"Have you really read Job? Read him, read him again and again" : Kierkegaard, Vischer, and Barth on the book of Job
Abstract
This thesis explores the reception history of the book of Job, particularly in Søren
Kierkegaard’s Three Upbuilding Discourses and Repetition, Wilhelm Vischer’s “Hiob, ein
Zeuge Jesu Christi,” and Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. It examines the hermeneutical
presuppositions of these three scholars and how the scholars themselves fit into the history
of interpretation, showing that they use a post-critical allegorical interpretation in order to
explore the freedom of God and humanity.
Chapter one offers a defense of using reception history in biblical studies. By
walking through Mikhail Bakhtin’s theories on great time and the chronotope, it argues that
great texts continue to live and grow even after their completion and canonization. During
this “afterlife,” their meaning expands as more readers participate in their interpretations.
Chapter two examines the afterlife of the book of Job in the hands of Christian exegetes,
focusing on allegory and freedom in the interpretations by Gregory the Great, Thomas
Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Immanuel Kant. Chapter three looks at the
unusual and rich interpretations of Job by Kierkegaard—the autonymous upbuilding
discourse on Job’s response to his suffering in the prologue and the novella Repetition as an
interpretation of the dialogue between Job and his friends. Chapter four examines the
interpretation of the book of Job in Vischer’s mini-commentary. Vischer sees the character
of Job as one whose devotion to God goes beyond the laws that God purveys and the
doctrine that seeks to explain God. Referring specifically to the works of Kierkegaard and
Vischer, Karl Barth’s work on Job—the focus of chapter five—sees the book of Job as
illustrative of Jesus Christ’s relationship to God and humanity. All three scholars
incorporated allegory while ruminating on the freedom of God in the book of Job. The final
chapter evaluates their interpretations while addressing their similarities and differences.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
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