I pointed out how Job suddenly began to complain bitterly in chap. 3, after demonstrating so much patience in chaps. I also pointed out how surprising it was, in chap. In view of this apparent inconsistency, no wonder if interpreters, ancient and modern, have found it difficult to assess the book as a whole. As we saw the last time, the Apocrypha mostly admired the patience of Job and ignored his tantrums more or less completely, while rabbinical writings condemned the rebellion of Job, as compared to the patience of Abraham.
Modern scholars are even less unanimous, but still one has to try, and here are a few reflections.
My second contention is that one of the main theses of the author was carried above all by the prose tale. The prose tale is necessary to the poetic part first of all because it provides the convincing example the poet needed, a person whose religious and moral quality is above suspicion, and who, in spite of that, is submitted to hard and prolonged sufferings. Nobody could bear to listen to Job's violent diatribes and follow the case all through the long meandering and the difficult language of chaps. More curious is the conclusion of the prose tale, and of the book, in chap. This is why, in the conclusion of the prose tale, God approved of Job rather than his friends.