Intro to the Old Testament: Exam 3 Wisdom Literature

Wisdom literature is a genre in biblical text that focuses on teaching lessons that apply universally, the Book of Job, Proverbs, & Qoheleth/Ecclesiastes are wisdom literature; they take the form of riddles, fables, dialogues, & moral stories; social settings: court setting, scribal school, clan/family wisdom, it is a sort of advice manual

Focused on individual (activities, thoughts, behaviors, not concerned with Israel as a nation or communal interests i.

e., land/identity), Ahistorical (lack of interest in historical concerns, not particularly concerned with history when thinking about god, timeless quality-difficulty to date to a specific date or geographical setting), & Universal (doesn’t appear specifically tied to Israel due to a lack of interest in history)

Fables, parables, moral stories, and dialogues

Great self-control in behavior and actions, deliberate & not hasty, cautious; 3 things: is generous & judicious with his money (no clear cut sense that wealth is problematic-like in prophets-but shows you are wise because you have been successful), guarded in speech (no gossip), industrious (wise men work hard)

Qoheleth-“vanity is emptiness,” Qoheleth says no retributive justice, very negative about life, very negative at the beginning; Job-no retributive justice, Job was a good person & still got punished

Divine order-god has established cosmic order; retributive justice-it’s talked about in proverbs & in Job & Qoheleth, it is rejected

Not really-much of the wisdom literature rejects retributive justice; proverbs have pithy sayings, “you should do this, but you shouldn’t do this” in some of it they use symbols to represent it, not as much about religion in some of the wisdom literature

Male audience, gendering of wickedness (sexual temptation), wisest thing you can do is choose a good wife; Proverbs 8 (Lady Wisdom)-one of the most famous proverbs, presents wisdom clearly as a female figure, created before anything else (at creation); Proverbs 31 (Virtuous Wife)-good wife is more precious than jewels, having a good wife is a marker of your wisdom, don’t just pick for beauty

Wisdom is conceptualized as female-clear that audience is intended to be young men, language of a father giving advice to a son

Most conservative wisdom book, deals with past Israelite wisdom & culture by talking about what you should and shouldn’t do-doesn’t go into depth like other wisdom literature

2 parts: prose frame story & poetic dialogues

The Speech from the Whirlwind→ god’s explanation for why he did this to job (blameless, innocent suffering), Divine attack on the limits of human knowledge, it’s a copout-not an answer (elie weisel), theologically troubling, Job’s 3 friends give explanations too

The concept of retributive justice is that the good are rewarded and the bad are punished, In Job the opposite happens-Job, though good, is punished

Qoheleth (Hebrew name)=Ecclesiastes (English word-term means preacher, more appropriately teacher or assembler of wisdom)

“Hevel”=vanity-ephemmality, sometimes translated as emptiness-book of Qoheleth talks about vanity

Some truth in it

Working really hard for nothing-no one is going to remember you when you die, why did you do all of this hard work? human life isn’t permanent-the only truth is that there is death, good & evil people both die, so what’s the point, pursuit of wisdom, in response to this pointlessness of life, enjoy the little things (such as eating & drinking)