CHAPTER XIV.
THE BOOK FROM A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW.
Motto: 'Jedem nämlich wollte ich dienen, der hinlänglich Sinn hat in die grosse Frage tiefer einzugehen, welche das ernste Leben einmal gewiss an Jeden heranbringt, nach der Gerechtigkeit der göttlichen Waltung in den menschlichen Geschicken.'—Stickel (Das Buch Hiob, Einl. S. vi.)
There was a period, not so long since, when a Biblical writing
was valued according to its supposed services to orthodox
theology. From this point of view, the Book of Job was regarded
partly as a typical description of the sufferings of our
Saviour,[1] partly as a repository of text-proofs of Christian
doctrines, which though few in number acquired special importance
from the immense antiquity assigned to the poem.
We must not, in our reaction from the exclusively theological
estimate of the Old Testament, shut our eyes to the significance
of each of its parts in the history of the higher religion.
The Book of Job is theological, though the theology of its
writer, being that of a poet, is less logical than that of an
apostle, less definite even than that of a prophet, in so far as
the prophet obtained (or seemed to obtain) his convictions
by a message or revelation from without. Being a poet,
moreover, the writer of Job can even less than a prophet have
had clear conceptions of the historical Messiah and His
period. Moral and spiritual truths—these were his appointed]
- ↑ 'The Church in all ages has regarded the one as a type of the other,' Turner, Studies Biblical and Oriental, p. 150. But Del. has already dissuaded from insisting too much on the historic character of the story of Job. 'The endurance of Job' (James v. 11) is equally instructive whether the story be real (wirklich) or only ideally true (wahr); and if by the phrase 'the end of the Lord' St. James refers to the Passion of Jesus (to me, however, this appears doubtful), he can be claimed with as much reason for the view of Job here adopted as for the older theory advocated by Turner
