Abstract

The dissertation has two agendas. The major agenda is to investigate an exegetical crime of omission perpetrated by three philosophical texts containing exegeses of the Book of Job: Immanuel Kant's "On the Failure of All Philosophical Attempts in Theodicy", Martin Buber's Prophetic Faith , and Moses Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed . Each exegesis, I argue, in one way or another "fails" to give an adequate account of the Joban theophany and of Job's repentance ---fails precisely by succeeding to give an account. Borrowing Georges Bataille's thoughts on "General Economy" , I suggest that Job 38.1--42.6 exhibits an economy of utter waste, of expenditure without reserve or return, of failure, of meaninglessness, of iconoclasm to the point of atheism---and yet for all that, or just because of that, an economy of the only possible genuine sacrifice. It is this sacrifice-based economy that the three exegeses of Job work to restrict and sublimate . Kant's restricted economy is that of moral reason; Buber's is that of the I-Thou relation; Maimonides' is that of a providence that transcends the "vulgarity" of human existence. ;The minor agenda of the dissertation is to adumbrate an hermeneutic for interpreting the last chapter of Job , the account of Job's restoration. Given the necessity of employing the categories of general economy for "understanding" the theophany and the repentance of Job, the question arises: How are we to understand the repetition of a restricted economy after an expenditure that had nothing like repetition in mind? This question is developed against a reading of Bataille's reading of the Hegelian Aufhebung. Bataille unleashes the self-mockery within the Aufhebung. And that, I suggest, points to the possibility of a seriousness that exceeds, or rather precedes, Hegel: the seriousness of the lamenting Job