“Bringing Their Gods in Their Hands”: Job and Absolute Orthodoxy

Abstract

Orthodoxies of all sorts can assume an unhealthy power. This essay proposes a reading of Job that discovers a challenge to the role of dogma. The story demonstrates the failure of the friends' rigid adherence to the sapiential orthodoxy of retribution and reward. It is suggested also that a similar censure of religious practice is implied. Job's integrity is not confirmed through wisdom or cultic ritual but in meeting YHWH. An essential twist is that, if placed within a framework of encounter, orthodoxy can, after all, play a valid role.