[July 2006 journal entry]
The beginning of Eliphaz’s response (4:2) is as critical a turning point as is the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s beginning to speak in the presence of his three close friends (3:2ff). In both places, a strategic interpretation decision must be made. I faced this decision in my first serious study of the story/play, occasioned by an upper-level undergraduate oral interpretation course in 1974 shortly after my first wife (d. 1987) had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Each student worked all semester on one oral reading for the course. My reading – the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s first words (chapter 3) when he broke the silence with his three close friends.
The beginning of Eliphaz’s response (4:2) is as critical a turning point as is the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s beginning to speak in the presence of his three close friends (3:2ff). In both places, a strategic interpretation decision must be made. I faced this decision in my first serious study of the story/play, occasioned by an upper-level undergraduate oral interpretation course in 1974 shortly after my first wife (d. 1987) had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Each student worked all semester on one oral reading for the course. My reading – the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s first words (chapter 3) when he broke the silence with his three close friends.