The Rhetoric of Social Conscience in the Book of Job

Abstract

This article offers a socio-rhetorical analysis of the book of Job. Rhetorical devices of dramatic irony, ambiguity, overstatement, parody (mock heroic narrative) and contrast are identified. These are seen to indicate an alternative narrative in which Job is a judge being tested for the disillusionment of his false piety, specifically the honour values which pervert his administration of the Law. This is seen against an historico-political background in which an urban elite, bolstered by the honour values of the Wisdom Tradition, were able to exploit the poor through corruption of the judiciary. Thus the book of Job is seen as equivalent to a political satire (from a prophetic perspective) in the sense that it is an example story of the reform of a political figure. The honour discourse is seen as offering a means to integrate the Prologue, Dialogues and Epilogue in the book of Job from a didactic perspective. The view that the book of Job is a Wisdom text concerned with universal themes is thus challenged.