Job’s Body and the Dramatized Comedy of Moralising. By Katherine E. Southwood
In this very readable monograph, Southwood explores two avenues of the interpretation of the book of Job. The first is linked to the body language in Job’s speeches, which are key expressions of his illness; and the second is the reading of Job as a comedy, indeed as a dramatized play. The argument...
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| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2021
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| In: |
The journal of theological studies
Year: 2021, Volume: 72, Issue: 2, Pages: 912-914 |
| Further subjects: | B
Book review
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In this very readable monograph, Southwood explores two avenues of the interpretation of the book of Job. The first is linked to the body language in Job’s speeches, which are key expressions of his illness; and the second is the reading of Job as a comedy, indeed as a dramatized play. The argument is influenced by exploration of medical anthropological insights on the communal and social ramifications of illness. Southwood follows other scholars, notably Whedbee and Pelham (and also, in part, Clines and Newsom), in interpreting Job as essentially a comedy (including irony, parody, melodrama). She therefore highlights the arrogant moralizing of the friends, the pomposity of Job’s responses, the buffoon Elihu, the irony of God’s speeches and of Job’s responses, and the comedic placement of the restoration of Job in the Epilogue. She also emphasizes the importance of the Prologue in setting up an ‘audience knows more’ dimension that helps the reader to stand back from the action and see the comic potential of the action and debate as it unfolds. She likens the ‘play’ of Job to other works of ancient comedy, e.g. Aristophanes, although she provides no detail about how this comparison might actually work. Moving onto issues of illness (as distinguished from disease), she stresses the importance of the social and communal facets of the illness experience versus a tendency to individualize it. She opposes attempts to offer a retrospective diagnosis of Job’s illness, although of course any such analysis of an ancient textual description is bound to be retrospective. It is true that we cannot necessarily analyse Job’s illness simply from our modern medical knowledge, but we can recognize the essential ongoing interaction between his physical symptoms and his expression of his experience (of increasing depression, in my view). It is an important reminder from Southwood, though, that talking about pain and illness to others is an often overlooked facet of the experience. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4607 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of theological studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jts/flab085 |