Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Tony Costa" <tmcos AT rogers.com>]

According to the Babylonian Talmud (b.Baba Bathra 14.14b-15a) it appears
that Job may have lived during the patriarchal era. This rabbinic source
argues that Moses not only authored the Pentateuch (which contains the
patriarchal narratives) but also the book of Job.

Tony Costa


>  In support of Dave Washburn's possibility thinking, some ancient
> orderings of the biblical books put Job right after the Pentateuch,
> and this may be due to the thought that Job lived in the patriarchal
> times. A popular conservative dating for Abraham puts his birth in
> 2166 B.C. By that scheme, if Job had been contemporary with Abraham,
> then his story could have been written prior to 1700 B.C. I've
> recently been reading about the canon, and the fact came up that the
> ancient rabbinic Jews had several conceptions about when Job should
> be dated, and a patriarchal date was one of them.
>
> Yours,
> Harold Holmyard
>