180 | Second cycle (JOB 15-21)

We're somewhere in the ancient Near East. The story is set in the patriarchal-style world of Edom or northern Arabia — that much is fairly clear from the names, the geography, and the divine title Shaddai used throughout. The date of composition is a different question entirely, and a genuinely contested one. Most scholars now favor the Persian period, roughly 540 to 330 BCE, based on the strong Aramaic influence woven through the Hebrew of the poetic sections. The Yale Biblical Scholar and the Wikipedia article on Job both reflect this as the current mainstream view. Some place it earlier, in the 7th or 6th century BCE. A few traditional interpreters argue for the patriarchal period itself. The honest position: the story is set in the ancient Near East of the second millennium, but when it was actually written is probably much later and nobody knows for certain.Source:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ThwNNOdn6wgNwERV_7-fDMXqI1e6hnNw/view?usp=sharing