Job The Silent: A Study In Historical Counterpoint

One of the great literary classics of biblical literature, the book of Job is best know as a story which exemplifies the virtue of patience in the face of suffering. Indeed, the patience of Job is so well celebrated as to be a cliche. But here one encounters a problem; for throughout the greater art of the book that bears his name, Job is clearly one of the most impatient characters in the Bible.

Offering an original reading of the book of Job, one of the great literary classics of biblical literature, this book develops a new analogical method for understanding how biblical texts evolve in the process of transmission. Zuckerman argues that the book of Job was intended as a parody protesting the stereotype of the traditional righteous sufferer as patient and silent. He compares the book of Job and its fate to that of a famous Yiddish short story, "Bontsye Shvayg," another covert parody whose protagonist has come to be revered as a paradigm of innocent Jewish suffering. Zuckerman uses the story to prove how a literary text becomes separated from the intention of its author, and takes on quite a different meaning for a specific community of readers.