ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on ways to approach the question of bodily suffering in the book of Job. It argues that the genre of Job might best be understood as dramatised comedy, which undermines the moralising advice that is given to Job by his friends, who understand his bodily predicament as retribution for wrongdoing. It suggests the possibility of imagining Job as a play to be performed with similarities to Aristophanes and the Athenian theatre. The chapter argues against retrospective diagnosis in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Instead of diagnosing Job, the chapter asks questions such as how might research from medical anthropology – specifically illness narratives, language about pain, and somatic metaphors – contribute to our understanding of the body in the Hebrew Bible and in the book of Job? What methodological hurdles are involved in such an interdisciplinary challenge, and how might we overcome them? The chapter discusses and opposes the idea that pain resists language, or is inexpressible, and highlights the way that language about pain and illness is highly socially coded.
