SUMMARY OF WISDOM LITERATURE

SUMMARY OF WISDOM LITERATURE

            St. Anselm defines theology as faith seeking reason or understanding, that is, theology builds a bridge from knowledge based on faith to knowledge based on reason. Inversely, according to Sean McEvenue, studying the wisdom books of the OT could be defined as reason seeking faith, that is, wisdom study builds a bridge from knowledge based on reason to knowledge based on faith.

            The Hebrew word for wisdom is hokmah, an in Greek, it is Sophia. There are five books that are called “Wisdom Books.” They are Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes (or Qoheleth), Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus) and Wisdom. These books therefore form the Wisdom Corpus. But, wisdom is not limited to these books. By extension, the book of Psalms, which contains a lot of wisdom teachings, is added to the corpus. Some scholars also consider the Song of Songs, in which the name of God is not mentioned even for once, as wisdom book because it is attributed to Solomon, the master of wisdom and songs in Israel. However, Song of Songs is not considered in this book because it does not really have the characteristics of the Wisdom corpus. There are some other fragmentary texts that belong to this corpus because of the sapiential counsels they contain like, Tobit 4:3-21, 12:6-13 and the poem in Baruch 3:9-4:4.

Various meanings of Wisdom (Hokmah)

            The Hebrew term hokmah (wisdom, Sophia in Greek) has a wide range of meanings:

--In the least, Wisdom refers to the cleverness of negligible organisms (e.g. ant, locust) that enable them achieve great fortunes (Prov. 30:24-28). It also refers to human cleverness.

--Wisdom refers to people who have the skill of an artisan. These are considered ‘wise’. (Ex. 36:8).

--Wisdom refers to having the rudiments of coping with life here and now. Good life is marked by longevity, prosperity and prestige (Pro. 4:8-9; 10:1-22:16; 11:2; 12:15).

--Wisdom entails the ability to give sound judgement (1 Kgs. 3:28).

--Wisdom offers the proper rules of conduct that is in consonance with the gift of divine intention, although actuated by human effort (Pro. 2:1-22).

--Wisdom begins with the recognition of the indispensable role of God in human existence (Pro. 9:10; 1:17; Job. 28:28; Ps. 111:10; Sir. 1:16).

From the foregoing, Wisdom is generic, having a universal application, applicable to non-rational organisms, but, a property of rational beings alone. Wisdom is not limited to any race, nation or religion, neither is there a dichotomy between reason and faith.

Characteristics of Wisdom Literature

            The characteristics of the biblical wisdom literature could be itemized as follows:

--In the wisdom literature, the sages are marked by their pursuit of insight, the unknown. They believe that God had hidden the essential reality from humans; and that God’s glory lies in this tendency to concealing secrets (Pro. 25:2). For instance, Job tries to understand his suffering (despite his innocence) by searching from his contemporary condition; Sirach looks unto the past in order to resuscitate hope for his disciples.

--The Wisdom books that came as from the 2nd century B.C. (Sirach and Wisdom) possess elements that are typically Israelite, such as promises to the patriarchs, the Exodus event, Siniatic Covenant, the conquests etc. This is clear as Sirach 24 identifies Wisdom with the Law that God gave to Israel; Sirach 44-50 eulogises the forefathers of Israel; and Wisdom 11-19 is a midrashic consideration of the Exodus and the Plagues. The manner of treatment of these elements in the books further prove that they are not specifically meant for the Israelites.

--Wisdom Literature has a lot in common with the international world. For instance, non-Israelites were mentioned (e.g. Agur and Lemuel of Massa (Pro. 30-31), and Job and his friends (Job 1-2)); Solomon’s wisdom was compared with that of the people of East and Egypt (1 Kgs. 4:29-34).

--The wisdom literature evince that the goal of all wisdom is the formation of character (this is clear in the activities of parents, teachers and sages in the royal courts).

--The ultimate character of the Wisdom Literature is that it seeks a proper relationship with God, the author of all that is in being (Job.28:28).

Origin and Development of Wisdom in Israel

            The possible loci for the original transmission of Wisdom in Israel were families, schools and royal courts.

Family- In different clans or tribes, different wisdom sayings and teachings were transmitted at homes (Pro.1-8). This was done mostly orally were instructions about life legacies were bequeathed to children (Tobit. 4:1-19).

Schools- Scholars assume that with the institution of monarchy, some formal education was carried out within the court as was customary in the courts of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Hired itinerant teachers or sages most probably imparted professional wisdom in privileged children from well-to-do families, whose parents could foot the bill, like in Sir. 51:23.

Royal Courts- There were royal court wisdom instructions, which gave room for more technical instructions (e.g. 2 Sam. 15:34). Stuart Weeks avers that the scribal elite played an important role in the transmission of wisdom literature in the ancient world, given the high and predominant illiteracy.

Setting of Wisdom Literature

The books in Wisdom Corpus have no common setting. It would be wrong to set the literature in Solomon’s personal life, even though three of the books are attributed to him-Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Wisdom. Solomon prayed, and wisdom and understanding were given to him (Wis. 7:7-12; 9:7-8, 12). Traditionally, Solomon was considered the author of these books, but this is authorship by patronage, as is the Davidic authorship of psalms, and the mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Solomon was the wise man par excellence, but could not have written Ecclesiastes and Wisdom which came in the 3^rd and 1^st centuries BC respectively, while he lived in the 10^th century BC. For the Proverbs, only chapters 10-31 could be pre-exilic. Proverbs 1-9 contains a highly theological development of wisdom, which would not have been possible in the pre-exilic times. However, the precise setting of the Israelite sages cannot be determined. Each book has to be treated separately, as the operation of the sages are not known certainly.

Literary Forms

Many literary forms are applied in Wisdom literature.

The common ones are: sayings (Pro.2:1-5; Eccl.1:16-17), commands (Pro. 3:1-6), and prohibitions (Pro. 22:22-23:20). Proverbial sayings can be observational/experiential or didactic. We also have forms of example stories (Eccl. 9:13-16; Pro. 24:30-34). In Sirach, there are sayings, admonitions and hymns. In Wisdom, there are forms of Midrash (chapters 11-19), and prayers (9:1-18) where Solomon prays for Wisdom.