(Download) "Death, Disinheritance, And Job's Kinsman-Redeemer (Critical Essay)" by Journal of Biblical Literature ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Death, Disinheritance, And Job's Kinsman-Redeemer (Critical Essay)
- Author : Journal of Biblical Literature
- Release Date : January 22, 2010
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 228 KB
Description
The book of Job offers a rare opportunity to view the response to death in ancient Israel and early Judaism. This response, which encompasses attitudes toward burial and concepts of the afterlife, (1) is both vague and complicated in the Hebrew Bible. (2) Its depiction, however, has been enhanced by archaeology, particularly the excavation of Iron Age II tombs found predominantly in Judah. (3) Yet in spite of the abundance of death imagery in the book of Job, the book's themes are seldom compared with the burial practices that typified the Israelite and early Jewish experience. (4) This is partially due to uncertainties over the book's language and the date of its compilation, (5) combined with the indistinct nature of its cultural setting and historical background. (6) Yet the images evoked in the protagonist's speech in Job 19:23-27 reflect archaeologically attested funerary rites that date to the first millennium B.C.E. The role of writing, associated with Job's kinsman-redeemer in this perplexing passage, in fact parallels a similarly difficult Hebrew inscription from a tomb at Khirbet el-Qom. Furthermore, the funerary images relate to wider themes of death that are debated in Job's second cycle of speeches. The recognition of these multiple contexts (literary and cultural), in turn, allows for a better understanding of the nature and function of the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in Job 19:25. The passionate speech in 19:23-27 evokes the protagonist's confidence that, after his death, a kinsman-redeemer (v. 25) will perform the proper rituals on his behalf in order to preserve Job's name and patrimony for posterity. Job's speech in 19:23-27, in fact, is indicative of a conflict of ideologies that occurs in the second cycle of speeches. The doctrine of retribution that is preached by Job's friends insinuates that Job's perceived guilt will cause him to suffer the fate of the wicked, a fate that implies he will be denied proper funerary rites. Job counters this doctrine by drawing from the concept of collective fate that was at home in the traditional clan-based society of ancient Israel. Accordingly, Job's image of his fate is tied to his kinsman-redeemer and is consonant with a ritual process that was typically centered at the family tomb. This ritual response would have entailed actions referenced or alluded to in Job 19: the writing/inscribing of an epitaph (vv. 23-24), the act of mourning (v. 25b), and, finally, secondary inhumation rites (w. 26 and 27b). All of these actions bracket Job's declaration of a kinsmanredeemer in v. 25a, and with the exception of mourning all can be attested in the material remains of ancient Israel. An integrated approach that analyzes Job within both cultural and literary contexts can offer manifold results that not only illuminate an important operating theme throughout the book's discourse but also identify the role and function of Job's kinsman-redeemer.