Talk:Book of Job

"Without any reason"

Anyone can exegetically interpret that verse as he wishes. I would like to limit myself to mentioning it as it is in the Bible. Or does a literal and uncensored knowledge of the Bible cause scandal in believers? Ps.: sorry for inadvertently deleting the word "suffering". Accidents that happen when one edits. --Mauro Lanari (talk) 17:30, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Mauro. "without any reason" modifies a verb in Job 2:3. So God says, "You incited me against him to ruin him without any reason" in Job 2:3. The question is whether "without any reason" modifies the verb or the "incite" or the verb "ruin". That is, is it God's ruining, or Satan's incitement, according to 2:3, that is without reason? If you'd like to quote Job 2:3 at length somewhere in the article, I have no objection. If you want to quote some reliable source that says God didn't have any reason for what he did in Job, I have no objection to that either.

I don't think anyone is trying to censor out the fact that Job's is being unfairly punished here. We already have "the reader sees that God himself bears responsibility" and a whole bunch of material about how Job didn't have it coming. The question is about the sources used for sticking those three words onto another sentence: first with a self-published source, and then with Ellen van Wolde, who doesn't actually hold the view that the article was ascribing to her. Alephb (talk) 18:18, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Alephb. As a passionate or expert in theology, you'll surely know that those three words have given rise to whole shelves of books in favor or contrary to the theodicy. I guarantee that I'm not at all interested in proposing such a debate here, but at least to bring back the biblical phrase considered so important. I take this opportunity to thank you for your kind and courteous response. So now, as promised, I'll just add "without any reason" and that's it. Okay? --Mauro L. 82.84.27.140 (talk) 19:15, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Hello Mauro. If you'd like to add the whole sentence-long quote, I have no objection. If you want to stick those three words onto an already-existing sentence sourced to other sources, then the details of how that is done will matter. Alephb (talk) 19:27, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Alephb. What do you think about this source? Pihlström, Sami (2015). "The Problem of Evil and Pragmatic Recognition". doi:10.1163/9789004301993_006. Chapter 5 (pp. 77—101) in Skowroński, Krzysztof Piotr, ed. (2015). Practicing Philosophy as Experiencing Life. Essays on American Pragmatism. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 9789004301993. Have a good editing. Mauro 82.84.35.91 (talk) 17:27, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

That would all depend on what, specifically, you want to do with those sources. Alephb (talk) 23:52, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

It maybe worth mentioning...the KJV version says "without cause." Modern haphazard use of our language has tended to treat those two words as if they had the same meaning, but they truly mean two different things. In this context, it is certainly wrong to say that it was without *reason*. Perhaps they weren't *good* reasons, but no good reason and no reason at all quite different. What they did to Job was without cause in that Job had done not done anything that deserved punishment. (Which, of course, Jobs ill fortune was never a punishment at all, but a test of the philosophical question that Satan raised: whether or not seemingly selfless and perfect righteousness was actually driven by self interest.

Firejuggler86 (talk) 11:01, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Job's Comforters

Should this article saY that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar are sometimes known as Job's comforters, and this phrase has come into common English to refer to people who try to comfort but end up aggravating you? Vorbee (talk) 19:32, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Authorship timeline

In regards to @Achar Sva's reversion of my additions: I don't consider "keep with sources" a compelling reason to revert my additions, which were an attempt to improve the neutrality of the article, because I do not really understand what is meant by "keep with sources" in this context. I'd greatly appreciate a more robust attempt to engage in dialogue with me before reversion, so I can learn from this (I'm quite an inexperienced Wikipedia editor) and the article can be improved further. InkTide (talk) 19:40, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

InkTide, "keep with sources" means that we follow what the sources say. In this case, the scholarly assessment of the composition date of Job, the article said " Rabbinic tradition ascribes it to Moses, but scholars generally agree that it was written between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE, with the 6th century BCE as the most likely period for various reasons." The source is Robert Kugler and Patrick Hartin's Introduction to the Bible, which says: "There is at least general agreement that Job is best dated sometime between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE. A 6th century date may be thought most likely..." (you can read the rest yourself). You changed by replacing "general agreement" with "some scholars", which is not found in the source - hence "keep with sources". You also added a great deal of material from an online source, Joshua J Mark's article on Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi in World History Encyclopedia. Marks is a freelance writer and self-described scholar, and therefore not a reliable source, and nor is his World History ENcyclopedia. But for what it's worth, Marks agrees with our article, saying "many [scholars?] point to the 7th, 6th, or 4th centuries BCE as probable." He does not suggest it was written in 1700 BCE, the approximate date of Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi. Achar Sva (talk) 22:38, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

"Scholars generally agree" implies a scholarly consensus, I believed the source I cited to imply otherwise, so I felt weakening the language was appropriate. I can certainly understand disagreement with that, as it was the part of my edit that I was most unsure of, alongside the addition of the 'vague' tag ("for various reasons" seemed insufficiently specific). Is there a Wikipedia policy for using the specific wording of a source? How does that avoid copyright infringement?

I am unsure what the limit is for information from an online source, but more to the point I wasn't aware that Mark in particular and World History Encyclopedia in general were considered unreliable sources. My intent was not to recite what was there, but cite and paraphrase a source as I understood it in what seemed to be a contradiction to the idea of a scholarly consensus of Job's authorship occurring in either the 4th, 6th, or 7th centuries.

Some clarification is probably in order, as I did not mean to imply any specific date to Job's authorship - the date was meant to be describing Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi as historical context for Job's age as a work and thematic content, in particular regard to its use as a possible upper bound for the age of Job's authorship (due to its close association with the Book of Job).

As an aside, I also felt the "he set his story" phrasing was a little out of Wikipedia's writing style, and that "the story is set" was more appropriate to what is known about the work. I'm not sure the author of Job is established as a single individual, let alone gendered, but that's something that should probably be cited - perhaps in a subsection of the section in question with known biographical information.

"Authorship, language, texts" may be a bit of a broad definition for a single section.

All in all, I feel a discussion on how the section should be revised here on the talk page better serves the article than outright reversion - and that "keep with sources" was not a clear way to communicate what you said above. For now, I'll just change "he set his story" to "the story is set" and hold any further changes pending your response here. InkTide (talk) 00:03, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Copyright infringement: We should avoid copyright infringement, but we should use reliable sources to discover and reflect where a scholarly consensus exists, assuming one does. In this case, it seems appropriate to reproduce the exact wording of the source in so far as it reflects a consensus.

Online sources/reliable sources: You'll find the Wikipedia guidelines on reliable sources here. Biblical scholarship is a scholarly discipline so the section on scholarship applies (second section of the article). Marks's website is self-published so the sub-section on self-published sources applies. See also the sub-section on academic consensus, which is relevant to the point above.

Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi as a possible upper bound for the age of Job's authorship: Two points to be made: first, such a claim would have to come from a reliable source, which Marks is not; second, Marks does not in any case suggest that Job comes from the same era as Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi. (What he suggests is that Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi and Job deal with similar themes).

Non-gendered language: I believe our article was reflecting the source when it used a gendered pronoun.

"Authorship, language, texts"as the title for a single section: Sections can always be broken up, but in this case you'd be left with one reasonably-sized sections and two very short ones.Achar Sva (talk) 05:49, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused on the 'self published' thing - as far as I can tell, 'World History Encyclopedia' is not a self-publication of Joshua J. Mark's, he's just the author of the linked article. Even so, self publication does not preclude use of a source, at least according to what I can find as Wikipedia policy, it just requires consideration/awareness.

Would the age of the book and article cited be relevant here, given the evolving nature of scholarly consensus? The book was published in 2009, but the article is from 2011; have there been any archeological or anthropological developments in regards to Job's age in the last 12 years? If not, does a publication from 2009 claiming a consensus exists preclude the later development or dissolution of that consensus, or do later publications modify what that consensus would be? I want to be clear that I don't want to endorse a particular viewpoint here - I want to accurately reflect what viewpoints exist.

My understanding was that Mark suggests the thematic similarities between Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi and Job have given rise to a belief that Job is a derivative work of Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi without robust evidence to suggest such a lineage, as shown by the fact Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi is often referred to as 'the Babylonian Job' despite being a very different kind of work (a poem written as a prayer versus Job's narrative style). InkTide (talk) 12:51, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

The problem with Joshua J Mark is that he isn't a scholar - holds no academic position, seems not to have published in peer-reviewed journals, no contributions to leading secondary sources, no monographs that are cited in other scholarly sources. He doesn't even describe himself as a scholar - he says he's "a professional writer, editor, proofreader and tutor". If you'd like to investigate the sources of Job and current thinking about the composition-date, start with the books in our bibliography. Achar Sva (talk) 06:47, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

That reasoning seems uncomfortably close to ad hominem, and an implicit endorsement of the scholarly value of the 2009 Eerdmans source for the claim of scholarly consensus - that source is, according to the Amazon reviews for it, a general overview/summarization of the books of the Bible, not a scholarly source on either the Bible itself or the meta-analysis of biblical scholarship.

I don't think a 'scholarly consensus' has been established robustly, at least according to the sources we have here, and at this point I've already found a few references back to Wikipedia as proof of a '4th, 6th, or 7th' consensus of origin, which worries me a bit (citogenesis makes establishing fact more difficult).

I must admit I had no clue the age of Job was so controversial when I added what I'd found - I've encountered some very interesting (albeit mostly self published and often highly religious) perspectives on what the content of Job suggests as its age, at least. Unfortunately they seem as disparate as they are interesting: the range of dates I've seen so far cited span nearly 2000 years, from 4th century BCE as the absolute youngest to 2100 BCE, which would have seemed like some kind of absurd typo if I hadn't seen it more than once. InkTide (talk) 12:17, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

@InkTide: Wikipedia has WP:RULES such as WP:FRINGE (fundamentalist scholars are considered fringe) and WP:RS/AC (an academic consensus claim done by a full professor who is an expert in that field gets accepted at face value). Wikipedia is extremely biased for mainstream Bible scholarship. And, no, we don't consider sources written by non-scholars to be WP:RS. Newspapers which cite real scholars can be trusted to some extent, but actual academic works written by real scholars are preferred. This is also part of WP:RULES. So, it's irrelevant that it's an ad hominem: that's how Wikipedians select sources, see WP:VERECUNDIAM. Unknowingly, you were throwing a monkey wrench at the system of Wikipedia. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:29, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I believe that's a serious overestimation of the impact of what I added - the article suggested a consensus, I got curious about how it was reached, inadvertently found something outside of that claimed consensus that seemed to come from a neutral, reliable source (I've been unable to find any significant evidence that "World History Encyclopedia", formerly "Ancient History Encyclopedia", is an unreliable source of information, and the subjects in their catalogue of works extends far beyond religious scholarship, let alone biblical scholarship), and so added it to the perspectives described in the article. That said, at this point I'm more concerned with the scholarly reliability of the 2009 Eerdmans source for the existing text in the article.

I'm aware of Wikipedia's policy guidelines. WP:RULES describes Wikipedia's procedural rules for establishing those guidelines; to invoke it as unilaterally enforcing specific policy is a misinterpretation of the page. Such an invocation could easily be understood as a deliberate attempt to sidestep the purpose of WP:5P5. Yes, it makes dealing with subtle vandalism and ideological promotion more difficult, I understand that, but it isn't purposeless.

@Achar Sva & @Tgeorgescu let's try not to run afoul of WP:OWN if we can avoid it. I get the impression that you are both very passionate about biblical scholarship, and I understand you've often run into ideologues and blatantly propagandist editors promoting their own ideologies by manipulating articles related to religion, but past experiences with other users is not a good reason to assume bad faith when you are in doubt - I genuinely just want to improve the article where possible. InkTide (talk) 14:29, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Just a rando here, but if there is scholarly disagreement as to the origin date of Job, shouldn't that be made clear? As is, this article seems to say it was written during the Babylonian Captivity, which would put it around the same time as Deuteronomic texts, but I've always heard Job was, traditionally, considered the oldest book in the Bible. Quick internet searches substantiate my recollections.

If there is division between historical and religeous scholars on the age of the story/text, shouldn't that be included in this article to give the reader a broader understanding of the topic? And isn't that especially true if there is debate between secular scholars? And if the antiquity of Job has been thoroughly debunked in the eyes of all credible historians and theologians, more details and resources would do a better job of driving home that point. 2600:1700:4DD2:2550:628D:5B85:1AB2:7370 (talk) 21:09, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

See https://www.reddit.com/r/Bible/comments/12s8qf9/the_book_of_job_is_the_oldest_book_in_the_bible/ tgeorgescu (talk) 00:11, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Right, there seems to be quite a bit of disagreement on the matter. The reply in this stack goes into, what appears to be, unbiased detail on the views surrounding Job's age. I don't know the veracity of this source, but the poster sites multiple references that could be checked.

https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/11587/when-was-job-written 2600:1700:4DD2:2550:628D:5B85:1AB2:7370 (talk) 17:53, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, just wanted to rephrase. The poster IS biased, but is forthright about their leanings, and seems to be making a good faith effort to include contrary opinions and their justifications. 2600:1700:4DD2:2550:628D:5B85:1AB2:7370 (talk) 18:00, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

The sources mentioned there are WP:FRINGE (they have an axe to grind against mainstream history). We're not discussing theological truths, we're discussing it in terms of objective historical facts. Pious apologists have a reputation to play fast and loose with historical facts, since mainstream history has been unmerciful with the historical claims of the Bible. If they recognize objective historical facts about the Bible they will be forced to admit that biblicist theology is a sham. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:04, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

It's hard to believe you're assuming good faith or operating with a neutral point of view when you make comments like that. ViolanteMD (talk) 23:01, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

According to your link, "an idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea."

But these ideas are not given any weight, though they are at least broadly supported amid theological circles.

And according to Wiki's "Neutral Point of View" description, "Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias. This applies to both what you say and how you say it."

So then, how does it not follow the disagreement should be mentioned, even if it's pointed out as ideological or fallacious?

I've certainly read other Wiki articles, concerning conspiracy theories or questionable archeological findings, just to name a few, that mentioned problematic theories, while also explaining why they were dubious.

If there is controversy between sects of theologians and secular scholars/archeologists, isn't that part of the information surrounding the cultural significance of the book? Isn't it "neutral" to make that clear? 2600:1700:4DD2:2550:211A:E334:2792:B688 (talk) 00:44, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

@ViolanteMD: Half-way between mainstream history and pseudohistory is still pseudohistory. We are not concerned with sects of theologians, but with objective historical facts. The dating of the book is a matter of history, not theology. See WP:NOTNEUTRAL, WP:MAINSTREAM, WP:CHOPSY, WP:FRINGE, and WP:GEVAL. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:11, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Christine Hayes stated "And it was explicitly referred to as biblical archaeology — an interesting name, because it suggests that the archaeologists were out there searching for evidence that would verify the details of the biblical text. We're doing biblical archaeology; archeology in support of the biblical text. [...] Increasingly, practitioners of what was now being termed Palestinian archaeology, or Ancient Near Eastern archaeology, or archaeology of the Levant, rather than biblical archaeology — some of these archaeologists grew disinterested in pointing out the correlations between the archaeological data and the biblical stories or in trying to explain away any discrepancies in order to keep the biblical text intact. ... People who equate truth with historical fact will certainly end up viewing the Bible dismissively, as a naïve and unsophisticated web of lies, since it is replete with elements that cannot be literally true. But to view it this way is to make a genre mistake. Shakespeare's Hamlet, while set in Denmark, an actual place, is not historical fact."

Modern Bible scholarship/scholars (MBS) assumes that: • The Bible is a collection of books like any others: created and put together by normal (i.e. fallible) human beings; • The Bible is often inconsistent because it derives from sources (written and oral) that do not always agree; individual biblical books grow over time, are multilayered; • The Bible is to be interpreted in its context: ✦ Individual biblical books take shape in historical contexts; the Bible is a document of its time; ✦ Biblical verses are to be interpreted in context; ✦ The "original" or contextual meaning is to be prized above all others; • The Bible is an ideologically-driven text (collection of texts). It is not "objective" or neutral about any of the topics that it treats. Its historical books are not "historical" in our sense. ✦ "hermeneutics of suspicion"; ✦ Consequently MBS often reject the alleged "facts" of the Bible (e.g. was Abraham a real person? Did the Israelites leave Egypt in a mighty Exodus? Was Solomon the king of a mighty empire?); ✦ MBS do not assess its moral or theological truth claims, and if they do, they do so from a humanist perspective; ★ The Bible contains many ideas/laws that we moderns find offensive; • The authority of the Bible is for MBS a historical artifact; it does derive from any ontological status as the revealed word of God;

— Beardsley Ruml, Shaye J.D. Cohen's Lecture Notes: INTRO TO THE HEBREW BIBLE @ Harvard (BAS website) (78 pages)

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 10:18, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate your commitment to rigor, but I believe we should consider how best to apply Wikipedia's core principles in this situation, particular WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. While WP:FRINGE is relevant, WP:BALANCE says "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject." The dating of Job is under scholarly debate; representing a range of views with appropriate weight would align with our goals. There are several examples of scientific and historical consensus being proven wrong.

Given that, maybe we could include a well-sourced section on the range of scholarly views regarding Job's dating, clearly indicating which perspectives are considered mainstream and which are more contested? ViolanteMD (talk) 10:46, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

@ViolanteMD: Again, the biblical inerrantist dating is WP:FRINGE. We won't render fringe datings. All we can cover are disagreements among mainstream Bible scholars. No scholar worth his salt will date anything from the Bible to 1200 BCE or before that. People who do that are clowns, not scholars. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:51, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

I think we may have misunderstood each other slightly, so let me clarify my position. I'm not advocating for including fringe theories or biblical inerrantist dating. I completely agree that we should focus on mainstream scholarly perspectives. My suggestion is to include the range of views within mainstream biblical scholarship regarding Job's dating. From my understanding, even among respected scholars, there is some debate about the exact period of composition. By representing this range of mainstream scholarly opinion, we would be adhering to WP:NPOV and WP:BALANCE without violating WP:FRINGE. I would, however, like to say that it's odd to characterize people who disagree with you as "clowns". This kind of language doesn't align with WP:CIVIL. Perhaps we could focus on discussing the merits of different perspectives rather than making personal judgments? ViolanteMD (talk) 10:57, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

@ViolanteMD:

"You seem to be assuming reliable sources are always correct" That may seem to you, but I am not. If a reliable source turns out to be incorrect in spite of all evidence agianst that, and Wikipedia has quoted that source, then Wikipedia will be wrong. We have to accept that risk. The alternative is to find another system that has a lower risk of articles being wrong. Can you suggest one? I don't think so.
— User:Hob Gadling

We can cover debates among mainstream scholars. I'm all for it. But we discard apologetics out of hand. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:00, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Time of authorship

Twice in the article we claim that "Scholars generally agree that it was written between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE" but there is actually considerable debate about this, with some believing that it is in fact the oldest book of the Bible. We offer just a single citation in claim of this alleged "general agreement." (This citation is moreover to a book so the reader cannot access the author's claim.) If there is a scholarly consensus about the time of authorship, we should offer more than one citation. 2600:1702:6D0:5160:F0D0:B8E7:47EB:5826 (talk) 18:01, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

I haven't seen evidence of a consensus, but see the above talk page section ("Authorship Timeline") and the typical nature of edits coming from the other two wikipedians in that discussion across the article's edit history (they are still both quite recently active on this article) for an example of the response to trying to use neutral language for precisely this subject. It gives the impression that this is a pet article of a certain subcommunity of editors that simply asserts a "consensus/mainstream exclusivity requirement" in their frequent reversions, which is, while inconsistent with the way Wikipedia is meant to be edited and very likely a violation of WP:OWN, consistent across many articles relating to theology.

The claims of a "scholarly consensus" are actually contradictory to the other cited texts in the section - the beginning of the paragraph linked by citation 48 is literally "No one knows for sure when Job was written. Some scholars have claimed... that it is a very ancient work, ...but...." The section linked by citation 46 goes into detail with examples throughout the history of scholarly thought regarding the linguistic choices and culminates with the author's own interpretation of their motive, but does not claim a scholarly consensus at all. The google books preview for the work cited for the claim of consensus directly (citation 2) explicitly omits the exact page cited, so that's not useful. It is worth noting that two of these (citations 2 and 46) are published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, which, regardless of the proclivities of that publisher, don't particularly grant credence to claims of a general scholarly consensus.

Clearly the debate is still ongoing as of those publications. Clearly certain prolific editors of this article would rather that it wasn't. Apart from some feeling of unjustified ownership over the article's contents, I'm genuinely baffled as to why. InkTide (talk) 21:15, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Only one source has claimed that Job is based on the book of Ezekiel's character (Eze 14:14, 20). The vast consensus is that Ezekiel had read the book of Job. Everybody believes that. Actually, the book of Job is known to be written/compiled shortly after the Pentateuch, and there's no mention of this in this article. 77.99.67.184 (talk) 23:53, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

See https://www.reddit.com/r/Bible/comments/12s8qf9/the_book_of_job_is_the_oldest_book_in_the_bible/ tgeorgescu (talk) 00:10, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Is Reddit really a reliable source? ViolanteMD (talk) 00:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

@ViolanteMD: No, it isn't. I would never WP:CITE it inside articles. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:30, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I see! Thanks for explaining. ViolanteMD (talk) 00:32, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the book of Job is much older than stated. The participants all lived c.1800 BCE and can be traced to the Book of Genesis/Book of Jasher as 2-4 generation descendants of Abraham or his brother Nahor, and the events would have been recorded within a relatively short time later for the original copy. 2600:4040:5B8E:3E00:7139:64BC:9F08:80C0 (talk) 21:41, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not peddle WP:IN-UNIVERSE chronologies.

We go by what mainstream academic sources say. tgeorgescu (talk) 08:56, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I checked the source and it says Job was written between the 7th and 4th centuries, not the 7th and 3rd. Odd mistake for some editor to have made. Anyway, the corrected (by me) passages in the article are reliably sourced and do include an indication that this date-range is commonly held by scholars, so that's it. Achar Sva (talk) 05:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC)