When Was Job Written?

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TG4BG wrote:
> I believe it was written before Abraham sometime.

Regardless of whether you think Job was a historical figure, do you think there is a need to distinguish between the date of the events of the book and the writing of the book itself that we have today?

 

Hank wrote:
>Because he was "perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil". It seems to me that a gentile who lived during the mosaic covenant and was described as he is above who also knew several of the Hebrew names of God (including YHWH) would know something of His Law if it existed at the time.

But the Job story is not about conformity to the Law, but about why bad things happen to the righteous. It's asserted that Job is righteous, so there is no place for the Law in the story.

 

Hank,

Your thorough job has convinced me that the book of Job is indeed one of the older books of the Bible. This has been an interesting thread.

Thanks bro,
John

 

Hank wrote:
> Views on the time when Job lived range all the way from the Patriarchal Age (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—approximately 2100 to 1900 B.C.) to the sixth century B.C. Several factors point to the time of the patriarchs:

>1. Job lived 140 years after his calamities (42:16) so he may have lived to about 210. This corresponds roughly to the length of the patriarchs’ lives. Terah, Abraham’s father, died at the age of 205; Abraham lived to be 175; Isaac lived 180 years; and Jacob died at the age of 147.

And yet, Job was left out of the Genesis TON? Why is he snubbed by the Torah if Job was supposedly written by Moses?

> 2. Job’s wealth was reckoned in livestock (1:3; 42:12), which was also true of Abraham (Gen. 12:16; 13:2), and Jacob (Gen. 30:43; 32:5).

And not true of anyone later than that?

> 3. The Sabeans and Chaldeans (Job 1:15, 17) were nomads in Abraham’s time, but in later years they were not nomadic.

I've already stated that the association of ethnic Chaldeans with southern Mesopotamia is appropriate for the 8th century or later.

> 4. The Hebrew word "qsitah", translated ”piece of silver/money“ (42:11), is used elsewhere only twice (Gen. 33:19; Josh. 24:32), both times in reference to Jacob.

This comes from the prose narrative, which is undoubtedly older than the poetic core of the book.

> 5. Job’s daughters were heirs of his estate along with their brothers (Job 42:15). This, however, was not possible later under the Mosaic Law if a daughter’s brothers were still living (Num. 27:8).

Job was not a Hebrew.

> 6. Literary works similar in some ways to the Book of Job were written in Egypt and Mesopotamia around the time of the patriarchs.

Which implies that Job was written during a time when polemic against Babylon was at its apex, i.e. the Exile.

> 7. The book of Job includes no references to the Mosaic institutions (priesthood, laws, tabernacle, special religious days and feasts).

Job was not a Hebrew.

> 8. The name "sadday" is used of God 31 times in Job (compared with only 17 times elsewhere in the OT) and was a name familiar to the patriarchs (see comments on Gen. 17:1; also cf. Ex. 6:3).

It is only used by the priestly source of the Pentateuch. When was that written? During/after the Exile. (surprise, surprise...)

> 9. Several personal and place names in the book were also associated with the patriarchal period. Examples include (a) Sheba, a grandson of Abraham (Gen. 25:3), and the Sabeans from Sheba (Job 1:15; 6:19); (b) Tema, another grandson of Abraham (Gen. 25:15), and Tema, a location in Arabia (Job 6:19); (c) Eliphaz, a son of Esau (Gen. 36:4), and Eliphaz, one of Job’s companions (Job 2:11; these two Eliphazes, however, are not necessarily the same person); (d) Uz, a nephew of Abraham (Gen. 22:21), and Uz, where Job lived (Job 1:1). Though it cannot be stated with certainty, possibly Job lived in Jacob’s time or shortly thereafter.

And those names could not have been known during the Exile because? All this establishes is that Job is geographically placed to the SE of Edom.

> Job was a common West Semitic name in the second millennium B.C. Job was also the name of a 19th-century-B.C. prince in the Egyptian Execration texts. Other occurrences of the name are found in the Tell el-Amarna letters (ca. 1400 B.C.) and in Ugaritic texts.

And it could not have been known later because...?

> As other evidences, for whatever its worth: the Early Church Fathers (the ones I have checked so far Origen, Cyprian, Clement) date the book at various early dates (pre-law), the Apostolic Constitutions stating that Job was written "before the Law, under the Law of Nature".

The early church has no more authority on the issue than we do today.

 

Wells wrote:
> Your thorough job has convinced me that the book of Job is indeed one of the older books of the Bible.

I wasn't aware that you were on the fence to begin with...

 

I'm through, the evidences have been given.

Let the readers decide.

HankD

 

BW,

I wasn't!