This thesis explores the reception history of the book of Job, particularly in Søren Kierkegaard's Three Upbuilding Discourses and Repetition, Wilhelm Vischer's “Hiob, ein Zeuge Jesu Christi,” and Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics. It examines the hermeneutical presuppositions of these three scholars and how the scholars themselves fit into the history of interpretation, showing that they use a post-critical allegorical interpretation in order to explore the freedom of God and humanity. Chapter one offers a defense of using reception history in biblical studies. By walking through Mikhail Bakhtin's theories on great time and the chronotope, it argues that great texts continue to live and grow even after their completion and canonization. During this “afterlife,” their meaning expands as more readers participate in their interpretations. Chapter two examines the afterlife of the book of Job in the hands of Christian exegetes, focusing on allegory and freedom in the interpretations by Gregory the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Immanuel Kant. Chapter three looks at the unusual and rich interpretations of Job by Kierkegaard—the autonymous upbuilding discourse on Job's response to his suffering in the prologue and the novella Repetition as an interpretation of the dialogue between Job and his friends. Chapter four examines the interpretation of the book of Job in Vischer's mini-commentary. Vischer sees the character of Job as one whose devotion to God goes beyond the laws that God purveys and the doctrine that seeks to explain God. Referring specifically to the works of Kierkegaard and Vischer, Karl Barth's work on Job—the focus of chapter five—sees the book of Job as illustrative of Jesus Christ's relationship to God and humanity. All three scholars incorporated allegory while ruminating on the freedom of God in the book of Job. The final chapter evaluates their interpretations while addressing their similarities and differences.

The Book of Job is composed of several different genres and worldviews. The present thesis argues that Bakhtin's dialogism and chronotope are useful tools for reading the book of Job, in particular here, Job 1-11, by hearing each different voice as a unique and equally weighted voice. In the prologue, almost all readers may read the narrator's voice as an authoritative and determinative voice. However, Bakhtin's dialogic idea advocates reading other characters' voices-Job's, God's, hassatan's, the four messengers' and Job's wife's voices-in the same position as the narrator's voice. The narrator's voice and the other characters' voices play their roles in inviting readers to expect more different voices to satisfy their readings on Job in the book of Job rather than to provide a clear definition of Job as a perfectly pious man. In the dialogue, Job's voice provides its own understanding of Job as a wise and perfect man by interacting dialogically with the voices in the prologue and his three friends' voices. Job's voice clarifies Job's effort to reestablish his time and space, which have been shattered, in his new and estranged chronotope. Also, by clearly defining his relationship with his body, God and his three friends, Job's voice demonstrates Job as both a man who possesses a keen knowledge and wisdom and as a perfect man. In the dialogue, Job's three friends' voices also provide their own understanding of Job as an unrighteous and sinful man by interacting dialogically with Job's voices. In the first cycle of the dialogue, Eliphaz encourages Job to be patient because he is bound to be restored because of his integrity. Bildad doubts Job's righteousness and recommends that he should accept Eliphaz' and the former generations' teachings about the retributive order of the world, so that he may return to righteousness and be restored. Zophar is certain that Job is a sinner and warns that Job needs to repent his sins in order to earn a bright future. Finally. all the voices in the prologue and in the dialogue work together rather than quarrelling with each other. As the pieces of a puzzle make the whole picture when they come together, even though all the voices in Job 1-11 have different ideologies, when they come together, they can also provide a whole picture of Job. This picture of Job offers readers a different way to read the book: reading the book of Job to find better questions rather than answers. V III.

Le motif de la fragilité humaine dans le Psaume dit « de Moïse » est appréhendé dans une vision positive. Elle relativise l’apparente souffrance humaine, et suggère la reconnaissance du destin de l’homme, comme une voie de sagesse. Si cette réalité apparaît d’une façon visible dans ce Psaume, c’est grâce à la stratégie que les rédacteurs du Psautier ont exploité. Cette stratégie apparait à travers la disposition des versets dans le Psaume 90 d’une part, d’autre part, à travers la place du Psaume 90 dans le quatrième livre du Psautier. En effet, préoccupé par la question du retour de YHWH qu’il sollicite dès le début du Psaume, le psalmiste sollicite le motif de la fragilité humaine, comme un trait de différence entre YHWH et l’homme, dans le but de persuader ce dernier à reconnaître la grandeur de YHWH, comme maître du temps et de l’histoire. Dès lors, les limites du temps qui s’imposent à la nature de l’homme, ne doivent plus être appréhendées comme un mal, ni comme le résultat d’une quelconque punition de l’homme, mais plutôt comme une caractéristique de la condition humaine. En ce sens, le Psaume 90 considère la fragilité humaine comme un code- cryptogramme de la sagesse et comme un motif, qui offre un accès significatif, pour véhiculer une perception tout à fait originale de la foi à l’époque Post-Exilique. Dans ce contexte en effet, le psalmiste plonge son lecteur dans une méditation où se révèle le sentiment de culpabilité du psalmiste et de sa communauté, à la suite de la catastrophe de l’Exil, et de la chute de la monarchie qu’il vit comme la conséquence de la colère de YHWH. En réponse à cette lamentation, la reprise du motif de la fragilité humaine des Ps 88-89 dans le Psaume 90 et dans le quatrième livre du Psautier, requiert une double importance à savoir, amener l’homme à assumer les échecs, et les souffrances dûes à la chute de la monarchie et à la destruction du temple d’une part, et d’autre part, persuader ce dernier à compter encore et toujours sur la dsx de YHWH.D’une façon générale, les réponses du Psaume 90 sur les fragilités humaines remettent la question de la foi en Dieu au cœur de la vie humaine. Ce Psaume 90 n’élude nullement la réelle souffrance que l’homme éprouve, ni n’encourage une résignation coupable de sa part, mais propose une nouvelle re-définition de l’homme. L’homme peut affirmer sa foi en Dieu, comme maître des temps et de l’histoire,sans être perturbé par les limites que lui impose son état d’être mortel. Ce réalisme de la vie humaine apparaît, comme une condition indispensable pour réaliser l’équilibre entre le réalisme de la vie et l’espérance en Dieu. / The motif of human weakness, in the Psalm known as the Psalm of Moses is apprehended in a positive vision. It relativizes the apparent human suffering, and suggests the recognition of the destiny of man, as a way to wisdom. If this reality appears visibly in this Psalm, it’s thanks to the strategy used by the writers of the Psalter. This strategy appears through the layout of the verses in Psalm 90 on the one hand, and through the place of Psalm 90 in the fourth book of the Psalter on the other hand. Indeed, concerned by the question of the return of YHWH that he seeks from the beginning of the Psalm, the psalmist considers the reason for human frailty, as a sign of the difference between YHWH and man to persuade the latter to recognize the greatness of YHWH, master of time and history. Therefore, the time limits imposed on the nature of the human being, should be understood neither as an evil, nor as the result of any punishment for him, but rather as a feature of the human condition. In this sense, Psalm 90 considers human weakness as a cipher code of wisdom and as a ground, which offers a significant access to convey a quite original perception of the faith at the Post - Exilique time. In this context, indeed, the psalmist plunges his reader into a meditation where the guilt of the psalmist and his community, following the disaster of the Exile and the fall of the monarchy which he saw as a consequence of the wrath of YHWH, is revealed. In response to this lament, the resumption of the motif of the human weakn ess of the Ps 88-89 in Psalm 90 and in the fourth book of the Psalter, requires a double importance that consists, on the one hand, in leading man to assume the failures and the suffering due to the fall of the monarchy and the destruction of the temple, and on the other hand in persuading the latter to rely on YHWH’s dsx again and again.Generally, the responses of Psalm 90 about human weakness put the question of faith in God at the heart of the human life. Psalm 90 doesn’t at all, either elude the real suffering that man experiences, or encourages a guilty resignation on his part, but proposes a new re - definition of man. Man can assert his faith in God the master of time and history, without being disturbed by the limits imposed on him by his state of being mortal. This realism of human life appears as an essential condition to achieve the balance between the realism of life and hope in God.

This synoptic analysis of verses from Job chapters 37-39 in 11Q10, the Peshitta version (PJob) and the rabbinic targum (RJob) aims to identify the translators’ methods for handling the Hebrew text (HT) and to assess the apparent skills and knowledge brought by them to their task. Additionally, the study engages with recent discussion which challenges the nature of 11Q10 as targum. To this end, PJob and RJob provide accepted models of ‘translation’ and ‘targum’ alongside which to assess 11Q10. The following translation methods are identified, described, compared and contrasted in the three versions: selection,extension, alternative translation, expansion, substitution, adjustment of the consonantal HT, adjustment of the Hebrew word order or division, omission, and conjecture. PJob is confirmed as an attempt to transpose the difficult Hebrew of Job into Syriac. RJob is confirmed as a conservative translation with clear underpinnings in allusion to scripture and to rabbinic traditions attested elsewhere. Significant observations are made regarding an interpretative quality in 11Q10, and new light is cast on its richness and subtlety as an allusive translation. It is proposed that the translation displays deep knowledge of scripture and skill in applying this knowledge. It is further proposed that careful comparison with methods which have been identified in Onqelos is warranted. 11Q10 is identified as an important early witness to scripturally-based motifs which are also found in other intertestamental and rabbinic sources. It is argued that 11Q10’s nature suggests that its purpose was not simply to translate but to understand and subtly explicate the HT, and that it was intended for use alongside it, not as a replacement. The study refutes the categorization of 11Q10 as ‘translation’ rather than ‘targum’, and agrees with its orginal editors that its value lies in its unique witness to the early nature of targum.