Was Job for Real?

Q: Was the Bible’s Job a real person?

A: Asking if Job was a real, historical person is something like asking if there really was a boy who cried wolf once too often. It is like wanting to know how old the Good Samaritan was when he came upon the wounded Jew. These questions miss the point.

The important thing about the Book of Job is the message it conveys: Have faith and trust in the midst of trouble. With that said, R. Potter, O.P., in A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, writes: "It is reasonable to hold and there is ample evidence that Job was the name of an ancient patriarch, sage or hero in Israel and in yet older traditions of Mesopotamia and Egypt.

"It is reasonable too to hold that there was a historical person behind the book as we have it and to that extent we may rejoin the patristic tradition which never had any doubt that Job was other than a historical character and the Book of Job a historical narration.

"But we must also recognize that the book as we have it is the artistic creation of the author who used the ancient figure of Job as the vehicle for his message."