[Avodah] Nevuah and Knowing the Future

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 09:41:14AM +0200, Arie Folger wrote:
: Please explain, as it seems to me you contradicted yourself. Do you
: mean to say that there is absolutely no connection between the
: theories of when Iyov lived and between those regarding ots
: authorship, or do you mean thatm as long as the presumed author lived
: either contemporraneously with Iyov or afterwards, there is no
: one-to-one mapping of the different respective shittot?

I am saying it's not muchrakh. There is only one explicitly stated
opinion about authorship. The sugya about when Iyov lived does open by
linking it to authorship: "'Moshe kasav sifro, uparashas Bil'am, veIayov'
mesayei'a lei leR' Levi bar Lachmah" who is then quoted as saying "Iyov
biymei Moshe hayah."

But...

: IOW, did you mean to say that even if Iyov was miBenei haGolah, the
: book was just as likely written by Moshe as it could have been written
: by Ezra if Iyov was from among the Egyptians? ...

... But, I am not sure saying he was miBenei haGolah is to the exclusion
of saying he was a contemporary of Yotze'ei Mitzrayim or the Shofetim.

First, as I noted on list, R' Elazar is both one of the two amoraim
who said that he lived during the Shofetim and the one who said miBenei
haGolah. Implying that it's not a machloqes.

Second, the middle of the sugya outright says "yeshno le'oso adam
sheshinosav arukhos ke'eitz".

So, it might be that everyone agrees with the opening quote from R'
Leivi bar Lachmah, and the rest of the sugya is showing how miraculously
long Iyov lived.

In which case, it doesn't require invoking nevu'ah to say MRAH wrote
about one of the Benei haGolah.

Admittedly, an aggadic story that makes supernatural claims, like
saying Iyov lived twice as long as normal or living from Galus Mitzrayim
through Purim, can very well be ahistorical mashal. The Rambam, I think,
would insist it *must* be. But RLbL says the derashah that places him
in Moshe's era is mesayei'ah to the statement one the previous amud
about Moshe having written the book. So, if the question of his age
is mythical, ascribing the authorship to Moshe would be part of the
same mythos. Invoking this concept doesn't change my point. Which is,
the book is ascribable to Av haNeviim. Even if on a mythical level.
Iyov and its statement about not being able to find Hashem's "why" for
any given tragedy has to not only be treated like Kesuvim, which should
be enough, but like something more.

But if anyone can turn up a machloqes about authorship, or a source
that insists all these opinions are instead of eachother as opposed
to building on top of prior claims to make one really long lifetime,
I would appreciate their sharing it.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person must be very patient
micha at aishdas.org        even with himself.
http://www.aishdas.org         - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov
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