Where Shall Wisdom be Found?: Calvin's Exegesis of Job from Medieval and Modern Perspectives

Through countless retellings, from the Talmud to Archibald MacLeish and since, the story of Job has been a fixture in the cultural imagination of the West, captivating the human imagination and forcing its readers to wrestle with the most painful realities of human existence. In this study, Susan E. Schreiner analyzes interpretations of the Book of Job by Gregory the Great, Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas, and particularly John Calvin. Reading Calvin's interpretation against the background of his medieval predecessors, she shows how central Job is to Calvin's struggles with some basic theological issues. Calvin and his predecessors put forth a variety of explanations for Job's wisdom, focusing on discussions of suffering, inferiority, enlightenment, union with the Active Intellect, immortality, providence, and faith. The one unifying feature of these precritical Joban commentaries is a concern with intellectual perception - in particular, with what Job saw or understood. What did the friends, who defended God, misperceive? Why did they not see the situation correctly? How does one explain Job's perceptual superiority over his friends? These texts raise basic questions about the human capacity for knowledge: Can suffering, particularly inexplicable suffering, elevate human understandings about God and self? Can humans truly perceive the workings of providence in their personal lives? Are evil and injustice a reality that we must confront before finding wisdom? In her final chapter, Schreiner shows that such concerns are not abandoned in modern critical commentaries and literary transformations of the Joban legend. Her study concludes by tracing the trajectory of these concerns through thewide array of twentieth-century interpretations of Job, including modern biblical commentaries, the work of Carl Jung, and literary transfigurations by Wells, MacLeish, Wiesel, and Kafka. The result is a compelling demonstration of the vital insights the history of exegesis can yield for contemporary culture.