Archive for January 8th, 2010

Job as Scapegoat: Renée Girard’s Deconstruction of Job

It is interesting to compare Rashi’s interpretive approach (see my earlier posting) with that of French literary critic Renée Girard, who also looks at Job’s suffering from within the context of his community. In both of their expositions of the Jobian narrative, it is the community around him that exacerbates Job’s suffering.

However, Girard goes far beyond Rashi and suggests that Job’s friends intend to transform Job into a community scapegoat. According to Girard, ancient and primitive societies learned to redirect ...

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Mouthing the clichés of faith: “The LORD has given, the LORD has taken—blessed be the LORD forever and ever!” (Job 1:21)

One cannot help but suspect the anger and pain stewing inside Job when he piously proclaims, “The LORD has given, the LORD has taken—blessed be the LORD forever and ever!” We wonder, could it be that Job said those words out of fear that if Job didn’t—God would strike him with even more pain? Still and all, Job suppresses his pain, and continues to offer the platitudes and clichés that one would expect a pious man like Job to say. ...

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