Ragnar Andersen's Elihu Speeches

Ragnar Andersen, the author of The Elihu Speeches: There Place and Sense in the Book of Job, examines the arguments of the critics who claim that the Elihu speeches are later interpolations, while simultaneously presenting the arguments of those, who like himself, argue that the Elihu speeches are original text in the book of Job. According to Andersen, Matthias Heinrich Stuhlmann, a Lutheran preacher, was the first person to include an argument against the originality of the Elihu speeches in his commentary several years after Johann Gottfried Eichhorn first proposed that they were a later interpolation during the 1780s. Since then, as seen in the evidence presented by Andersen, several scholars have also refuted the idea that the Elihu speeches are original to the book of Job for several reasons. He divided the reasons for the critic’s objections into three categories: the speeches’ content, the speeches’ formal characteristics and the place of the Elihu speeches in the book of Job as a whole. Afterwards, the author expanded on the categories by listing evidence that supports the reasons listed in their respective category. Anderson, who argues for the speeches’ originality, uses several tactics to defend his position. In addition to using the evidence presented by scholars who analyze Elihu’s character in contrast to Jobs, Andersen discusses Elihu’s geographical connection and family lineage that is mentioned in Job 32:2. He also emphasizes the importance of the Elihu speeches by explaining the theme and content of each speech from an exegetical point of view. Lastly, he contrasts Elihu to the wisdom of God, he also contrasts Elihu as a witness of God to Job’s friends, as well as making a contrast of Elihu as a figure to Job so that Elihu’s place in the book of Job is established. In his article summary, Anderson clearly stated that he believes that the Elihu speeches are an original text in the book of Job; however, the evidence he presented proved otherwise. For example, since an original text within a book would have noticeable connections to other parts of the book, the fact that Anderson suggested that the book of Job can be imagined without the Elihu speeches, due to the fact …show more content…
Beeby refer to Elihu as a “covenant mediator” (Andersen, 82). He also noted how other scholars called Elihu a “charismatic mediator” (Andersen, 82). Unfortunately, Andersen failed to explain how Elihu’s role as a charismatic mediator or a convent mediator relates to Job or Job’s situation. Hendrik Viviers referred to Elihu as a literary figure whose speeches were “meant to be counterproductive and constitute a contrast against critical wisdom circles” (Andersen, 82). Overall, although Andersen did not present adequate evidence to prove that the Elihu speeches were not later interpolations, he did a profound job of explaining the meaning of Elihu’s speeches to the reader. However, it was noticed that the common theme mentioned by Andersen in each of his speech explanations was that “Elihu justified his claim for attention, asserting that he preaches the pure knowledge that he has acquired” (Andersen, 87). Personally, I believe that the Elihu speeches are original, not because of the evidence presented in this article, but because before any text could have been deemed canonical Scripture, it was seen as an authoritative text. Which means, several authority figures saw a need to include it in the