diff --git a/writing/3/unknown-things/iyov/1-framing-devices.md b/writing/3/unknown-things/iyov/1-framing-devices.md index 10dfb8a7..5a86e982 100644 --- a/writing/3/unknown-things/iyov/1-framing-devices.md +++ b/writing/3/unknown-things/iyov/1-framing-devices.md @@ -46,8 +46,12 @@ Of all of the book of Job, it is this framing device which seems to cause the mo [^1works]: A simplification, of course, but perhaps a good starting point. -[^1satan]: This is the translation of the phrase in Hebrew, *hasatan*. Alter notes that it wasn't until much more recently that this was refigured as specifically Satan: "The word *satan* is a person, thing, or set of circumstances that constitutes an obstacle or frustrates one's purposes."[^1makyo] \parencite[466]{alter} The Jewish Publication Society concurs. (Job 1:6, JPS via Sefaria) It is job title more than it is identity. In fact, the transition from the Adversary to Satan himself is fraught ((etc etc, also footnote to ally)) +[^1satan]: This is the translation of the phrase in Hebrew, *hasatan*. Alter notes that it wasn't until much more recently that this was refigured as specifically Satan: "The word *satan* is a person, thing, or set of circumstances that constitutes an obstacle or frustrates one's purposes."[^1makyo] \parencite[466]{alter} The Jewish Publication Society concurs. (Job 1:6, JPS via Sefaria) It is job title more than it is identity. In fact, the transition from the Adversary to Satan himself is fraught.[^1ally] ((etc etc, also footnote to ally)) [^1makyo]: Shortly after I started to realize just how ill-suited I was to music education, I went through a change of identity online. While before I had gone by the name 'Ranna', cribbed from Garth Nix's excellent Old Kingdom series, I now began to go by the name Makyo, a zen Buddhist term which bears a similar meaning. Something about just how focused many of the general teacher education classes were on things other than education filled me with a sense that I might not actually be in any way helping students, but simply standing in their way. I was *makyō*. I was *satan*. -[^1die]: ((Alter suggests sarcastic interpretation: what is the point of maintaining your innocence? Might as well, wretch that you are. NOAB has his wife as more sympathetic in that she has *also* lost everything; Job's reply not sinning with his lips disproves the Adversary, though it also has the 'god gives bad too', which, complex thoughts)) +[^ally]: I, at one point, was overtaken by the need to tell my story through the frame of a conversation with an ally. I described them --- or perhaps they described themselves; the boundary between framing device and reality blurs --- as "an ally, not a friend." Towards the end of the project, we had a 'conversation' wherein I attempt to describe their inverse. Their response: "Not your enemy, but your adversary." \parencite[25]{ally-making-of} + +[^1die]: There is a difference in interpretation, here. On the one hand, Alter suggests that Job's wife is being sardonic here, saying, "Job's wife assumes either that cursing God will immediately lead to Job's death, which might be just as well, or that, given his ghastly state, he will soon die anyway" \parencite[469]{alter}. Might as well curse anyway, eh? + + The editors of the NOAB take a more sympathetic view of the exchange. Job's wife is seen as far more sympathetic: "The outcome of all Job's piety has beento rob his wife of her ten children, her social standing, and her livelihood." \parencite[737]{noab} Curse God, then. Who else could be responsible? How can you continue to praise after our ten (admittedly unnamed) children have died?