Monday, July 26, 2010

Job in the family tree

Behold Job's place in Peter of Poitiers' 13th century genealogy of Christ
(French 13th century, now resident here) - this is about a tenth of the whole genealogy. To confirm, that's Job, dangling in a generation-defying way into the far upper left of the second frame (under the name Job in my caption), son of a Hus, in turn son of Abraham's brother Nahor. This is the version of Job's genealogy which makes him part of the family of Israel. More earlier interpreters thought him identical with Jobab, a grandson of Esau, and so a gentile. (The Septuagint split the difference: a descendant of Esau, Job was linked to Abraham through his mother.) Even in Peter of Poitiers, he's a genealogical cul-de-sac.