain both the general idea and its specific application to Ruth. Type-scenes are excellent examples of what Alter means by the revisionary process (in reading the Bible, he argues, we discover how "meaning, perhaps for the first time in narrative literature, was conceived as a process requiring continual revision" [p. 12]). More than that, we have the fascinating situation of the relocating of the Book of Ruth from its location in the Hebrew Bible (included in the "Writings") to a new location in the Greek translation, the Septuagint, the basis on modern "Christian Bibles" (so that, in the bible we're using, Ruth comes between Judges and 1 Samuel). That move is itself part of a revisionary process (part of the way the bible came to have meaning, even different meanings, over time). You can at least ask yourself what difference would it have made to have had a sequence that ran: Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, and then to have had Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel. What does the change do? (You may have lots of ideas, but I will call your attention to the Deuteronomistic History, and how the Bible is often at odds with its own dominant ideas ... the re-placement of Ruth is a great example of this).

... As is Job (which, as the video you saw notes, explicitly challenges the core premise of the Deuteronomistic History. I will also try to suggest that Job challenges the very foundation of Judaism (the relationship with God). These ideas will lead us again to the notion of "revision" (literally, to see again, but really, to see what we thought we knew in a new context, and so remind us that meaning isn't always stable). Chapters 38-41 in Job (the voice in the whirlwind) seems intent on revising some notions from Genesis 1, the first creation story. But Job also revises itself, or at least earlier versions of itself. So notice the relationship between chapters 1-2, 42 (on the one hand) and the intervening chapters (though you don't have to read all of that) on the other. Stylistically, they are very different, no doubt, intentionally. This is an example of "frame narrative" and is often used to force the reader into a sense of contrast or conflict between between the what frames the main narrative and the main narrative itself. At a minimum, the frame offers a kind of oblique commentary on the main narrative; or perhaps it is the other way around. In any event, pay attention to the difference in style between the two parts.

Finally, you may have some questions about "the Satan" who makes his first fully developed debut in Job. He may not be what you expect. And just a note, this figure (though having a long and complex history) also comes from "Persia" (just like "hell" and "resurrection" ... all part of Zoroastrianism).

Happy reading.