update from sparkleup
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<article class="content">
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<p>I was young, once, and dumb.</p>
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<p>Which is not to say that I’m not, now, of course. I certainly feel it sometimes. Even the young bit: Madison is, what, eight now? Not many eight year olds are smart. I still fumble. I still seem to create those humiliating moments that stick in the memory and make me wince whenever they come up, though they’ve changed in tenor over the years.</p>
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<p>But I was young and dumb and desperately trying to figure out what the hell was going on with my identity, this awkward pile of senses and sensations that were causing so much friction in my life. “Identity is psychopathological,” my first psychologist said. “You only feel it when there’s friction.”<sup id="fnref:younes-interpolations"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:younes-interpolations">1</a></sup> I’m not totally sure that I agree — trans joy is as much a thing as trans pain — but, as a statement, it’s true enough, most of the time. Something about the way my life was built such that the smallest things, coarse as sandpaper, would brush up against something integral, and scrape away at its surface, leaving tracks colored cherry.</p>
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<p>It’s strange to think back to those early discussions with him, too. That insight hit at such a strange time in my life. It came up in a discussion about my stresses around work. I think I said something like, “I’ve wrapped up my need to be productive as part of my identity.” I had been talking about the burnout I felt looming on the horizon</p>
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<p>But I was young and dumb and desperately trying to figure out what the hell was going on with my identity, this awkward pile of senses and sensations that were causing so much friction in my life. </p>
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<p>An aside: “Identity is psychopathological,” my first psychologist said. “You only feel it when there’s friction.”<sup id="fnref:younes-interpolation1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:younes-interpolation1">1</a></sup> I’m not totally sure that I agree — trans joy is as much a thing as trans pain — but, as a statement, it’s true enough, most of the time. Something about the way my life was built such that the smallest things, coarse as sandpaper, would brush up against something integral, and scrape away at its surface, leaving tracks colored cherry.</p>
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<p>It’s strange to think back to those early discussions with him, too. That insight hit at such a strange time in my life. It came up in a discussion about my stresses around work. I think I said something like, “I’ve wrapped up my need to be productive as part of my identity.” I had been talking about the burnout I felt looming on the horizon. I had been expecting some discussion of how to tackle the concept of burnout (something I struggle with bad enough that I quit my job in tech to focus on an MFA), but instead, I had that simple phrase thrown at me, and I was left scrabbling after truths.</p>
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<p>That wasn’t the only bit of identity I was feeling acutely either, after all, was it? I’d felt that before, back when I first came out as — at the time — gay. I felt it with work and how it was grating at me. I’d felt the way it ground up against me, skinning my elbows and knees, a sort of road rash of the self.</p>
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<p>But now I was feeling it in some new, far stranger way, though I couldn’t put my finger on just how, exactly. I was feeling <em>something</em>, but heaven knows what. Something deeper, far more integral.</p>
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<p>There must be some way of debriding that scuffed and stripped self-stuff, I thought, so that what you’re left with is some purer version of yourself, something all the more whole for what was there now being gone. There must be some way to pare that cruft away. There had to be, right? If one was to live happily, there had to be.</p>
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<p>An aside: Years later, one job and one house and one more dog and one more self later, I called him to ask if he would be willing to write a WPATH letter for me so that I could start HRT, and he said, “I don’t think I can. I don’t know enough about it, and you don’t want to know how I feel about it.”<sup id="fnref:younes-interpolation2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:younes-interpolation2">5</a></sup></p>
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<p>I never talked to him again.</p>
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<p>All the same, I was young, I was dumb, and I was flaking away at the edges of that more fundamental identity. I was making use of the space I had to explore in clumsy, </p>
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<p>An aside: ((furry as a queer space))</p>
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<p>In fact, though many of the same ideas within the hymn are also there in Ecclesiastes, those in the latter tend to be more refined, more fleshed out. This might be due to the later date of composition of the former, but may also be due to the context of the book and the interpolated nature of the hymn. The author of the hymn views wisdom as an ephemeral concept. It is not something that can be held or perceived by man, or, indeed, life itself: “It is hidden from the eye of all living” (Job 28:21, Alter). Even other abstract (though often personified) concepts seem to have difficulty with it: “Perdition and Death have said, “With our own ears we have heard its rumor.”” (Job 28:22, Alter)</p>
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<p>Qohelet, on the other hand, has a much more grounded view.<sup id="fnref:younes-qohelet-interpolation"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:younes-qohelet-interpolation">3</a></sup> He says that wisdom is one of those things that you gain by experiencing, something that abides through all of the ups and downs in your life and is only ever strengthened. This is not to say that he is in any way upbeat, however. Wisdom, folly, riches, merriment, these all will go with you to the grave. They, too, will be meaningless.</p>
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<p>Christian sources, however, all lean on righteous, while the HCSB, NIV, and KJV having identical wording for that phrase. This colors the meaning, does it not? Alter, JPS, and Greenstein describe Elihu as being angry because he is declaring himself more right than God, whereas the Christian sources all interpret the text as Job justifying himself <em>rather than</em> God. Interestingly, the 2001 translation of the Septuagint has Elihu upset that Job is “declaring himself righteous before God” (Job 32:2, Septuagint 2001\nocite{septuagint}), a sense of uncolored plainness that is missing from the other translations. In this case, Elihu is seemingly upset at Job for being upset.</p>
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<div class="footnote">
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<hr />
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<ol>
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<li id="fn:younes-interpolations">
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<li id="fn:younes-interpolation1">
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<p>It is important to reckon with two interpolations within the text that appear to be later additions, and it would be nice to address these before coming to the text that they interrupt.</p>
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<p>The first interpolation is that of a poem that comprises the entirety of chapter 28. The poem takes the form of a Hymn to Wisdom that Alter describes as “a fine poem in its own right, but one that expresses a pious view of wisdom as fear of the Lord that could scarcely be that of Job.” \parencite[458]{alter}</p>
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<p>The NOAB, however, suggests an additional interpretation of the Hymn to Wisdom, which is that it may have originally been the conclusion of Elihu’s speech. For evidence, they mention that this topic, the elevation of wisdom, feels familiar to those chapters of Elihu’s, wherein the youngster harps on the topic of wisdom and knowledge at length. Additionally, the editors note the similarity in the final verse of the Hymn, “And he said to humankind, “Truly the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding”” (Job 28:28, NRSV) closely echoes Elihu’s final words as they stand: “Therefore mortals fear him; he does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit.” (Job 37:24, NRSV)</p>
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<p>The hymn itself is a respectable piece of poetry. It begins in a roundabout way, discussing the acquisition of physical wealth. It describes the ways in which gold and silver are extracted from the earth and copper smelted from ore. It describes paths unseen by beast, ones that require work to acquire. Throughout these few verses (1–11) runs a very clear directionality. From the start, they are heading \emph{towards} something. They are pointing \emph{at} something. Verse 12 illuminates: “But wisdom, where is it found, and where is the place of discernment?” (Job 28:12, Alter)<sup id="fnref:younes-qohelet"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:younes-qohelet">2</a></sup> <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:younes-interpolations" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
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<p>The hymn itself is a respectable piece of poetry. It begins in a roundabout way, discussing the acquisition of physical wealth. It describes the ways in which gold and silver are extracted from the earth and copper smelted from ore. It describes paths unseen by beast, ones that require work to acquire. Throughout these few verses (1–11) runs a very clear directionality. From the start, they are heading \emph{towards} something. They are pointing \emph{at} something. Verse 12 illuminates: “But wisdom, where is it found, and where is the place of discernment?” (Job 28:12, Alter)<sup id="fnref:younes-qohelet"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:younes-qohelet">2</a></sup> <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:younes-interpolation1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
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</li>
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<li id="fn:younes-qohelet">
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<p>Certainly not beneath the earth! If Qohelet has taught us anything, it is that. Wisdom abides despite toil, despite merriment, despite even riches. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:younes-qohelet" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
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<li id="fn:younes-choice">
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<p>And though even this discussion of interpolations may feel like an interpolation itself, here is where it ceases being such: One possible outcome of Job’s travails is that <em>he</em> becomes Qohelet. Can one imagine going through the experiences that Job went through and not coming away with at least a little bit of that nihilism? Your family dies. Your livelihood is stripped away. YOu sit in the bit of ashes with lesions all over your body, and then God comes down in his whirlwind and fixes it all for you. You look back on all of your piety, you look back on all of your wealth, and suddenly yes, it is all a chasing after the wind. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:younes-choice" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text">↩</a></p>
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<li id="fn:younes-interpolation2">
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<p>The second of these interpolations is the Elihu’s<sup id="fnref:younes-elihuintro"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:younes-elihuintro">7</a></sup> speech — and, indeed, the entire character of Elihu, who is never mentioned outside his own chapters — in chapters 32–37. Alter holds a particularly dim view of Elihu, stating, “At this point, in the original text, the Lord would have spoken out from the whirlwind, but a lapse in judgment by an ancient editor postponed that brilliant consummation for six chapters in which the tedious Elihu is allowed to hold forth.” \parencite[460]{alter} Few seem convinced that the character and his speeches are from the original text. The NOAB, notably bearish on the whole Bible, agrees that this may indeed be the case, though it does so with a sigh and a tone of resignation, adding, “In any case, the Elihu speeches are part of the book we now have”, \parencite[767]{noab} with Greenstein echoing that sigh: “Even if, as most scholars think today, the Elihu chapters were added belatedly, they form part of the biblical book.” \parencite[22]{greenstein} <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:younes-interpolation2" title="Jump back to footnote 5 in the text">↩</a></p>
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<li id="fn:younes-shuffling">
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<p>The editors of the NOAB offer additional insight, that Elihu’s speeches may have simply been shuffled out of order (a problem elsewhere in the text) and that his speeches may have originally come after the final of Job’s three friends’ speeches after chapter 27. This both lends credence to the Hymn to Wisdom in chapter 28 being the conclusion of his own speech and ensures that God replies to Job immediately after <em>his</em> final speech rather than after Elihu’s, which would better fit the structure of the book. There is no reason it cannot be both, of course; the two additions could have been both interpolations and inserted out of order through some mix-up or whim in an early editor’s haste.</p>
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<p>Indeed, Greenstein suggests that this goes even deeper: that much of the text from chapter 24 through chapter 28 may be jumbled due to this process of interpolation. This would include the Elihu interpretation around the Hymn to Wisdom.”I would explain this phenomenon by observing that toward the end of chapter 24 is a later insertion and that a roll of papyrus pages would have had to have been taken apart in order to insert the Elihu discourses, which include, I am convinced, chapter 28.” \parencite[28]{greenstein} In the connection of the Hymn to Wisdom to Elihu, he is of one mind with the NOAB; indeed, in his reordered translation of the Book of Job, the Hymn is placed at the end of Elihu’s speeches. He, however, disagrees with the potential interpolation of Elihu before Job’s final speech, saying, “The motive for inserting Elihu into this point in the dialogues, just preceding the deity’s speeches (chapters 38–41), is apparent. The divine discourses dwell on God’s power and majesty, not on his justice or concern for humanity—which are the elements Job has been seeking.”</p>
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<p>All this to say that Elihu presents a departure from the rest of the book. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:younes-shuffling" title="Jump back to footnote 6 in the text">↩</a></p>
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<li id="fn:younes-elihuintro">
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<p>Job and his friends have three rounds of arguments, which shall be covered soon, and then, beginning in chapter 32, Elihu is introduced out of nowhere. “So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.”<sup id="fnref:younes-eyes"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:younes-eyes">8</a></sup> (Job 32:1, NRSV) <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:younes-elihuintro" title="Jump back to footnote 7 in the text">↩</a></p>
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<p>It is interesting to note the differences in tradition, here. Alter has “because he was right in his own eyes” but offers no note as to why, which is a little disappointing. JPS (“for he considered himself right” (Job 32:1, JPS)) and Greenstein (“since in his own eyes he was right and just” (Job 32:1, Greenstein)) agree. All three of these are Jewish sources. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:younes-eyes" title="Jump back to footnote 8 in the text">↩</a></p>
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