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This article joins in a discussion between Karl G. Wilson and John J. Bimson regarding the interpretation of Job 38.2. Wilson argued that the question “Who is this…?” refers to Elihu rather than Job, indicating that Elihu’s speeches are original rather than additions to the book. Bimson refuted Wilcox’s interpretation by appealing to the content of the divine speeches and Job’s near quotation of 38.2 in 42.3. This article demonstrates the weaknesses in Bimson’s refutation by comparing the grammatical construction of the question in 38.2 to similar constructions elsewhere in the Old Testament and noting its context in the book of Job as a whole. This article concludes that Bimson’s refutation was unsuccessful, and that Wilcox’s argument merits further response.

e similarities between Job and Deutero Isaiah have been used to argue for a relative chronology. ese kinds of arguments are problematic; nevertheless, noting quotations and allusions when they do occur is of great value in interpreting the quoting or alluding text. For example, Fishbane's explication of the allusion to Ps. 8:4-6 in Job 7:17-18 sheds light on Job's attitude toward the psalmist's view of humankind's status in the created order. Literary theorists have noted similar kinds of allusions, called "reflexive" or "dialectic" allusions, in which one text alludes to another such that the alluding text "smears" the source text and the value systems of the two texts compete with one another. Allusions fitting this description have been noted with regard to Job, both in individual texts and in the genre of the book as a whole. I argue for two further allusions of this kind to Deutero Isaiah (Job 9:4, 8 and 12:9). In both cases, the author of Job uses words to describe God that are the same as or similar to those used by Deutero Isaiah, but with a profoundly different effect on the reader. He effectively sets up a competing way to interpret the same picture that Deutero Isaiah paints of God and God's action in creation. Henceforth, readers who note the similarities experience the Deutero Isaiah texts as "smeared" by the texts in Job. Recognizing the allusions fills out our picture of the elusive author(s) of Job and his attitudes toward familiar traditions and texts.

The rise in interdisciplinary scholarship between philosophy and theology has produced a number of critiques of historical biblical criticism (HBC) by philosophers of religion. Some dialogue has resulted, but these critiques have gone largely unnoticed by historical critical scholars. This article argues that two such critiques of HBC, offered by Plantinga and Stump, are undermined by faulty presuppositions on the philosophers' part regarding the nature and value of HBC and misunderstandings of the nature of the ancient texts on which the discipline of HBC focuses.