Date Published:

Abstract:

The Book of Job, like other ancient Near Eastern and biblical texts, makes relatively frequent use of gestures in its discourse. The interpretation of these gestures is often moot. Is a particular gesture physical, which is to say literal, or (also) symbolic, which is to say figurative? How is a gesture’s meaning in a particular context to be divined? Job’s placing his hand over his mouth, for example, is almost universally understood to reflect his self-censure, his silencing of himself. Comparing other instances of this gesture, in Job and elsewhere, leads to a very different nuance of meaning. Silencing oneself is not self-censure but rather an indication of a desire to listen or hear more. This and other gestures in Job will be discussed with attention to the criteria by which meaning, in such instances, is (or is not) determined.

January 2024: Edward L. Greenstein is professor emeritus of Bible at Bar-Ilan University. He has held professorships at the Jewish Theological Seminary and Tel Aviv University and has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School, Yale, Princeton, the Hebrew University, and elsewhere. Recipient of the EMET Prize ("Israel’s Nobel") in the field of Humanities-Biblical Studies, Greenstein has authored and edited numerous works, most prominently Job: A New Translation  (Yale University Press, 2019). He is currently writing commentaries on Job, Lamentations, and Ruth, as well as other books.