Enduring Job: The Book of Job in Early Medieval Jewish Literature
William Blake, Job Confessing His Presumption to God Who Answers from the Whirlwind, object 1 (Butlin 461)
Enduring Job: The Book of Job in Early Medieval Jewish Literature
This project investigates the reception of the scriptural book of Job in early medieval Jewish literature. The study of the Jewish reception of the book of Job has so far been approached either with a focus on the classical literature of the rabbinic period (redacted between the third and seventh centuries CE) or on works composed from the tenth century onward. This project’s aim is to map with the aid of tools of digital humanities the little-known reception of the book of Job in early medieval Jewish literature, identifying and interpreting its traditions on Job in a set of Jewish texts assumed to have been redacted between the seventh and the ninth centuries. Its goal is to find out how the anonymous intellectuals behind these texts envisioned Job and how they tackled the questions the book poses.
News
FWF grant for project Job in Early Medieval Jewish Literature
Talks
“On dividing and binding scrolls, creating and authoring Torah: bBB 13b–16b”. Conference: The Authority of the “Writings” (Ketubim). Ebernburg, Bad Münster am Stein, September 2024.
“On the shoulders of wise scriptural giants: Reflections on the relative importance of wisdom according to a late midrash.” 18th World Congress of Jewish Studies. Jerusalem, August 2022.
“Have you noticed My servant Job? (Job 1:8): On the Gentile, the Patient, the Righteous and the Protester Job in premodern Jewish tradition.” International Jewish-Christian Bible Week. Georgsmarienhütte/Osnabrück, July 2022.
“Enduring Job: The use of Job in Pesiqta Rabbati.” NAPH 2022 International conference on Hebrew Language, Literature, and Culture. Austin, June 2022.
“Rabbinised Job: Revisiting the Job of the Sages.” Lustrumcongress Job in het vroege christendom. Stichting Oudchristelijke Studiën. Driebergen, September 2021.
Publications
Review of Jason Kalman. The Book of Job in Jewish Life and Thought: Critical Essays. Cincinatti, OH: Hebrew Union College Press, 2021. In Journal for the Study of Judaism 55 (2024): 124–127 (DOI: http://doi.org/10.1163/15700631-12511385 ).
“Hiob, der Gott sucht”. Dein Wort, mein Weg: alltägliche Begegnung mit der Bibel 4/23 (2023): 34–36.
“On Seder Eliyahu, Wisdom, and Job.” Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 44 (2021–2022): 1–25 (DNB: https://d-nb.info/011086114).
“‘Have you noticed My servant Job?’ (Job 1:8): On the Gentile, the Patient, the Righteous and the Protester Job in premodern Jewish tradition”. European Journal of Jewish Studies (forthcoming Spring 2025).
With L. Teugels, “Early Jewish Readings of Job.” In Biblical Job in Early Christianity: Origins, Reception, Context, edited by A.-K. Geljon, P. Rose, and N. Vos. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae. Leiden: Brill (accepted for publication).
Taught Courses
Hiob: Bibel und Nachleben/Job: Bible and Afterlife. Institut für Judaistik, Univ. Wien, 2021.
Hiob: Jüdische Lektüren/Job: Jewish Readings. Institut für Judaistik, FU Berlin, 2022.