Abstract
While a wealth of recent scholarship and popular reception has suggested the Elihu speeches in Job 32–37 are redundant and perhaps do not belong, still others maintain the character’s status as revelatory and divinely-inspired within the narrative. This article highlights Elie Wiesel’s little-noticed contribution to the discourse on Elihu through a reading of Wiesel’s play, The Trial of God. The play expands on an interpretation of Elihu first found in the pseudepigraphal Testament of Job and suggests that Elihu is a truly diabolical character who threatens the faithfulness of the righteous sufferer. This article begins with a brief survey of recent scholarly reception of Elihu, then offers a close reading of Wiesel’s analogue to Elihu in his play. The article concludes with a discussion of the ways Wiesel’s reception of Elihu can aid biblical scholars and theologians in their work on the Book of Job.
References
Alter, R. 2010. The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes: A Translation with Commentary. New York: Norton.Suche in Google Scholar
Aquinas, T. 1989. The Literal Exposition on Job: A Scriptural Commentary Concerning Providence. Translated by Anthony Damico. Classics in Religious Studies, Vol. 7. Atlanta: Scholar’s Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Balentine, S. 2006. Job. Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys.Suche in Google Scholar
Blumenthal, D. 1993. Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest. Louisville: Westminster John Knox.Suche in Google Scholar
Boyle, J. F. 2020. “St. Thomas, Job, and the University Master.” In Reading Job with St. Thomas Aquinas, edited by M. Levering, P. Roszak, and J. Vijgen, 21–41. Washington: Catholic University of America.10.2307/j.ctv11cwb21.4Suche in Google Scholar
Calvin, J. 1980. Sermons from Job. Translated by Harold Dekkar. Grand Rapids: Baker.Suche in Google Scholar
Cheney, M. 1994. Dust, Wind, and Agony: Character, Speech and Genre in Job. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiskell.Suche in Google Scholar
Childs, B. S. 1979. Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Clines, D. J. A. 2004. “Putting Elihu in His Place: A Proposal for the Relocation of Job 32–37.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 29: 243–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/030908920402900207.Suche in Google Scholar
Cohn-Sherbok, D. 1990. “Jewish Faith and the Holocaust.” Religious Studies 26: 277–93. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0034412500020424.Suche in Google Scholar
Driver, S. R. 1898. An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, 8th ed. International Theological Library. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Suche in Google Scholar
Driver, S. R., and G. B. Gray. 1921. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Job: Together with a New Translation. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.Suche in Google Scholar
Faulstick, D. 2010. “Protest or Process: Theodicy Responses to Elie Wiesel’s The Trial of God.” Renascence 62: 293–309, https://doi.org/10.5840/renascence201062436.Suche in Google Scholar
Friedlander, A. H. 1978. “Biblical Dimensions in the Work of Elie Wiesel.” European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe 12: 19–23.Suche in Google Scholar
Gibson, J. C. L. 1985. Job. The Daily Study Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox.Suche in Google Scholar
Greenstein, E. L. 2003. “The Poem on Wisdom in Job 28 in Its Conceptual and Literary Contexts.” In Job 28: Cognition in Context, edited by E. van Wolde, pp. 253–80. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004496781_013Suche in Google Scholar
Greenstein, E. L. 2019. Job: A New Translation. New Haven: Yale University.10.12987/9780300163766Suche in Google Scholar
Gutiérrez, G. 2003. On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent. Translated by Matthew J. O’Connell. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.Suche in Google Scholar
Habel, N. C. 1984. “The Role of Elihu in the Design of the Book of Job.” In In the Shelter of Elyon: Essays on Ancient Palestinian Life and Literature in Honor of G.W. Ahlstrom, edited by W. Boyd Barrick, and J. R. Spencer, 81–98. Sheffield: JSOT Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Habel, N. C. 1985. The Book of Job: A Commentary. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster.Suche in Google Scholar
Haralambakis, M. 2012. The Testament of Job: Text, Narrative and Reception History. Library of Second Temple Studies, vol. 80. London: Bloomsbury.Suche in Google Scholar
Hurvitz, A. 1974. “The Date of the Prose-Tale of Job Linguistically Reconsidered.” Harvard Theological Review 67: 17–34. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0017816000003138.Suche in Google Scholar
Kaufmann, Y. 1960. The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile. Translated by Moshe Greenberg. Chicago: University of Chicago.Suche in Google Scholar
Kraft, R. A., H. Attridge, R. Spittler, and J. Timbie, eds. 1974. The Testament of Job According to the SV Text. SBLTT Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 4. Missoula: Scholar’s Press.Suche in Google Scholar
MacLeish, A. 1956. J.B. A Play in Verse. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Suche in Google Scholar
Mason, E. 2011. “Elihu’s Spiritual Sensation: William Blake’s Illustrations of the Book of Job.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible, edited by M. Lieb, E. Mason, J. Roberts, C. Rowland, 460–75. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Mitchell, S. 1987. The Book of Job: Translated and with an Introduction. New York: Harper Perennial.Suche in Google Scholar
Newsom, C. 2003. The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations. New York: Oxford University.Suche in Google Scholar
Newsom, C. A. 2014. “The Invention of the Divine Courtroom in the Book of Job.” In The Divine Courtroom in Comparative Perspective, 246–59, edited by A. Mermelstein, and S. E. Holtz. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004281646_012Suche in Google Scholar
Schreiner, S. 2006. “Calvin as an Interpreter of Job.” In Calvin and the Bible, 53–84, edited by D. K. McKim. Cambridge: Cambridge University.10.1017/CBO9780511606908.004Suche in Google Scholar
Seow, C. L. 2011. “Elihu’s Revelation.” Theology Today 68: 253–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040573611416537.Suche in Google Scholar
Seow, C. L. 2013. Job 1-21: Interpretation and Commentary. Illuminations. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.10.7833/112-0-74Suche in Google Scholar
Seow, C. L. 2015. “Text Critical Notes on 4QJoba.” DSD 22: 189–201. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685179-12341350.Suche in Google Scholar
Shields, M. A. 2014. “Was Elihu Right?” Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament 3: 155–70.Suche in Google Scholar
Wahl, H. M. 1993. Der gerechte Schöpfer: Eine redactions und theologiegeschichtliche Untersuchung der Elihureden—Hiob 32–37. BZAW 207. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110888874Suche in Google Scholar
Walker, H. A., and E. Wiesel. 1980. “How and Why I Write: An Interview with Elie Wiesel.” The Journal of Education 162: 57–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/002205748016200206.Suche in Google Scholar
Wiesel, E. 1976. Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends. Translated by Marion Wiesel. New York: Random House.Suche in Google Scholar
Wiesel, E. 1979. The Trial of God. Translated by Marion Wiesel. New York: Schocken Books.Suche in Google Scholar
Wollaston, I. 2011. “Post-holocaust Jewish Interpretations of Job.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible, edited by M. Lieb, E. Mason, J. Roberts, C. Rowland, 488–501. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199204540.003.0034Suche in Google Scholar
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Martin Luther King, Jr. and Apocalyptic Thought
- Enoch’s Green Apocalypse: The Source Material of Aronofsky’s Noah
- Armageddon: A History of the Location of the End of Time
- Is Biblical Studies Stuck in Antiquarianism? The Case of Behemoth and Leviathan
- The Return of the Accuser as God’s Defender: A Diabolical Reception of Elihu in Elie Wiesel’s The Trial of God
- A Note on Canon and Hermeneutics: Junillus, Inst. 1.1-10
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Martin Luther King, Jr. and Apocalyptic Thought
- Enoch’s Green Apocalypse: The Source Material of Aronofsky’s Noah
- Armageddon: A History of the Location of the End of Time
- Is Biblical Studies Stuck in Antiquarianism? The Case of Behemoth and Leviathan
- The Return of the Accuser as God’s Defender: A Diabolical Reception of Elihu in Elie Wiesel’s The Trial of God
- A Note on Canon and Hermeneutics: Junillus, Inst. 1.1-10