468 Philippe Guillaume – Michael Schunck Divine behaviour has wondrous aspects beyond human comprehension (twalpn Job 42,3), but it also has a flip side which is as incomprehensible but far more problematic. Divine folly stands for the catastrophes that cannot and should not be explained. Ascribing a certain amount of folly to YHWH is an admission of human ignorance which preserves human innocence. At the same time, divine folly stresses the urgent need for holocausts and for Job’s intercession while dispensing from empty speculations as to their justification (44). Job’s pre-emptive holocausts (45) demonstrated his blameless and perfect nature (Job 1,1) but they were of no more avail against misfortune. Hence, the value of the Epilogue’s holocausts has been questioned (46). In fact, they are not in vain. They serve the narrator’s return to pious normality. The four hours it takes to read through the book’s hyperbolic language (47) and the alternation of short prose pieces with long poems mark the Book of Job for some kind of dramatic performance. Job is pitted against other actors, each playing a well defined role and trying to assert his worth. The fact that the entire process is a performance establishes a safe distance. What is said does not necessarily reflect what the actor or the audience actually think. Hyperbole is the name of the game, caricaturing the position of the adversary is inevitable (48). The Epilogue’s holocausts cool things down with a quick nod to approved forms of piety which clears everyone of any taint of impiety in the eyes of the audience (49). When everything is said and done, YHWH’s swallowing of Job ([lb Job 2,3) remains the consequence of the uttermost unreasonable divine act named folly by the Epilogue (50). Readers are prone to miss (44) Ezekiel 14, where Job is mentioned next to Noah, presents YHWH as deceiving his own prophets: N.R. BOWEN, “Can God be Trusted? Confronting the Deceptive God”, A Feminist Companion to the Latter Prophets (ed. BRENNER), 354-365. (45) Nowhere else in the Old Testament are pre-emptive holocausts offered on a regular basis: A. BRENNER, “Job the Pious”, JSOT 43 (1989) 43. (46) BRENNER, “Pious” 45. (47) CLINES, “Why?”, 1-20. (48) GEERAERTS, “Web”, 42: “… even Job himself, working himself in a frenzy of rebellion in which he challenges God to a showdown, displays an obsessive single-mindedness that would suit any of Molière’s comical archetypes”. (49) T. STORDALEN, “Dialogue and Dialogism in the Book of Job”, SJOT 20 (2006) 34. (50) The Book of Jonah picks up the theme of the swallowing flood and mirrors Job exactly. The prophet’s apparent foolish attempt to escape from the