The Emergence of the Biblical Book of Job on the Backdrop of the so-called Job Literature
The aim of the project is a methodologically sound, complex and utterly transparent full-screen picture of the history of the Job literature, in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, as well as other relevant languages of the time. Immediate forerunners of the Job literature in the Bible and the mediate relatives in extra-biblical literature (Mesopotamia) as well as the biblical and extra-biblical traditions contemporary to all the authors of the book in the second temple period in Palestine (e.g., Proverbs, Ben Sira, wisdom in Dead Sea Scrolls) or immediately following them (e.g., Job’s translations, particularly the Old Greek version, also the Testament of Job, and the early Hebrew and Aramaic aftermath in the next centuries) will be taken into account. It is an innovative attempt to synthesize the results of various methodological approaches to the book, in order to ascertain an entire literary history of the Job literature (text, form, ideas) and the methodology suitable for that purpose.
This work was supported by the Estonian Research Council grant (PRG938).
Research Team Leader
Urmas Nõmmik
Dr. theol. habil., Associate Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Studies.
Project assignment: Commentary of the Book of Job (Historical Commentary of the Old Testament, Leuven: Peeters), monograph on methodology (form, text and redaction criticism), the West-Semitic backdrop of Job.
Expertise: Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, Job, Psalms, Genesis, poetology and form history, hermeneutics, motif history, history of religion of Ancient Israel, research history in Estonia.
Profiles: ETIS / academia.edu
Senior Research Staff
Andreas Johandi
PhD, Research Fellow in Near Eastern Religions
Project assignment: The study of Ancient Near Eastern parallels to the Book of Job.
Expertise: Religious history of Mesopotamia, early Mesopotamian pantheon, the god Asalluhi, Mesopotamian magic.
Profiles: ETIS / academia.edu
Ergo Naab
PhD, Research Fellow in New Testament
Project assignment: Translation and commentary of the Testament of Job ("Bible in Context" series).
Expertise: New Testament, Paul, pseudepigrafic literature, formation of the early Christian ideology, social-historical and postcolonial research.
Profiles: ETIS / academia.edu
Anu Põldsam
PhD, Lecturer in Jewish Studies
Project assignment: Motif and reception history of the Book of Job in early Jewish literature (Talmud, midrashim, the Testament of Job)
Expertise: Hebrew language, history of Jewish ideas, hermneutics, motif history, history of Jewish Studies
Profiles: ETIS / academia.edu
Research Staff
Sirli Ellermäe
MA
Project assignment: Wisdom and psalm parallels to Job in the Qumran literature
Expertise: Hodayot in Qumran
Jonas Jakobson
MA
Project assignment: Poetological parallels among the deuterocanonical wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament
Expertise: Poetology and the genre-specific structure of the poetic texts of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament and Ben Sira, wisdom literature of the Hebrew bible / Old Testament; ancient Near-East, Egypt and Greece; Ugaritology.
Profiles: ETIS
Diana Tomingas,
MA, PhD student
Project assignment: Research on literary and form criticism in the Hebrew book of Job.
Expertise: Biblical Hebrew, poetology and literary features of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament.
Profiles: ETIS / academia.edu
Rahel Toomik
Project assignment: The Greek patristic reception of biblical literature
Expertise: Patristics
Amir Vasheghanifarahani
MA, PhD student
Project assignment: Hebrew and Syriac texts of the book of Job
Expertise: Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Peshitta, Syriac literature and Poetry
Alice Vijard
MA, PhD student
Project assignment: Parallels of the Book of Job and Wisdom literature to the Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Arabic tradition, Hebrew and Arabic Poetry in Medieval Spain.
Expertise: Arabic language and literature, Pre-Islamic poetry, Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, Solomonic tradition.
Profiles: ETIS