Books of Wisdom Literature
Wisdom Literature is a style of Hebrew literature. It was originated from 6th century BC, when the Israelites in exile after being swept into the AD era. These literary works are such as "Wisdom books." "Wisdom literature" has four main characteristics: 1. The writing time should be after the Israelis were swept and before the birth of Jesus Christ; 2. The contents should focus on ethics, but not designed to focus on theology; 3. The way of expression are mainly the maxim, aphorism, metaphor, fables, poems, eulogy, etc; 4. The writing object is not only limited to Jews. There are five main books of Wisdom Literature, Book of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms and Song of Songs.
First, Job is a faithful servant of God who is known for piety and patience. At that time, the Israelites were polluted to worship the Egyptian demons, but only Job is adhered to worship the God purely. The most ancient tradition believed that Moses is the author of this book. Many Jewish and early Christian scholars also agreed with this proposition. It is because the style of Job is very similar with the Pentateuch. So, the time of writing should be estimated around 1500 BC of the Patriarch Period. Most of this book (3:1-42:6) is a form of play or epic written. The front (1:1-2:13) is a prelude and (42:7-17) is the end. These two parts is written in prose form. Job not only teaches a great truth. “The Book of Job deals with one of man's oldest questions: Why do the righteous suffer?” (Massimiliano) Although this book deals with the fundamental question "Why do the righteous people always suffer unfair disaster?”, this is not the main focus. The main focus is on: “When God does not answer why the righteous people are suffering, what should the righteous people response to their suffering?” Confidence without testing is not a complete confidence. In order to strengthen the confidence, confidence must go through trials. Job did not know why he needed to suffer...