For many people, the default assumption about material in the Bible is this: if it is in the Bible, it must be true; and if it’s true, that means that the events happened just like the text says. I support the notion that if something is in the Bible, it has been included there to help us grasp the truth about God: but that doesn’t mean that the content of the Bible is a series of historical propositions that can be evaluated as true or false.

Some of the most famous parables of Jesus are stories he made up, in order to teach people some important lesson. The story of the Good Samaritan, for example, shows us that it might be a despised foreigner who turns out to be the model of graciousness we should emulate, while the religious leaders walk on past the person in need. The story of the Prodigal Son, part of a series of three parables about lost things getting found, shows us that everyone ought to rejoice when the sinners get redeemed, instead of getting angry and judgmental. Jesus created these stories: they are fiction: but they do indeed help us grasp the truth about God.

In my estimation, Job is a drama created by an unknown Israelite sometime during the heart of the four centuries of slavery that Israel experienced in Egypt. It purports to show us scenes in heaven, where no human could have direct observation. It presents a “conversation” in which one individual speaks in poetry for a chapter, and then another individual speaks in poetry for another chapter. This is a structure that is much more like a drama than it is like a history lesson. In terms of content, the book’s struggle with the problem of suffering fits well with the suffering of the Israelites as slaves in Egypt: “Why does God let us suffer all this oppression and pain? Why doesn’t God fix this situation?”

It is the nature of questions like these that they will not resolve with easy answers. But Job’s friends have an easy answer, which we might call the Conventional Wisdom: God is always just, so if you’re suffering, it must be because God is punishing you for your sins, whether those sins be well-known or well-hidden. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar spend half the book endeavoring to hammer home this notion, with Job telling them over and over that they are wrong. Finally Elihu speaks up, with a five-chapter monologue where he blames Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar for failing to make a convincing case against Job, while himself having no better argument to offer. Then God shows up and speaks to Job: God’s answer appears to be that there are some amazing creatures in this wide world, which God understands, while Job does not. Is that it, then? No, on the last page there is a surprise ending – and almost everyone misses it.

All of this gives the appearance that the narrative has been constructed by an accomplished poet or dramatist. So I assess it to be an extended parable, created by someone who pondered long on the suffering of his or her* people, and presented this strong theological contrast in the form of a poetic dialog between two points of view: are we suffering as slaves from generation to generation because God is punishing our people for our terrible sins? Or are we stuck in this disaster for some other reason? Perhaps you would prefer to think of it as the recording of actual speeches, as given at an actual event. You are free to do so. You should just bear in mind that you are not simply “reading the text” when you do so; you are making an interpretive decision when you decide to assess the narrative that way.

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*In ancient Israel, as in most times and places in this world, it would be boys, and mostly privileged boys, who would have the opportunity to learn reading and writing, to learn literature and rhetoric and wisdom. That is most likely the situation with the book of Job. But there have always been exceptions. Proverbs 31 may have been written down by one of King Lemuel’s scribes, but the king himself testified that the words were an inspired utterance of his mother. Huldah the prophet knew the Lord and the Law, so the king’s messengers consulted her as the one who could give the clearest exposition of scripture. Miriam led the nation in worship. Deborah led the nation in war and peace. There is no signature on the book of Job, no inscription that says it was written by the son of, or the daughter of, some person. Most likely a man, then; but we don’t know. So: his or her.