h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Dmitri!

I thought Icy wouldn't relish further discussion on his thread so I'm posting directly to you.

I hadn't known that Job is the oldest book. My first google turned up this http://thescrolleaters.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/the-oldest-book-job-1-5/ which is fascinating, but which also has a comment in the reply section challenging the conclusion that it is the oldest book. The correspondent Paul Schneider makes a good case for Job to have been written "during or after the Persian period".

Wiki doesn't count Job as the oldest book, but proposes something between a 7th and 4th century composition date, with possible forerunners in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Well, I'll tell you where I got that 'oldest book' business. Visiting professor from Oxbridge when I was in graduate school. He was an expert in oral formulaic poetry by the name of Bloomfield, and we had long seminar discussions about Job and the meaning of suffering.

The Job story obviously belongs to an old Semitic tradition. Now, whether the version that we ended up with was written down early or late - that's probably a very complicated question...

It's like 'Beowulf'. That poem's obviously older than the only manuscript we've got, and once again, we can theorise all we like. We can probably get a terminus ante quem - the earliest possible date, like 'the book mentions Abraham, so it can't be older than stories about Abraham', but that would still leave a LOT of wiggle room...

I've just found a study from 1986 that states, 'Scholars vary widely in their dating of the book of Job, from the time of the patriarchs to the postexilic era.'

http://books.google.com/books?id=f-m5GnRjDckC&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=oral+formulaic+book+of+job&source=bl&ots=Cf5pUWQ2jZ&sig=xQVaouarP2Gxoxn39m8pCcUD9ow&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXg43wmL_QAhUE74MKHfWYAN0Q6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=oral%20formulaic%20book%20of%20job&f=false

And of course, when you date the other books depends on what you believe about the antiquity of the other text material, and how much redaction took place during the Exile. (I suspect Ezra of many things...) Can of worms, there...

This writer seems to support early 7th Century BCE, which would put it about the same time as early Isaiah. Of course, Biblical literalists refuse to believe in more than one Isaiah, because it messes with their heads. Oh, what a tangled subject is Biblical scholarship: in comparison, trying to date something like 'Beowulf' is a piece of cake. Nobody's religious beliefs depend on Beowulf.

Anyway, excellent point there, thanks for bringing it up. I learned something.

If you ever find a definitive date for Job, let me know.