Chapter 12 Summary

The Book of Job is the climax of the Tanakh. All that follows is dénouement, the untangling required before a drama can be satisfactorily concluded. The books that follow merely mark time and lull. The biography of God had several beginnings: `Elohim created the world one-way and Yahweh another. The story could have simply begun with Noah, or skipped the flood and begun with Abraham, or even with Moses. There are also multiple endings to the Tanakh and in none of them does God die. God subsides and is incorporated (not incarnated) into the Jewish nation. The Jews take actions and make statements that earlier God would have done. God is still God - and the only God - and they are still mere human beings, but their roles are reversed.

Neither Esther nor Daniel records historical events, but both demonstrate...