The Book of Job in Wonderland: Making (Non)Sense of Job's Mediators

Description

The book of Job and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland may not seem like natural bedfellows at first, but both have become literary classics by lifting a voice of protest against injustice. They employ similar techniques to mock self-assured moralists: nonce-formation, unique orthography, frame tales, episodic plot structure, and parodies of religious songs. Both culminate in a chaotic trial that remains unresolved. At every turn, these books subvert conventions of genre and even language itself. Job and Alice become curiouser and curiouser as their most foundational beliefs are challenged. In this creative new study, Ryan M. Armstrong explores mediation in Job's land of Uz with insights gained from Wonderland - Job and Alice must both learn the value of honest protest, a lesson intensified by their would-be mediators. Readers throughout history have long been mesmerized by Job's search for a “redeemer,” a mediator that will stand between him and God. But few have noted the pervasiveness of mediation throughout the book, which opens and closes with mediatory acts. Armstrong turns attention to the mediation (and un-mediation) of Job's primary interlocutors. Like Wonderland's Queen of Hearts, God thunders into Job's life and reminds him that few mediators are willing to stand up to authority. Like the King of Hearts, Job's three friends take the side of the most powerful disputant, God. Like Wonderland's Gryphon, Elihu creates a cliffhanger before the dénouement and offers a moment of reflection. In the end, Job, like Alice, clings to his honesty and refuses to flatter authority. Making use of philological and linguistic analysis in conversation with history's rabbis, theologians, and artists, Armstrong provides detailed readings of key poems within their literary context. These readings are then viewed through a looking-glass of comparative work, relating Job and his friends to Wonderland and other cultural touchpoints. The Book of Job in Wonderland offers an important contribution to the field of biblical studies through the lens of a classic text.