The blessing and the curse of Job

Abstract

This thesis argues that the theme of blessing and curse runs through all the book of Job and it is not limited to the prose parts (prologue and epilogue) and the third chapter where the idea of --blessing and curse has been expressed by the traditional terms of blessing and curse. What is being aimed at in this work is not the reconstruction of the concepts, but studying blessing and curse as a theme, if possible in all their diversity and developments (blessedness and benediction versus cursedness and imprecation). For this reason, a cultural literary approach seems to be the most suitable to apply. First, the thematic approach focuses on the terms as well as the imagery on which the language of poetry used in the wisdom literature drew so extensively. It is considered that the images, motifs and symbols used in the book of Job should be given the same semantic importance as any specific terms. Second, the book of Job is read in certain closeness to the treaty tradition because the covenantal documents provide the detailed lists of blessings and curses and besides, their conceptual framework founded on the retributive axiom is equally present in wisdom traditions and the book of Job. Third, the results of the intertextual readings of the book of Job and the documents of the treaty tradition, especially Deuteronomy 28 and the Vassal Treaty of Esarhaddon, have led to the conclusion that the experience of tragedy described in Job draws on a shared cultural tradition of representation of evil and catastrophe in the legal documents of the Ancient Near East, without necessarily implying the direct influence of one text upon the other.