The Copernican Revolution in the History of Interpretation of Job 28

While the overwhelming majority of modern scholars assume that the unspecified subject of Job 28:1–11 is human, before the 13th century virtually all exegetes assumed that subject was divine. Thus, there was a major shift in the interpretation of Job 28. The first interpreter to have proposed an »anthropocentric« reading of the biblical chapter was Immanuel of Rome, whose commentary on Job remains unpublished. Here I offer a short summary of the »theocentric« commentaries and a brief intellectual profile of Immanuel, as well as a close reading of his interpretation of the chapter. This analysis shows that this reading was shaped by rationalistic and humanistic tendencies Immanuel had absorbed both from his own Jewish background and from early Renaissance Italy. Although the »theocentric« approach dominated the minds of readers who were closer in time to the biblical text than we are, the anthropocentric interpretation should be preferred.

Duke Scholars

Author Aslan Cohen mizrahi