to view the narrative frame as the original core of the book, enlarged later by the poetic dialogues and discourses, and sections of the book such as the Elihu speeches and the wisdom poem of chapter 28 as late insertions, but recent trends have tended to concentrate on the book's underlying editorial unity.

# Prologue: in two scenes, the first on Earth, the second in Heaven
# Job's opening monologue - seen by some scholars as a bridge between the prologue and the dialogues and by others as the beginning