Job, Prometheus Bound and the Embassy to Achilles

Abstract

This article examines the many parallels between the Book of Job and Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, from the perspective of a direct Greek influence over the whole Hebrew Bible, considered as a literary project of the Hellenistic era originated from Plato’s prescriptions in the Laws and the Republic. The article also studies some similarities between Job and the scene of the Embassy to Achilles in Homer’s Iliad, which happens to be Aeschylus’ own model for Prometheus Bound. Therefore, the notion of “two-tier allusion”, that is, when an author alludes both to a previous author and to the latter’s own source, is brought forward as a possible criterion for determining literary dependence.