Wisdom Literature

in Ancient Israel

RANDOLF FLORES, SVD

LOYOLA SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
2007
Basic Questions about Wisdom
Literature
 1. Which books?

Hebrew Bible
 Proverbs, Job & Qoheleth (or Ecclesiastes)
 Song of Songs? [5:4-5]
 Psalms?
Old Testament
 Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth
 Sirach (or Ben Sira or Ecclesiasticus)
 Wisdom of Solomon (or Book of Wisdom)
 Tobit? (Tob 4:3-21; 12:6-13)
 Baruch? (3:9 – 4:4)
Qumran
 Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth & Sirach
 1 Enoch?
 2. A Wisdom Collection?

Common Characteristics:
 Absence of any reference to Ancient Israel’s traditions
Promises to the Ancestors, Moses, Sinai, Covenant, the Land, etc.
BUT see Sirach 44-50 and Wisdom 10-19!!
 A certain international flavor
“people of the East”
 Frequent use of Hokmah /Sophia /Wisdom or other synonyms
or wise person (sage)
and of course its opposite, “fool”
BUT Hokmah his a wide-ranging term, ( see Murphy, NJBC, p.
447).
Persian Period, ca. 583-400 BC , early post-exilic
period
 “One of the most productive eras in the history of Israelite
religion” (R. Albertz, 1994).
 Multiplicty of “theological currents”
Priestly, Chronistic, wisdom, prophetic and psalm, traditions”
 Tripartite Division
ca. 132 BC, see Prologue of the Book of Sirach
Achaemenid Empire (648–330 BC)
Collection of Wisdom corpus in stages
 I. Proverbs
Some date back to the time of the monarchy
 Influence of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah

 II. Job
First half of the 5th century BC (height of Persian empire)
 III. Qoheleth
– middle of the 3rd century BC (time of the Lagids/ Ptolemies
Egyptian successors of Alexander the Great)
 IV. Ben Sira
Hebrew text written in Jerusalem I ca. 175 B.C.
Preserved in Greek
 V. Wisdom of Solomon
Diaspora (Alexandria)
 in GREEK

 Hellenistic influence

 Time of Augustus (63 B.C)

Greek Empire
 3. Where did it come from?

wisdom movement? (Ceresko, pp. 15ff)

Two proposed origins:
 Family: Tribe or Clan?
Read Prov 4:1-5;
Deut 25:7-8
2 Sam 14:1-3

 Court: Scribal School?

2 Sam 20:23-25
Three functions of Scribes (Ceresko, p. 19)
Poetry and Propaganda, (Ceresko, p. 9fff)
 4. Other Wisdom Texts?

Solomon in 1 Kgs 3-10 (esp. 1 Kgs 3:9 and 1 Kgs 5:9-

14)
Gen 1-3
Psalm 1
Gen 37-50 (Joseph’s Story)
Isaiah 5:1-5
ETC…
 5. Role in the so-called Salvation History?

Problematic
Cf. Gerhard von Rad (1901-71)
 Old Testament Theology 2 vols (1957, 1960 –German; 1962,
1965 --English)
Historical Credo: Deuteronomy 26:5-9
 Wisdom in Israel (1970 German; 1972 English).
Related “theologies”
 Creation / Order
 Retribution
 Problem of God and Evil (Theodicy)