Sender Spike
2 min readJun 9, 2021

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Even if "Miles is explicit in that he reads the Bible purely as a literary work" and follows the order of books as they are presented, he's pretty inaccurate because even in Christian Bible the major bulk of prophets comes only after Job. When it comes to Tanakh, Job is the third book of Ketuvim (which is the last part of Tanakh only because, as far as I understand it, it contains the least authoritative texts), and the order is defined in Talmud as follows:

"Our Rabbis taught: The order of the Prophets is, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Twelve Minor Prophets. Let us examine this. Hosea came first, as it is written, God spake first to Hosea.11 But did God speak first to Hosea? Were there not many prophets between Moses and Hosea? R. Johanan, however, has explained that [what It means is that] he was the first of the four prophets who prophesied at that period,12 namely, Hosea, Isaiah, Amos and Micah. Should not then Hosea come first? - Since his prophecy is written along with13 those of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, and Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi came at the end of the prophets, he is reckoned with them. But why should he not be written separately and placed first? - Since his book is so small, it might be lost [if copied separately]. Let us see again. Isaiah was prior to Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Then why should not Isaiah be placed first? - Because the Book of Kings ends with a record of destruction and Jeremiah speaks throughout of destruction and Ezekiel commences with destruction and ends with consolation and Isaiah is full of consolation;14 therefore we put destruction next to destruction and consolation next to consolation. The order of the Hagiographa is Ruth, the Book of Psalms, Job, Prophets, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel and the Scroll of Esther, Ezra and Chronicles.15 Now on the view that Job lived in the days of Moses, should not the book of Job come first? - We do not begin with a record of suffering. But Ruth also is a record of suffering?16 - It is a suffering with a sequel [of happiness], as R. Johanan said: Why was her name called Ruth? - Because there issued from her David who replenished17 the Holy One, blessed be He, with hymns and praises."

So, even if we read it in the order the books are presented in Tanakh there is still at least Daniel, though I admit he had "merely" prophetic dreams. But such reading is not only inaccurate but also misleading and an argument shoehorned only to fit a preconceived hypothesis.

As for our respective interpretations of Job and Ecclesiastes, it pretty much summarizes all of the debates about the meaning of essentially all books in Tanakh. And those disputes already last for few millennia and still no one knows for sure wtf it's all about. But voila -- you can observe the birth of religious argument that can even grow into animosity and (religious) conflict in real time.

Quite instructive, if you ask me.

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