SOURCE: An introduction to Job, translated by Marvin H. Pope, Doubleday & Company, 1965, pp. XVLXXXIV.

In the following excerpt from his introduction to The Anchor Bible: Job, Pope examines several points of critical debate surrounding The Book of Job: the question of textual integrity, the form and origin of the book, the place of the work in the literary canon, and the philosophical and educational intentions of the book's author(s).

To summarize the contents of the Book of Job raises the question of its literary unity and integrity. The same issue is raised by the problem of classifying the work in its literary

William Blake's illustration to The Book of Job.

The problem of literary integrity is most immediately evident in the incongruities and inconsistencies between the Prologue-Epilogue and the Dialogue. The Prologue presents to us the traditional...