Job.
It is remarkable that the book which, from a literary point of view, occupies the first place among the books of the Bible, should be the only one in the collection that was not written by a believer in the religion of the Bible. It is almost universally conceded that the book of Job was not written by a Jew, but by a Gentile.
Most Christians ascribe its authorship to Job himself; but there is no more authority for ascribing it to Job than there is for ascribing the Pentateuch to Moses. Job is the name of the leading character of the book, not the name of its author. Its authorship is unknown. The Talmud asserts, and probably correctly, that Job was not a real personage—that the book is an allegory. Luther says, “It is merely the argument of a fable.”
Regarding its antiquity, Dr. Hitchcock says: “The first written of all the books in the Bible, and the oldest literary production in the world, is the book of Job.” The date assigned for its composition is 1520 B.C.
Had Job been written a thousand years before the time claimed, it would not be the oldest literary production in the world. But it was probably written a thousand years after the time claimed. Luther places its composition 500 years after this time; Renan says that it was written 800 years later, Ewald and Davidson 900 years later. Grotius and De Wette believe that it was written 1000 years after the date assigned, while Hartmann and others contend that it was written still later. While its exact date cannot be determined, there is internal evidence pointing to a much later age than that named.
“Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south” (ix, 9).
The use of these Greek astronomical names proves a later origin. So, too, does the following passage:
“The Chaldeans made out three bands” (i, 17).
Of this people Chambers’ Encyclopedia says: “The Chaldeans are first heard of in the ninth century before Christ as a small Accadian tribe on the Persian Gulf.” This was seven centuries after the date assigned for Job, while the same authority states that Chaldea did not exist until a still later period.
The poem of Job, as originally composed, comprised the following: Chapters i-xxvii, 10; xxviii-xxxi; xxviii-xli, 12; xlii, 1–6. All the rest of the book, about eight chapters—nearly one fifth of it—consists of clumsy forgeries. The poet is a radical thinker who boldly questions the wisdom and justice of God. To counteract the influence of his work these interpolations which controvert its teachings were inserted.
Nor is this all. Our translators have still further mutilated the work. Its most damaging lines they have mistranslated or glossed over. Thus Job (xiii, 15) says: “He [God] will slay me; I have no hope.” Yet they make him say the very reverse of this: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”