The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Wisdom Literature
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Names: Adams, Samuel L., editor. | Goff, Matthew, editor.
Title: The Wiley Blackwell companion to wisdom literature / edited by Samuel L. Adams, and Matthew Goff.
Description: Hoboken, NJ, USA : Wiley, 2020. | Series: The Wiley Blackwell companions to religion | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019031710 (print) | LCCN 2019031711 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119158233 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119158257 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119158271 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Wisdom literature–Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Set in 10.5/13pt Photina by SPi Global, Pondicherry, India
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9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Wisdom from African Proverbs Meets Wisdom from the Book of Proverbs
Madipoane Masenya (Ngwan’a Mphahlele)
Notes on Contributors
Samuel L. Adams is the Mary Jane and John F. McNair Chair of Biblical Studies at Union Presbyterian Seminary. He received his PhD from Yale University in 2006. He is the author of monographs on wisdom literature and economics in the biblical world and is editor of the journal Interpretation
Carson Bay received his PhD from the Religions of Western Antiquity track of the Department of Religion at Florida State University. He is now a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Theology Faculty at the Universtät Bern, Switzerland. During the present volume’s writing, he was a Fulbright Graduate Fellow at the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum of Westfälische Wilhelms‐Universtät Münster, Germany.
Seth A. Bledsoe is Assistant Professor of Textual Sources of Judaism and Christianity in the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies at Radboud University in Nijmegen, in the Netherlands. His research focuses on wisdom literature and ancient narratives from the Second Temple period, with special attention to Jewish communities in Egypt. He has published several articles and a (forthcoming) monograph on Ahiqar.
William P. Brown is the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. He received his PhD from Emory University in 1991. He has written widely on the Psalms and the wisdom literature, as well as on the intersections between science and theology.
Dylan M. Burns is a research associate at the Egyptological Seminar of the Freie Universität Berlin. Co‐managing editor of Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies (Brill), he is the author of Apocalypse of the Alien God: Platonism and the Exile of Sethian Gnosticism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), and co‐editor of New Antiquities: Transformations of Ancient Religion in the New Age and Beyond (Equinox, 2019).
notes on contributors ix
Randall D. Chesnutt is the William S. Banowsky Chair in Religion at Seaver College, Pepperdine University, where he has served on the faculty since 1984. He is the author of From Death to Life: Conversion in Joseph and Aseneth (Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), and various other studies of Jewish life and literature in the Hellenistic period.
Michael Cover is Assistant Professor of Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity at Marquette University. His research and teaching interests include the Pauline Epistles, Philo of Alexandria, the historical Jesus, the enculturation of Judaism and Christianity within the Greco‐Roman world, and the development of Trinitarian thought. He is the author of Lifting the Veil: 2 Corinthians 3:7–18 in Light of Jewish Homiletic and Commentary Traditions (Walter de Gruyter, 2015). His current project is a commentary on Philo’s allegorical treatise, On the Change of Names, for the Brill Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series.
James L. Crenshaw is Robert L. Flowers Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, Duke University and has published extensively on wisdom literature, including commentaries on Job, Ecclesiastes, and Sirach. A Guggenheim Fellow and Phi Beta Kappa, he has devoted much attention to theodicy, culminating in the publication of Defending God: Biblical Responses to the Problem of Evil (Oxford University Press, 2005).
Gilbert Dahan is Emeritus Director of Research at the National Center for Scientific Research (Paris) and Research Professor at the Ecole pratique des hautes études (chair of the unit “History of Christian Exegesis in the Middle Ages”). He has written numerous studies on the exegesis of the Bible in the medieval Christian West, particularly in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. His publications include L’exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident medieval (Cerf, 1999); Lire la Bible au moyen âge. Essais d’herméneutique médiévale (Droz, 2007); Interpréter la Bible au moyen âge. Cinq écrits du XIIIe siècle sur l’exégèse de la Bible traduits en français (Parole et Silence, 2007), and most recently Dominique et ses frères lecteurs de la Bible au XIIIe siècle (Cerf, 2016). He has directed several symposia on medieval exegetes and is the author of numerous articles on the subject.
Tova Forti is Associate Professor in the Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near East at Ben‐Gurion University of the Negev. Her research interests include wisdom literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, wisdom psalms, and Ben Sira). She has published the following books on animal imagery: Animal Imagery in the Book of Proverbs (Leiden: Brill, 2008), and “Like a Lone Bird on a Roof”: Animal Imagery and the Structure of Psalms (Eisenbrauns and Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018). She is currently collaborating with Katharine Dell (Cambridge University) on a commentary on Ecclesiastes (International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament).
Matthew Goff is a Professor in the Department of Religion at Florida State University. He received his PhD in 2002 from the University of Chicago, and his research focuses on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He is the author of three monographs, including most recently 4QInstruction (Society of Biblical Literature, 2013).
Bradley C. Gregory is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies in the School of Theology & Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. His research focuses on the deuterocanonical books and sapiential ethics. He is the author of Like an Everlasting Signet Ring: Generosity in the Book of Sirach (Walter de Gruyter, 2010).
Jennie Grillo is Tisch Family Assistant Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of The Story of Israel in the Book of Qohelet: Ecclesiastes as Cultural Memory (Oxford, 2012), and articles on subjects including wisdom literature, the Daniel tradition, and the interactions of early Jewish and early Christian biblical interpretation. Her current project is a study of the history of interpretation of the Additions to Daniel.
Davis Hankins is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University. He also serves as faculty affiliate in the Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies and in the Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies program. He is the author of The Book of Job and the Immanent Genesis of Transcendence (Northwestern University Press, 2015) as well as articles on Job, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and 4QInstruction, among other texts and topics.
Blake A. Jurgens is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and a doctoral candidate at Florida State University. His research interests include sapiential literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Testament of Solomon, and ancient and antique demonologies. Recent publications of his have appeared in the Journal for Biblical Literature, the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, and the Journal for the Study of Judaism.
Mark Larrimore is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, The New School. He is editor or co‐editor of The Problem of Evil: A Reader (2001), The German Invention of Race (2006), and Queer Christianities: Lived Religion in Transgressive Forms (2014), and the author of The Book of Job: A Biography (2013). His current research explores modern manifestations of religion and the politics of their study.
Madipoane Masenya (Ngwan’a Mphahlele) is Professor of Old Testament Studies in the Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies at the University of South Africa, Pretoria. She has published numerous scientific articles and chapters in specialist books in the area of the Hebrew Bible and gender, especially in African contexts. She served as one of the associate editors of The Africana Bible: Reading
notes on contributors xi
Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora (Fortress, 2010). Her book How Worthy is the Woman of Worth? Rereading Proverbs 31:10–31 was published by Peter Lang (2004). She has recently (2018) co-edited with Kenneth N. Ngwa a volume titled, Navigating African Biblical Hermeneutics: Trends and Themes from our Pots and our Calabashes (Cambridge Scholars).
Ari Mermelstein, Associate Professor of Bible at Yeshiva University, holds a PhD in Judaic Studies from New York University (NYU) and a JD from NYU Law School. His first book, Creation, Covenant, and the Beginnings of Judaism: Reconceiving Historical Time in the Second Temple Period, was published by Brill in 2014. His research spans the Hebrew Bible through rabbinic literature, and he is currently at work on a monograph devoted to the relationship between emotion and power in ancient Judaism.
Patrick Pouchelle is an Associate Professor in the Centre Sèvres, Paris. He published his dissertation Dieu éducateur: une nouvelle approche de la théologie biblique entre Bible hébraïque, Septante et litérature grecque in 2015 (Mohr Siebeck). He is a member of the editorial team of the Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint. He has organized two conferences on the Psalms of Solomon and published the proceedings in Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology (Society of Biblical Literature, 2015). He had the distinction of being a member of the Seminar of Advanced Jewish Studies in Oxford University in 2018.
Matthew S. Rindge is Professor of Religious Studies at Gonzaga University (Spokane, WA). He is the author of Jesus’ Parable of the Rich Fool: Luke 12:13–34 among Ancient Conversations on Death and Possessions (Society of Biblical Literature, 2011) and Profane Parables: Film and the American Dream (Baylor University Press, 2016). He is currently writing Bible and Film: The Basics (Routledge). From 2012–2018 he chaired the Bible and Film section in the Society of Biblical Literature.
Nili Samet teaches Bible and Assyriology in the Department of Bible at Bar‐Ilan University, where she has been a faculty member since 2011. One of her main research interests is biblical and Mesopotamian wisdom literature. Samet is the author of The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur: A Revised Edition (Eisenbrauns, 2014), and several articles in the fields of Sumerian and Akkadian wisdom literature, the books of Proverbs and Qoheleth, and biblical Hebrew.
Elisa Uusimäki is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Aarhus University and holds the title of docent at the University of Helsinki. Her first book Turning Proverbs towards Torah: An Analysis of 4Q525 was published by Brill in 2016. Uusimäki’s research focuses on ancient Jewish wisdom and virtue discourses. She has published articles on topics such as wisdom and torah, the Dead Sea Scrolls, early biblical interpretation, the figure of the sage, exemplarity, and travel in the ancient world.
Timothy J. Sandoval is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. He is the author of The Discourse of Wealth and Poverty in the Book of Proverbs (Brill, 2005), Money and the Way of Wisdom (SkyLight Paths, 2008), and “Wisdom and Worship: Themes and Perspectives in the Poetic Writings” in The Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The Old Testament and Apocrypha (Fortress Press, 2014).
Jacqueline Vayntrub is Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School, with expertise in biblical poetry, wisdom literature, Semitic philology, literary criticism, and the history of biblical scholarship. She is the author of Beyond Orality: Biblical Poetry on its Own Terms (Routledge, 2019), and over a dozen articles and essays in peer‐reviewed journals and edited volumes.
Benjamin Wold is Assistant Professor in Early Judaism and Early Christianity at Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin. His research interests include sapiential literature of the Second Temple period, the Jewish context of Christian origins, and especially the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Jason M. Zurawski earned his PhD in Second Temple Judaism from the University of Michigan in 2016, and he is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Qumran Institute, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Groningen (Netherlands). His research focuses on Jewish paideia (education) during the Second Temple period and the relationship between education and identity formation. He is currently preparing his monograph, Jewish Paideia: Education, Enculturation, and the Discourse of Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora, for publication.
Acknowledgments
A volume of this size is very much a collective effort. The editors would like to acknowledge the many different people without whom this project would not have come to fruition. This large group of people includes first and foremost the contributors and of this group Jacqueline Vayntrub deserves special thanks. The editorial assistants, Blake Jurgens (who is also a contributor) and Megan Strollo, did excellent work in terms of getting the chapters into final shape. We thank Giancarlo Angulo and Emily Olsen for compiling the index. Special thanks go to Rebecca Harkin, formerly an editor at Wiley Blackwell, who initially suggested this project. The editors are also grateful to Juliet Booker and Richard Samson, both editors at Wiley Blackwell who helped see this manuscript to publication.
Abbreviations
Abr. Philo, On the Life of Abraham (De Abrahamo)
ADRN Avot de‐Rabbi Nathan
Adv. Her. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses
Ag. Ap Josephus, Against Apion
Ahiq. Ahiqar
Ant. Josephus, Antiquities
Ap. John Apocryphon of John
Auth. Log. The Authoritative Teaching
Avod. Zar Avodah Zarah
b. Babylonian Talmud
Bar. Baruch
2 Bar. 2 Baruch
B. Qam. Bava Qamma
Ber. Berakhot
BG Berlin Gnostic Codex
Borysth. Dio Chrysostom, Borysthenitica (Borysthenic Discourse)
CD Damascus Document
Cels. Origen, Contra Celsum
Cert. Contest of Homer and Hesiod (Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi)
1 Chr 1 Chronicles
2 Chr 2 Chronicles
Col Colossians
Contempl. Philo, On the Contemplative Life (De vita contemplativa)
1 Cor 1 Corinthians
2 Cor 2 Corinthians
Dan Daniel
DER Derekh Erets Rabbah
Deut Deuteronomy
DEZ Derekh Erets Zuta
Dial. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho
Dial. Sav. Dialogue of the Savior
Eccl Ecclesiastes
1 En. 1 Enoch
Ep. Jerome, Epistulae
Eph Ephesians
Erub. Eruvin
2 Esd 2 Esdras
Eug. Eugnostos the Blessed
Exod Exodus
Ezek Ezekiel
Fug. Philo, On Flight and Finding (De fuga et inventione)
Gen Genesis
Git. Gittin
Gos. Thom. Gospel of Thomas
Hab Habakkuk
Hag. Hagigah
Heb Hebrews
Her. Philo, Who is the Heir? (Quis rerum divinarum heres sit)
Opif. Philo, On the Creation of the World (De opificio mundi)
P. Insing. Papyrus Insinger
Pan. Epiphanius, Panarion
Pesiq. Rab. Pesiqta Rabbati
Pesiq. Rab. Kah. Pesiqta de‐Rab Kahana
PGM Greek Magical Papyri
Praep. ev. Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica
Prot. Plato, Protagoras
Prov Proverbs
Ps Psalm
Ps.‐Phoc. Pseudo‐Phocylides
Pss Psalms
Q Qumran
Qidd. Qiddushin
Qoh Qoheleth
Qoh. Rab Qoheleth Rabbah
Quaest. conviv. Plutarch, Table Talk in Nine Books (Quaestionum convivialum libri IX)
1QM War Scroll
4QMMT Miqsat Maase Ha‐Torah
1QpHab Habbakuk Pesher
11QPsa Qumran Psalms Scroll (11Q5)
1QS Community Rule
Rev Revelation
Rom Romans
Ruth Rab. Ruth Rabbah
1 Sam 1 Samuel
2 Sam 2 Samuel
Sanh. Sanhedrin
Sent. Sext. Sentences of Sextus
Sept. sap. conv. Plutarch, Dinner of the Seven Wise Men (Septem sapientium convivium)
Shabb. Shabbat
Sib. Or. Sibylline Oracles
Sir Ben Sira
Song Song of Songs
Song Rab. Song of Songs Rabbah
Soph. Jes. Chr. Wisdom of Jesus Christ
Spec. Philo, On the Special Laws (De specialibus lebigus)
Strom. Clement, Stromata
t. Tosefta
TAD Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents (4 vols. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1986‐1999)
T. Dan Testament of Dan
Teach. Silv. Teachings of Silvanus
T. Gad Testament of Gad
Theog. Hesiod, Theogony
Thund Thunder: The Perfect Mind
T. Iss. Testament of Issachar
T. Naph. Testament of Naphtali
Tob. Tobit
T. Sol. Testament of Solomon
Vit. Mos Philo, The Life of Moses (De vita Mosis) Wis Wisdom of Solomon
y. Jerusalem Talmud
Yad. Yadayim
Yeb. Yevamot
Yom Yoma
Editors’ Introduction
Samuel L. Adams and Matthew Goff
This handbook is designed to give the reader, whether an advanced scholar or an undergraduate student, a basic introduction to and overview of wisdom literature. The volume will also provide an impression of how this material has been read and interpreted in various contexts and historical periods. The authors engage the topic from a variety of approaches, asking historical, literary, theological, and feminist questions (among others) about wisdom literature. The chapters offer detailed and thorough studies of the relevant texts and also discuss a number of issues that are pertinent to the study of wisdom literature, such as the figure of Solomon, pedagogy in the ancient world, and the oral transmission of sayings. While many of the chapters focus on antiquity and the context in which wisdom literature was produced, the contributors deal with later periods as well, including our own context, as in, for example, Chapter 26 on sapiential themes in contemporary cinema. The cultural contexts that the contributors take into consideration include both the ancient world, as in Chapters 17 and 18 on, respectively, Egypt and Mesopotamia, and also settings that are traditionally not prominent in the study of wisdom literature, such as Chapter 25, which compares the book of Proverbs to didactic and gnomic traditions in Africa. This volume and its contents raise two essential questions: What is wisdom? And what is wisdom literature? As our introduction and the subsequent chapters demonstrate, this is not always an easy question to answer. The editors have not imposed a single, monolithic definition of wisdom or wisdom literature upon the contributors. The extent to which wisdom literature is a viable or coherent category is a topic of
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Wisdom Literature, First Edition. Edited by Samuel L. Adams and Matthew Goff.
debate (Weeks 2016; Kynes 2015, 2019). The authors of the chapters that follow in general lay out how they understand these topics. Yet a basic overview about how to understand the terms wisdom and wisdom literature is necessary.
Wisdom as a Concept: A Pedagogical Ideal and Expansive Knowledge
Wisdom (hokmah in Hebrew; sophia in Greek) is an important and somewhat ambiguous term in the literature of ancient Israel and beyond. It is difficult to define, because it encompasses knowledge and learning in a broad sense. In the ancient instructions, wisdom can denote the desire and ability to study and learn, and the act of doing so, and it can also signify the knowledge or comprehension that one has attained. For many of the ancient texts classified as wisdom literature, the primary aim is stated from the outset. For example, the book of Proverbs begins with an explicitly pedagogical prologue: “for learning about wisdom and instruction” (1:2).
In addition to signifying knowledge in a broader sense, wisdom can denote specific skills or types of comportment that one might develop, including a virtuous disposition. In the book of Exodus, for example, the term signifies crafts of various sorts, including metalworking and embroidery, in which Bezalel and Oholiab, who are commissioned to help construct the tabernacle, are skilled (35:30–35). In this example, wisdom indicates a specific skill set. In another example, King Solomon famously prays to God for wisdom in 1 Kings 3 – 4 (see Chapter 9 in this volume), and the wisdom he receives includes extensive knowledge regarding plants and animals (4:33). Solomon’s legendary wisdom also includes the ability to rule with “righteousness,” which is required of any king considered good in the ancient world. This designation suggests that wisdom signifies not only having a wide range of knowledge but also a predilection to be virtuous.
Relatedly, wisdom can denote a mental aptitude – an ability to understand the world accurately and prosper as a result. A person with wisdom can make appropriate and apt decisions with regard to basic but important spheres of life, such as marriage and finance. A wise person is portrayed as someone who leads a long and fulfilling life. The rewards of wisdom are famously described in Proverbs 3. This chapter depicts personified “Wisdom” as both a woman and a “tree of life” (Prov. 3:18), a figure one should embrace (in pointed contrast to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 3). She holds in her hands “long life” and “riches” (Prov. 3:16). Envisioning Wisdom as a woman and a tree constitutes a colorful effort to give concrete expression to a vague and abstract concept. The portrayal of Wisdom as a woman is multifaceted (see Chapter 10), but the metaphor thrives and develops in the context of pedagogy.
Such depictions of the figure of Wisdom raise the question of ancient educational practices. While much about education in ancient Israel remains unknown, it is reasonable to understand it as by and large a male enterprise, in terms of both teachers and students. The personification of Wisdom seems targeted at male addressees, students who are supposed to be on the proper path (toward virtuous behavior). A fundamental goal of this literature is to inculcate a desire for and even, as some texts say, a love for Wisdom (e.g. Prov 8:17), which will then lead to success. The figure of Wisdom as a tree of life helps signify human flourishing, the ability of people to thrive and lead fulfilling lives, with regard to material success and harmonious family relations.
The promise of such benefits is critiqued in certain texts, giving the impression that wisdom, as represented in Proverbs and other instructions, was a subject of debate in the ancient world. The viability of wisdom to result in fulfillment is famously questioned in the book of Job, with its poignant investigation of a man trying to understand why he has lost his family, prosperity, and health (see Chapter 2). Job 28 paints a poetically rich picture of people striving for wisdom, like miners digging through the earth for precious metals, and the chapter seems to conclude that wisdom (the ability to understand and succeed in the world) is not accessible in our earthly realm. This is in contrast to the book of Proverbs, where Wisdom, personified as a woman, calls out to passers‐by, urging them to study with her and acquire understanding (Prov. 8:1–9). According to Proverbs, if one desires wisdom, it can be attained. Ecclesiastes, offering a different critique of wisdom than Job, presents wisdom as something that can be acquired, but the book (as Chapter 3 examines) questions one’s ability to make a lasting or substantive difference, even with the requisite knowledge.
In some of the passages addressed in this volume, wisdom can be understood as an attribute of God rather than something that people can acquire. There is human wisdom, and there is divine wisdom. God’s wisdom helps explain why the wise person can predict outcomes and make good and apt decisions in life. The world has a rational structure that can be apprehended by someone who is wise. It is understandable, because God made it that way. According to Proverbs 3:19, for example, the Deity fashioned the created order “with wisdom.” Wisdom allows one to understand the world, because God used divine wisdom when creating it. Another example of this perspective is Proverbs 8, which offers a fascinating autobiographical account of personified Wisdom being present at the dawn of creation and providing essential help to God.
The idea that wisdom is embedded in the created order and can be apprehended by discerning individuals appears regularly in Proverbs, is questioned in Job, and is taken up and extended in later texts. Ben Sira (chapter 24) poetically expands the account of personified Wisdom found in Proverbs 8. The book also includes extensive poetic praise of the cosmic order, the perception of which, the book urges, should elicit exaltation of God and be considered a source of wisdom (Sir. 42:15–44:33;
see Chapter 5 in this volume). The Wisdom of Solomon, which combines sapiential traditions found in Scripture with Hellenistic philosophy, envisions Wisdom not only as a woman (as in Proverbs) but also as a benevolent spirit that extends throughout the cosmos and binds all things together (1:7; for an overview of this composition, see Chapter 6). There is something similar at work in the Qumran wisdom text 4QInstruction, which encourages its addressees, who are part of an elect community, to study the raz nihyeh. This Hebrew phrase can be translated “the mystery that is to be” (see Chapter 7 in this volume; Goff 2013). The addressee (called a mebin, or “understanding one”) is urged repeatedly to contemplate this mystery. That it is a “mystery” denotes that it is esoteric, supernatural revelation disclosed to this select group (the “understanding ones”). The term raz denotes revelation in apocalyptic texts (e.g., Daniel 2), not traditional wisdom texts, suggesting that in the late Second Temple period some wisdom texts could be heavily influenced by the apocalyptic tradition (see Chapter 14).
Wisdom as a Textual Category
As the discussion so far has implied, there is a delineated group of texts that scholars traditionally turn to when discussing wisdom. Wisdom is itself a theme in these texts – a basis for the label wisdom literature – works that praise learning and encourage proper behavior in the world are often grouped into this category. The fact that some texts pursue the same themes across generations and centuries indicates noteworthy continuity. For example, it is no coincidence that Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon present a personified Wisdom figure, just as we find in Proverbs 8.
Scholars generally use the term wisdom to denote a group of texts – in particular biblical texts: in the Hebrew Bible, Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes, and in the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books (canonical in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions but not the Protestant Old Testament or Jewish scriptures), Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon (Collins 1997a). The term is also used to describe didactic literature produced in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and also some texts from Qumran, such as 4QInstruction (see Chapters 17, 18, and 7 respectively).
Yet some interpreters have suggested in recent years that the wisdom label causes more problems than it solves and should be abandoned. One basic critique is that wisdom literature is a creation of modern scholarship, and many interpreters have identified false coherence for this category (Kynes 2015, 2019). A related charge is that the wisdom label is not only vague but, through the application of this category to a diverse group of works, it becomes difficult to appreciate the particularities and idiosyncrasies of each text so classified (Weeks 2016; cf. Sneed 2011).
Such critiques force the careful interpreter to articulate how they understand wisdom as a textual category. Scholars generally delineate wisdom as a category on the basis of commonalities between the texts so‐categorized in terms of literary
form, theme, content, worldview, function, and social setting. The texts praise instruction and learning as a virtue and were in general circulated in pedagogical contexts, transmitted across generations from teacher to student (some of whom would become teachers themselves who would in turn have their own students). In the specific context of ancient Israel and Second Temple Judea, the texts so‐categorized often have terminological and thematic affinities with the book of Proverbs. Wisdom is not a literary genre in the sense that to be classified as such a member must adhere to a rigid or formalized literary form as with, for example, a sonnet or a haiku. Collins for example has stated “there is universal agreement that wisdom does not constitute a literary genre and that it can find expression in various literary forms” (1997b, 265; cf. Goff 2010). Rather, wisdom literature encompasses a somewhat eclectic body of literature in which one finds a diversity of themes and literary structures that together comprise a category on the basis of their common features. Recognizing this understanding of the category can prevent us from failing to appreciate the subtleties of each text. We as editors maintain, as do the contributors to this volume, that there is a constellation of texts about proper human behavior, the search for knowledge, and reward and punishment (or the lack thereof) that can accurately be called wisdom or sapiential literature.
Many of the texts that fall under the wisdom label are properly labeled instructions, and these works have common generic features and themes. Specifically, one finds in these texts monostich (one‐line) sayings, two‐line sayings, and warnings or admonitions. Different aspects of human existence and the natural world are compared through the use of poetic parallelism. Through this formal content, the instructions offer perspectives on appropriate conduct and the role of the Deity in adjudicating fair outcomes. Early works like the Egyptian Instruction of Ptahhotep self‐identify as instructions and offer timeless maxims on such topics as careful speech, corruption, and marital relations. The Israelite book of Proverbs can also be classified as an instruction, and the two‐line saying is its common structural feature, especially in chapters 10–30. These sayings are often practical and relate to everyday human existence: “Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to advice” (Prov. 13:15). This type of observation epitomizes the wisdom tradition that will be explored in this book, both in terms of form and content. The works explored in this volume are appropriately classified as wisdom literature, and many of them are more specifically instructions. As editors, we are proceeding with the understanding that wisdom literature is an etic category, a designation by modern interpreters that must be explored thoroughly and with the caveat that we are dealing with a diverse group of texts in this volume. Yet the works that are analyzed here have many common elements, from similar structural features to an abiding interest in the meaning of everyday experience, how best to conduct oneself, and the manner in which God(s) intervenes to shape events and judge human outcomes. The chapters in this volume demonstrate that wisdom literature is not nebulous, but a category with coherence and viability.
The Contents of the Volume
This volume is arranged into four Parts: Texts, Themes, Antecedents, and Reception. These various sections allow for comprehensive exploration of wisdom literature and invite consideration of areas that have not gained enough attention in more traditional and limited treatments of this topic.
The first Part (Texts) addresses the major texts in the ancient Israelite and Second Temple Judean context that are usually grouped in the wisdom literature category. Chapter 1 by Jacqueline Vayntrub considers the book of Proverbs, usually seen as the clearest example of wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible. Vayntrub does not dispute the significance of this instruction for sapiential discourse in ancient Israel, but she cautions against using Proverbs as the template for judging subsequent texts, and she includes some groundbreaking work on how we should understand this collection. In the next chapter, Davis Hankins provides a creative treatment of the enigmatic book of Job. The human protagonist in the story repeatedly protests his innocence to God and his associates, and Hankins’s provocative chapter explores the depiction of gross unfairness in Job, along with God as a dysfunctional force of plasticity in the world. In Chapter 3, Jennie Grillo offers a remarkably astute introduction to the book of Ecclesiastes. The author of this ancient work, Qoheleth, harps on the brevity of life and the frequent unfairness of human outcomes and relationships. Grillo explores the probable Hellenistic‐era milieu for this text and the timeless questions addressed by its author.
Chapter 4 by William P. Brown focuses on the book of Psalms and whether some of the content can accurately be designated as wisdom literature. Brown’s helpful overview of the debate over classifying certain psalms as wisdom highlights the difficult nature of what we group into this category and the importance of sapiential ideas in ancient Israel. Next, in Chapter 5, is the exploration of the book of Sirach or Ben Sira by Bradley C. Gregory. This instruction can be dated with relative precision because of a prologue by the Jewish author’s grandson, and Gregory explores the combination of traditional discourse (sayings, warnings) and the explicit invocation of Israelite legal and prophetic traditions, a feature that is notably absent from the books of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. The Wisdom of Solomon was influenced by Greek ideas and philosophical systems, and in Chapter 6 Randall D. Chesnutt offers a lucid exposition of how the author (Pseudo‐Solomon) depicts the righteous life and accompanying rewards, including the possibility of individual immortality. This text, written in Greek around the turn of the common era (CE), contains a fascinating amalgam of Middle Platonic ideas and the traditional subject matter of earlier instructions (e.g. adultery).
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 has transformed our understanding of ancient Jewish and Christian texts, including wisdom literature. Archaeologists found a trove of fragmentary texts near Qumran that have been identified as wisdom literature. In her lucid chapter (Chapter 7), Elisa Uusimäki
explores the combination of apocalyptic and instructional motifs in these texts. She demonstrates the manner in which the esoteric mystery language in such works as 4QInstruction and 4QMysteries forces us to reevaluate our narrow, traditional criteria for what constitutes wisdom. The last chapter in this first section is from Patrick Pouchelle, who analyzes the Greek translations of various wisdom texts that appear in the Septuagint (LXX). Pouchelle considers how certain translations depart from the original Hebrew texts with a “divine revealed wisdom” (e.g., Proverbs), while others (Ecclesiastes) seek to follow the Hebrew more faithfully. Pouchelle’s chapter demonstrates that an author’s time period and religious beliefs influence translation decisions.
Part II (Themes) looks at some of the important motifs and subtopics in wisdom literature. In Chapter 9, Blake A. Jurgens takes up the figure of Solomon and explores why this famous Israelite king came to be identified as the author of Proverbs and a person of immense knowledge. According to Jurgens, the abiding interest in Solomon illustrates the importance of this king in the cultural memory of Jews and Christians in the ancient world. Solomon’s reputed wisdom in the book of 1 Kings became an important touchpoint for determining how ancient authors and audiences constructed their perspectives on wisdom. Moving to another important theme, the book of Proverbs and other ancient instructions are replete with female imagery involving the figure of Wisdom, and in Chapter 10 Tova Forti considers this type of language and its significance. As a close reader of Hebrew texts, Forti provides a helpful overview of such pivotal figures as Lady Wisdom and the Other Woman in Proverbs 1–9 and what they symbolized to their audiences. Ancient instructions often contain vivid female imagery, and Forti offers helpful context on the function of these varied depictions.
Ancient scribal and educational practices are not fully understood, but it is indisputably clear that the sayings and discourses that we identify as wisdom literature were gathered and in some cases authored by learned scribes. In Chapter 11 Matthew Goff explores the scribal culture undergirding much of this literature, and he pays close attention to the social location of the scribe (whether in the temple, royal court, or some other setting) and the manner in which Greek ideas influenced the authors and compilers of these texts. The next chapter addresses the nature of the God we meet in these ancient works and comes from one of the most accomplished scholars of wisdom literature, James L. Crenshaw. According to his argument, there is an evolution in these texts, from God as parent in Proverbs to a merging of sacred traditions with wisdom in later instructions (e.g. Ben Sira). Crenshaw pays special attention to the complex and memorable portrait of God in Job.
As our introduction has already stressed, one of the most significant features of this literature is the influence of Greek ideas. In Chapter 13, Michael Cover provides a lucid overview of the numerous examples in this regard. Specifically, he examines two important authors of the late Second Temple period, Pseudo‐Phocylides and
Philo, and the manner in which they utilized Hellenistic concepts and thereby transformed Jewish wisdom. Cover pays particular attention to the interplay of Hellenistic and Jewish ideas in diasporic settings like Alexandria. Next is the relationship between wisdom and apocalyptic in a helpful chapter from Jason M. Zurawski. In recent decades, scholars have paid closer attention to the fact that generic categories were not rigidly observed in the ancient world. Contrary to the frequent assertion that wisdom and apocalypticism are fundamentally distinct modes of discourse, Zurawski successfully demonstrates how much fluidity there was between these two categories in the late Second Temple period. The final chapter in the Themes section examines the oral transmission of sayings in the ancient world, particularly the maxims found in the book of Proverbs. Timothy Sandoval considers the likely origin for the sayings in Proverbs and how people in the ancient world collected and shared their gnomic traditions.
The next part of this volume is Antecedents, by which we mean the instructions in the ancient Near East that had an impact on Israelite and Jewish wisdom. Israelite and Jewish instructions were heavily dependent on an international wisdom tradition that existed millennia before the first books of the Bible were ever composed. Chapter 16 by Seth A. Bledsoe examines the legends involving the sage Ahiqar, most notably the Aramaic text found among those Judeans living in fifth‐century BCE Egypt. Bledsoe provides a comprehensive overview of how the legend of Ahiqar developed and the pairing of this colorful story with timeless wisdom sayings. Next is the chapter by Samuel L. Adams on the wisdom tradition in Egypt. Adams considers how the shape and tenor of instructional literature remained a critical aspect of this ancient culture, including the justice principle known as Maat, and he also examines how one Egyptian text (Amenemope) became the model for a section of the biblical book of Proverbs. The last chapter in this part analyzes the relevant Mesopotamian texts. Nili Samet points to the heterogeneous character of the Mesopotamian works commonly placed under the wisdom banner, and she offers a helpful overview of the various works that contain sapiential elements, particularly Sumerian and Akkadian literature.
The final part of this volume considers Reception, specifically how later voices utilized the wisdom tradition and interpreted it in new contexts. Commentators often pay insufficient attention to the sapiential themes and elements in the New Testament, but Chapter 19 by Benjamin Wold offers a necessary corrective to this tendency. Like the authors of other chapters in the volume, Wold is careful with definitions of wisdom, and he offers helpful analysis on the sayings in the Synoptic Gospels, especially the material labeled as “Q” and the Letter of James. This chapter also considers the pivotal question of whether the historical Jesus can be labeled a “wisdom teacher.” For Chapter 20, Ari Mermelstein addresses the myriad ways in which the rabbinic literature utilized and built upon the sapiential texts of the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism. Mermelstein carefully examines the mishnaic
tractate Avot and the manner in which it is similar to and different from earlier wisdom literature. Along similar lines, Chapter 21 by Carson Bay considers the continuation of the wisdom tradition in early and late antique Christianity. These interpreters made extensive use of Jewish wisdom, including Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon, but framed their discussion through a Christian lens, both on the allegorical and more mundane levels (e.g., financial matters).
The texts of the Nag Hammadi library have captivated interpreters since their discovery in 1945, particularly with regard to the light they shed on long lost gnostic forms of Christianity. This corpus also includes wisdom literature. In Chapter 22, as an expert on this literature, Dylan M. Burns analyzes the Teachings of Silvanus, the so‐called Sentences of Sextus, and the utilization of Wisdom/Sophia traditions in the Nag Hammadi texts. These texts build on the content of earlier Jewish wisdom and the New Testament, but they also contain ascetic elements that are so characteristic of the Nag Hammadi corpus. Moving to a later period, the ancient wisdom literature also captivated Christian interpreters of the Middle Ages. Gilbert Dahan, in Chapter 23, considers the medieval interpretations of sapiential texts (excluding Job, which was not attributed to Solomon) and the fascinating exegetical moves of many later commentators. Dahan includes some important discussion on the interpretation of Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon in the Middle Ages.
When considering the reception history of the wisdom texts, the book of Job deserves special consideration. In Chapter 24, Mark Larrimore gives a dazzling survey of the different responses to Job in artistic representations and commentaries throughout the ages. He notes the ways in which interpreters have struggled with the theodicy question in the book, the relationship between the prose and poetic sections, and the profound theological issues raised by this timeless classic.
Wisdom literature has not just flourished in the Middle East and Europe: there is a rich and diverse heritage of sayings in Africa. Madipoane Masenya is one of the foremost experts on wisdom traditions in this context, and in Chapter 25 she offers readers of this volume a useful introduction to this material, both in terms of form and content. With a primary focus on her South African context, Masenya shows how proverbs can function as social commentary, shape human behavior, and influence cultural norms. This chapter also reveals remarkable similarities between African wisdom and the book of Proverbs, even though there is no direct connection between these traditions.
Finally, Matthew Rindge examines wisdom themes in modern cinema. Some of the primary questions in the ancient texts, such as the existence of a just God, whether a fair relationship between act and consequence exists, and the best standards for human conduct, are also explored in contemporary films. Rindge shows that the wisdom literature being examined in this volume addresses timeless and fascinating questions, and a vibrant interpretive process continues to the present day.
References
Collins, John J. 1997a. Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age. Louisville: Westminster John Knox.
Collins, John J. 1997b. Wisdom reconsidered, in light of the Scrolls. Dead Sea Discoveries 4: 265–281.
Goff, Matthew. 2013. 4QInstruction. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature.
Goff, Matthew. 2010. Qumran wisdom literature and the problem of genre. Dead Sea Discoveries 17: 315–335.
Kynes, Will. 2015. The modern scholarly wisdom tradition and the threat of pan‐sapientialism: A Case report. In:
Further Reading
Crenshaw, James L. 2010. Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction. 3rd ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. A leading introduction to the subject.
Perdue, Leo G. 2008. The Sword and the Stylus. An Introduction to Wisdom in the Age of Empires. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. An introduction to the topic with an expansive understanding of wisdom texts.
Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies (ed. Mark R. Sneed), 11–38. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature Press. Kynes, Will. 2019. An Obituary for “Wisdom Literature.” New York: Oxford University Press.
Sneed, Mark R. 2011. Is the “wisdom tradition” a tradition? Catholic Biblical Quarterly 73: 50–71. Weeks, Stuart. 2016. Is “wisdom literature” a useful category? In: Tracing Sapiential Traditions in Ancient Judaism (ed. Hindy Najman, Jean‐Sébastien Rey, and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar), 3–23. Leiden: Brill.
Perdue, Leo G. 2007. Wisdom Literature: A Theological History. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. A theological overview of wisdom literature.
Rad, Gerhard von. 1972. Wisdom in Israel London/Valley Forge: SCM Press/Trinity Press. This book helped spark contemporary interest in wisdom literature.
