The reception of Job in the earliest greek literature

Abstract

Due to his blunt skepticism and an impatience that borders on irreverence, the Job portrayed by the Old Testament Masoretic Text is one of the most philosophically and theologically chal- lenging figures of the Bible. The original Septuagint translator of Job provided a startlingly loose translation which took the first step in rendering the message of the book less theolo- gically problematic. However, the leap in reception from Septuagint Job to the exemplary Job of late-ancient and early medieval Christianity is still dramatic and noteworthy. This article traces the reception of Job in the Greek language from the Septuagint through the earliest Christian-era texts. It also compares the Job in these texts with that of the Testament of Job, a text whose relationship to Christianity is complicated. It will show that the patristic recep- tion of Job, much like that of the Testament of Job, had already progressed a great deal toward a typology that would lead to a Christian reading of the story of Job as a holy man, a saint, and a prefiguration or type of Christ himself.