Thread by @JamesBejon

THREAD: The book of Job has a fundamentally *fractal* structure, which is quite remarkable once you see it (and not without exegetical significance).

#BibleStudy

#Fractal

Let me try to explain.

The book of Job is built around five fivefold patterns.

These patterns have two main features:

first, they have a sense of oscillation (ABABA),

and, second, they have a sense of climax/progression, which often concludes on a note of surprise.

A nice example is YHWH’s initial dialogue with Satan in 1.6–12:

As can be seen, YHWH’s dialogue with Satan dialogue has both a sense of oscillation (in its speakers: ABABA)

as well as a sense of progression. In line 1, YHWH asks Satan an apparently innocent question. (‘Where have you been?’)

In line 2, Satan responds evasively. (‘Oh, here and there!’)

In line 3, YHWH focuses the discussion on the story’s main character, namely Job.

In line 4, the discussion comes to a head as Satan offers God a wager,

which leaves us anxious to find out what will happen next.

And, in line 5, we do find out: YHWH’s dialogue with Satan comes to a conclusion as—to our surprise—YHWH accepts Satan’s wager!

——————

YHWH’s next dialogue with Satan follows exactly the same pattern:

And such patterns turn out to permeate the book of Job, each with its own particular emphasis.

Consider, for instance, the text of 1.13–22:

Like Satan’s dialogue with Job, Job’s ‘disaster scene’ has a clear sense of oscillation (insofar as it oscillates between ‘human disasters’ and ‘acts of God’).

More notable, however, is its sense of direction/crescendo (⟨ABCDE⟩).

In 1.14, Job receives his first item of news. The Sabeans, he is told, have taken his cattle and slain his servants.

Then, before Job is able to respond—i.e., before we find out how Job will react—, a second messenger arrives, who brings Job news of a second disaster.

And then, before Job is able to respond, a third messenger arrives, and finally a fourth.

Hence, as the scene unfolds, our sense of expectation/anticipation heightens, while the repetition of the words ‘I alone am left’ anticipate the awful exile/isolation about to befall Job.

Job’s reaction to these disasters even follows a fivefold pattern,

...which has a sense both of oscillation (A = ‘God gives’, B = ‘God takes away’, etc.) as well as progression, since it builds up to Job’s great act of worship in 1.21.

That is to say, Job’s first four statements are statements of fact which don’t determine what follows them.

With his fifth statement, Job could still, plausibly, curse God.

Yet, remarkably, and wonderfully, he does not.

And Job’s next disaster scene follows the same pattern:

...which has the usual sense of oscillation and progress.

Fivefold patterns therefore abound.

Meanwhile, the top and tail of the book of Job embody a distinct symmetry, which is also fivefold in nature:

As a result, the book of Job has a remarkable structure, which is built around five fivefold scenes.

And, in each case, the scene’s shape is coupled with its message.

For the full details and exegetical payoffs, cf. here:

academia.edu/41599112/

REFLECTIONS.

In sum, then, fivefold patterns are hardbaked into the structure of Job, from the overall shape of its five scenes, to the individual acts of those scenes, to YHWH’s dialogue with Satan, to Job’s famous utterance (‘Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, etc.’).

Hence, like God’s creation, each individual part of the book of Job has been conceived in light of its contribution to the whole, and would leave a notable hole in its absence.

And yet, for all its regularity, the book of Job never absolutely conforms to any one pattern.

Like the ‘aromatic ring’ on which various polymers are based, it fluctuates between two plausible structures. (Should 1.1–5 be treated as ‘Scene 1’ or an ‘Intro’?) And it embodies a number of exceptions to what at times seems to be an invariant pattern.

And that too is an important part of Job’s message of Job.

As Job’s friends failed to realise, every rule/pattern has its exceptions. (Just because trials are normally the result of sin doesn’t mean they always are.)

And just as there are more things in heaven and earth than are comprehended by our finite minds, so there are more things in the book of Job than can be subsumed by any one structure.

Very few commentaries on the book of Job seem able to simply exegete its contents without long discussions of when different parts of the book were written (and by which brand of theologian),

and yet the final structure of Job—which, when all is said and done, is the form in which we access it—is highly unified and is tightly and beautifully integrated with its contents, form, and message.

The moral of the story in terms of exegesis is, therefore, clear: more attention to final structure; less to theories of formation.

THE END.