LittleNipper
Gold Member
- Jan 3, 2013
- 5,613
- 839
- 130
- Thread starter
- #21
Accepted by whom? Please consider the following: An Introduction to the Book of Job | Bible.orgThe fact that it (the book of JOB) dates to before Abraham would make this individual not an Israelite.I was always told that Job was the oldest book in the Bible.I'm not sure you understand what scientific means.
The book is certainly most likely the oldest book
Is it certainly, or most likely? They don't mean the same thing. Job was assumed to have been set down in the 6th Century BCE, making it much more recent than a lot of Torah.
When reading it, notice no mention of Israel, the Patriarchs, and it talks about odd animals like the Leviathan.
Also, the cities and towns are unknown today.
"The anonymous author was almost certainly an Israelite, although he has set his story outside Israel, in southern Edom or northern Arabia, and makes allusion to places as far apart as Mesopotamia and Egypt. The language of Job stands out for its conservative spelling and for its exceptionally large number of words and forms not found elsewhere in the Bible. Many later scholars down to the 20th century looked for an Aramaic, Arabic or Edomite original, but a close analysis suggests that the foreign words and foreign-looking forms are literary affectations designed to lend authenticity to the book's distant setting and give it a foreign flavor"
- Source, Wikipedia.
That's not the accepted origin of Job. It is written to appear as if it came from an older and foreign source. In much the same way that Shakespeare sets his plays in foreign and exotic, even ancient, settings. But, the lack of an original non-Hebrew version and the fact that many of the foreign sounding words in Job don't correspond to known ancient languages suggests that the author was an Israelite using affectation as part of his narrative.