Old Testament Wisdom Literature

Introduction to Wisdom Literature

I. What is Wisdom Literature?

A. What is “Wisdom Literature”?

--1. The attempt to cope with reality as it presents itself in real life (Crenshaw, 7). The authors, or teachers (?), of wisdom literature studied the complexities of life & sought out ways to cope with it,

--i.e. deal with the adversity, inequities, and contradictions of life. This explains contradictions found within the corpus of wisdom literature. Life is contradictory, and often coping with it is paradoxical, and our own lives are often contradictions.

--2. The quest for specific ways to ensure personal well-being (Crenshaw, 3). Thus many of the Proverbs in the OT describe in detail how to have health and prosperity. However, Ecclesiastes, and to a lesser extent Job, tear down many of these notions of the “good life.” As Qohelet points out, even wealth is ultimately meaningless.

--3. The transmission of this knowledge to future generations so that they, too, will embody “wisdom” & enjoy prosperity & health. Much of wisdom literature throughout the ANE is directed toward youth.

--4. Relational. Although many of the values & actions taught in wisdom literature are individual in nature, most of them have a relational base. They deal with:

--Husband-wife relationships, note the warnings against adultery, lust, and promiscuity. These will bring ruin to the individual, but also to the family & society as a whole.

--Parent-child relationships, hence children are admonished to obey their parents.

--Business relationships. There are sayings about justice, fairness, equity, and honesty. God hates dishonesty in business dealings.

--Societal relationships. Here teachings on honesty, friendship, and justice point out the importance of relationships in the world. There is an expectation that life is societal & that every individual is responsible to maintain the society.

--5. A literary corpus—

--OT Wisdom Literature makes up a literary corpus, or collection.

--Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ben Sirach (Ecclesiastes), and Wisdom of Solomon make up the collection, as well as a few psalms (1, 37, 127, 128 + a few others).

--Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, is not actually wisdom literature; rather it is normally included in the wisdom literature in the English canon. We will discuss the literary type of Song of Solomon later.

--As Crenshaw states, there is a “mysterious ingredient” that holds this literary corpus together. It includes the following:

--Theme—The “sages,” as the teachers are called, spoke of common problems: marriage, adultery, drinking, the tongue, inequity, & death. And these problems resurface again & again throughout the corpus.

--Style—The sages used various forms to teach the meaning of wisdom, such as:

--proverbial sayings,

--instructions,

--debates or discussion, and

--intellectual reflection.

--It is the peculiar marriage of content (theme) and form (style) that sets apart wisdom literature. The themes & styles appear here & there in other contexts in scripture, but the unique & consistent combination of form & content make up the genre of wisdom literature.

--“Personification of wisdom”—Wisdom took on a character of its own & is presented in the form of a woman, often called “lady wisdom.” She is a resident of both heaven & earth. Often, she is pictured as a goddess, at least in ANE outside of scripture. Some have argued for a goddess “Wisdom” in the OT, but this seems to be a stretch, even if some of the “godlike” characteristics of “lady wisdom” from ANE context do bleed over into the OT.

--6. A Worldview.

--This worldview recognizes the supremacy of God. God created the world. God has the ultimate authority.

--This worldview argues for a basic order to creation. God created the world with order so that through the appropriation of “wisdom” the world would function properly.

--This worldview assumes a basic propriety in life. Everything has its place & its time. Everything must be done properly & orderly so that life will exist as God designed it.

--Thus this worldview is basically optimistic. It recognizes the basic goodness of creation & seeks to maintain the positive nature of creation through attaining wisdom & making wise decisions & actions.

--This worldview is also basically humanistic. God is seldom called upon to act; rather all outcomes—good or bad—depend upon the correct human decision & action.

--7. A Search

--Wisdom is portrayed as hidden. Thus she must be found by the wise. However, finding her is not a simple matter to be taken lightly.

--Thus, at its core, wisdom literature is the record for the ongoing search for wisdom, which was necessary to maintain order in the world. God placed wisdom in the world to be discovered & acted upon. The responsibility of the “wise” was to find her!

B. What is the goal of “Wisdom Literature”?

1. The development of human character.

--The sages sought to develop character through rhetoric—the wisdom sayings themselves carried authority.

--Proverbial statements have the natural ring of truth, thus they are obviously true.

--“Can a man carry hot coals in his shirt and not be burned?”

--Of course not! And neither can a man consort with an adulterous and not be destroyed! [Is this true? Most of the time, but not always. Sometimes a person gets away with adultery. This fact led to the skepticism of some wisdom, such as Ecclesiastes & Job.]

--William Brown: OT Wisdom Literature provides “characterizations of character.”

--The “life of virtue” is described & celebrated. OT Wisdom Literature is full of examples which portray the “life of virtue,” essentially that which makes a good character.

--This “life of virtue” represents an “ethic of being or character” rather than an “ethic of duty,” i.e. the point of wisdom literature is to develop character, not produce robots that can perfectly follow all of the rules.

--Specific moral & ethical maxims or rules are simply the means to an end, not the end itself. The rules help the community produce virtuous characters.

2. Thus, the goal of Wisdom Literature is the production of people of integrity.

--Job is presented as the ultimate man of integrity, which brought the conflict to the story, as the man of integrity suffered the fate expected of the man of folly, i.e. the unrighteous man.

--The person of integrity can apply the truths of wisdom to daily life, whether in family, society, or business, and make good decisions. This is the goal of Wisdom Literature.

II. Ancient Near Eastern Wisdom

A. Mesopotamian—

--Wisdom belonged to the gods. The sages and scholars were given to mediate the wisdom from the gods to humanity.

--Two forms are especially relevant for comparison with OT:

--Instruction—There are texts which contain instruction, primarily from father to son, although “father” & “son” may simply be rhetorical for “teacher” and “student.” These include “Counsels of Wisdom,” which we will read later in the course.

--Proverbial statements—short statements of truth meant to instruct in the direction of virtue & propriety.

B. Egyptian—

--The instruction genre was popular in Egypt, with examples from the 25^th century BC through the 1^st century AD. We will read several of these in the class, most notably those of Amen-em-opet & Ptah-hotep.

--The god-given order of the world is called maat, which is translated “truth,” “justice,” or “order.” The goal of the instructions was to enable the reader to meet the demands of maat & pass on those demands to future generations in order to maintain order in the world. [We must recognize that Egyptian life was very optimistic. The Nile River flooded with great regularity, reducing the threat of severe flood or drought. Thus, this lifeblood of Egypt kept life in Egypt orderly, predictable, and optimistic.]

C. Canaanite—

--At Ugarit, a few wisdom texts have been discovered. [This is a site in northern Syria on the Mediterranean coast where 1000s of texts in a unique cuneiform language were discovered in 1929. This site revolutionized study of Levantine history & OT Hebrew.]

--A few Babylonian texts were found, most notably “The Sayings of Ahiqar,” which we will read later in the class.

--The text includes proverbs, instructions, and “graded numerical saying.”

--“Graded numerical sayings” are only found in West Semitic wisdom literature, i.e. Ugaritic & Hebrew (The student may see Clifford, 39-40, where sayings from Ahiqar, Ugaritic texts, and Proverbs 6 are compared).

III. Themes of OT Wisdom Literature

A. Moderation & Restraint

--Excess is to be avoided.

--Thus the Wisdom Literature consistently warns against the evils of:

--Riches, which produce greed and lack of justice;

--Strong drink, which produces drunkenness & loss of self-control;

--The adulterous or loose woman, who produces loss of family & societal solidarity [There is a bias against women, which many have pointed out. As in most biblical literature, women are seen as the ones who cause most problems. However, women are viewed as important and valuable, see below.]; and

--Power, which leads to injustice and abuse of inferiors.

B. Family Life

--The family is the foundation of the society. Thus anything that tears down family solidarity is to be avoided. This explains the many warnings about adultery and prostitution.

--The important roles of father and mother are stressed in the Wisdom Literature. The father as teacher is seen throughout the corpus, and passages like Proverbs 31 point out the value & importance of a good wife & mother.

C. Wisdom and Folly—

--“Wisdom” and “Folly” are presented as opposite characters in the Wisdom Literature.

--“Wisdom”=Integrity, “Folly”=Dishonest

--“Wisdom”=Righteous, “Folly”=Unrighteous

--“Wisdom”=Good, “Folly”=Evil

--“Wisdom” is to be sought, “Folly” is to be avoided

--“Wisdom” brings life, “Folly” brings death

D. Fear of the Lord—

--“Fear of the Lord” is variously defined:

--Worship

--Obedience

--Reverence

--It is the proper attitude toward Yahweh, one that acknowledges His supremacy. “Fear of the Lord” recognizes Yahweh as the source of all things. Thus, it is all of these things—worship, obedience, & reverence.

--This attitude of submission to Yahweh is the true source of all wisdom & knowledge.

--(Job 28:28; Proverbs 9:10, 1:7, 2:5, 10:27, 14:27, 15:16, 15:33, 16:6, 19:23, 22:4, 23:17; Ecclesiastes 12:13, 8:13).

IV. History of OT Wisdom Literature

A. Solomon as “Sage par Excellence”—

--1 Kings 4:29-34—Solomon is described as author of proverbs & songs.

--Problem: nothing scientific survived in the literature ascribed to Solomon.

--Proverbs 1:1, 10:1, 25:1 open sections attributed to Solomon, although the latter was recorded in the days of Hezekiah.

--Solomon as “patron of the arts”—

--As Solomon consolidated his kingdom, he probably would have included a sapiential (=wisdom) tradition, i.e. formed a group of sages who collected, wrote, and edited wisdom literature, some new & some (probably most) already in existence.

--Thus “proverbs of Solomon” may mean that Solomon was responsible for the collection of the proverbs, which by no means rules out his authorship of some as well. This process likely continued through the centuries, until the current biblical book of Proverbs reached its present form.

B. Prehistory of OT Wisdom Literature

--Egyptian antecedents, esp. Amen-em-hopet, were possibly used by Solomon (or later sages) to compose the Book of Proverbs.

--Mesopotamian wisdom texts may have influenced the compositions of Job & Ecclesiastes.

--Many of the proverbs suggest a rural class society rather than a state, or monarchical, society. This would suggest that many of the proverbs existed before Solomon and the founding of Israel & were incorporated in the wisdom corpus by Solomon’s men & their ancestors.

C. Sages as a class—

--Under Solomon, or at least Hezekiah, sages existed as a class. Thus there was a separate group of teachers, writers, or philosophers working to produce what we know as the OT Wisdom Literature.

--Does this presuppose a process of development? Yes, to me it does.

--Wisdom literature, by nature, is developmental. As society changes, immediate problems & challenges change, and therefore wisdom changes.

--This accounts for contradictions in wisdom literature (Prov. 26:4-5). Under certain circumstances, expectations for actions change.

--This also explains the skepticism portrayed in Job & Ecclesiastes.

--As time passed, attitudes changed & the [apparent?] failure of proverbial wisdom caused some to question the sapiential foundations.

D. The wedding of wisdom & salvation history—

--Until the 2^nd century BC, wisdom literature is almost totally devoid of any historical reference.

--Except for the occasional authorial reference, the traditions of Israel—Abraham, covenant, Moses, exodus, conquest, Jerusalem, David—are virtually non-existent. (In fact, Moses, covenant [in the historic sense], Abraham, and David [except as father of Solomon] are not found in Job, Proverbs, or Ecclesiastes.)

--Ben Sirach finally combines the historical traditions with wisdom traditions, bringing these two disparate biblical genres (salvation-history, or heilsgeschichte, and wisdom).

--Ben Sirach wrote in the 1^st half of the 2^nd century BC.