Old Testament Poetry and Wisdom Literature, Part 2

Authorship and Intent

The poetic books of the Old Testament present many challenges to interpretation: style, structure, literary devices, and the like. Another unique challenge of some poetic books is the question of authorship: who wrote these books? This is especially true of Job, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and some Psalms, which are attributed to no specific human author (authorship of Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs are debated even among conservative scholars).

Authorship matters in every field and type of literature because the author chose the specific words to use and used those words in specific ways. The author builds an argument or tells a story and by that constructive process the author determines the meaning of the text. The author’s intended meaning is the meaning of the text (see footnote 1 below). It is absurd to say that the reader chooses the meaning of a text; many others have pointed out that even authors who say that still expect to be understood a certain way by their readers.

The point is, knowing who authored a text is almost always critical if we are to understand the text. Even when we are introduced to a new author, our understanding of their text is only partial until we can grasp their perspective and place their words in the larger context of the world. Are they writing satire, or news? Are they conservative or liberal? Are they radical or traditional? We answer these questions in our mind to help us ‘peg’ where an author is coming from so that we can better understand their text.

My question, then, is this: does the lack of a known human author inhibit our interpretation of the poetic passages listed above? If we do not know who wrote Lamentations or Job, how can we understand the perspective from which they are writing? What if Job was intended to be written as a comedy, a parody on the absurdity of suffering?

My answer to that question is no, the lack of ascription to a human author does not significantly hinder our interpretation of those passages. Here is why:

First, the texts are sufficient to help us establish authorial perspective. We learn about the author of Job through how he describes the people in the account. We can establish the perspective of the author of Lamentations or Ecclesiastes by examining how they describe certain events. Even shorter texts reveal to us enough about the author to help us understand what they meant.

Second, we have clues about who the human authors of these texts were. The similarity of some of these books to other writings helps us establish links to other authors. The paleo-Hebrew fragments of Job found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, helps us know that the text is very old and may be of similar origin as the Pentateuch, since parts of both have been found in this archaic script.

Third, and most importantly, we do know who authored these texts, because all of them are within the canon of Scripture. More than anything else, this helps us establish authorial perspective because we know that the ultimate author of these texts was God, through the Holy Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16, 2 Pet. 2:16-21). Human authorship, though important, is not totally determinative in this case because God was using these men to write the words He intended. As we come to know God through the whole canon of the Bible, we can begin to ‘triangulate’ His perspective on events, institutions, and people. If God promises to be just, then in the book of Job we know that He will not act unjustly. If that is the case, the author of Job will be consistent with other Old Testament authors in the overall intended meaning of the text because the divine author of all these texts is the same.

This foundational belief helps us interpret all of Scripture, even the challenging poetic passages. Since we believe that these are the words of God, we can rest assured that we know the author, and as we read these texts we believe that we can come to know Him even better. As we say in our classes, ‘Authorship matters because intention matters.’

May God grant that we know Him better and better, so that in reading His Word our knowledge of Him will only grow.

--Dean of Admissions

#1--This is not to deny the fact that an author can be misunderstood or even that at times a reader may ignore the meaning of a text to read what he or she wants. Those things can happen, but the misrepresentation of the author’s meaning (whether intentional or unintentional) does not change the fact that there is a specific meaning to the author's words.