Wisdom Literature

1
Wisdom Literature

• Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes

2
Wisdom Literature

• Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job (canonized)
• Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom of Solomon (apocryphal
  not canonized)
• These writings can seem very unbiblical!
• Job suffers because of a casual wager between God
  and Satan. Knowing he is righteous, he questions
  and challenges God until he is rebuked.
• Ecclesiastes goes beyond Jobs questioning of
  Gods justice to present the bleak idea that
  humans can understand next to nothing about the
  meaning of life.
• Proverbs is less negative, but most advice seems
  to have little to do with God directly.
• Writings from the wise men of Ancient Israel.
• We dont know much about these people, but they
  were not priests or prophets.
• Solomon is like their patron saint

3
Not concerned with

• The Hebrew religion
• Proverbs-only a couple of verses
• Ecclesiastes-just be aware of what you do and why
• Job- only in prologue and epilogue
• Does organized religion really have an important
  bearing on ones life?
• Nationalism
• No speaking directly to Israel
• Speak toward universal ideas and ideals.
• Similar to collected wisdom from nearby cultures
• Israels past or place among the nations
• No talk of the covenants or historic events
• References to Solomon mostly as a representative
  idea.
• A personal relationship between God and people
• No emotional closeness to God as in Psalms
• No shining faces, like Moses
• No, thus says the Lord like the prophets.
• Observed things as they are, not as revealed by
  God.
• These points do not mean that wisdom books are
  necessarily in direct contradiction to other
  books.

4
Proverbs

• Parallelism in Proverbs
• Synonymous parallelism the second part reaffirms
  the first part
• Antithetic parallelism The second part contrasts
  with the first
• Synthetic parallelism The second part advances
  the first.
• Because the writers are concerned with teaching
  moral values, they often use antithetic
  parallelism to heighten the contrast between
  approved and disapproved behavior.
• Women in Proverbs
• Wisdom is personified as a woman who reaches out
  to the world.
• She is the antithesis of the strange woman, the
  loose woman, the foolish woman, the prostitute,
  that ensnares young men.
• 53 For the lips of a loose woman drip honey, and
  her speech is smoother than oil but in the end
  she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged
  sword.
• The picture of the wise woman begins and ends
  Proverbs.
• 120 -21 Wisdom cries out in the street in the
  squares she raises her voice.
• At the busiest corner she cries out at the
  entrance of the city gates she speaks

5
Behavior and its consequences in Proverbs

• Composed over centuries, its final form appears
  to be a book of instruction for young men, on the
  nature of the world and how to be successful in
  it.
• How one behaves is related to his fortune.
• You reap what you sow in both the moral and
  practical realm.
• Good produces good, and evil produces evil.
• Wise planning and effort lead to prosperity while
  carelessness and laziness lead to ruin.
• The principle of cause and effect is pretty
  simple.

6
Wisdom and Parallelism in Proverbs

• Cause and effect (synthetic)
• Train children in the right way,
• and when old, they will not stray (226)
• Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself,
  and giving to the rich,
• will lead only to loss (2216)
• Folly is bound up in the heart of a boy,
• but the rod of discipline drives it far away.
  (2215)
• Simple comparisons to elucidate (antithetic)
• When words are many, transgression is not
  lacking,
• but the prudent are restrained in speech
  (1019)
• What the wicked dread will come upon them,
• but the desire of the righteous will be
  granted. (1024)
• Restating (synonymous)
• Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights
  of the poor and needy. (319)
• She girds herself with strength,
• and makes her arms strong (3117)

7
Straight-forward cause and effect logic

• Prudence and fairness will lead to success
• because that is the way things work in this world
• because Gods watchful concern guarantees it
• Proverbs says little about people who suffer
  through no fault of their own.
• Implies that there is no such thing as people who
  suffer unjustly.
• Sufferers must be guilty of some sin that others
  cannot see.
• Suffering can be seen as Gods way of reproving
  and chastening them for their own good.
• Prov 311-12
• My child, do not despise the Lords
  discipline    or be weary of his reproof,
  for the Lord reproves the one he loves,   
  as a father the son in whom he delights.

8
Behavior and its consequences in Job

• The same principle of Proverbs is spoken to Job
  by his friends.
• Think now, who that was innocent ever
  perished?   Or where were the upright cut off?
  As I have seen, those who plough iniquity   and
  sow trouble reap the same. 47-8,
• How happy is the one whom God reproves   theref
  ore do not despise the discipline of the
  Almighty. 517
• Using the same kind of logic as we find in
  Proverbs, Jobs friends imply that Job is not as
  blameless as he thinks he is.

9

• But Job believes he is innocent. God is
  apparently not just
• It is all one therefore I say,   he destroys
  both the blameless and the wicked. When disaster
  brings sudden death,   he mocks at the calamity
  of the innocent. (922-23)
• Job asks God to appear in court and tell him
  clearly what wrong he did that warrants such
  punishment.
• But when God finally does speak to Job, it
  appears rather harsh.
• Will you even put me in the wrong?
• Will you condemn me that you may be justified?
• Have you an arm like God?
• And can you thunder with a voice like his?
  (408-9)
• God says that Job and his friends dont know what
  they are talking about when they try to
  understand Gods justice.
• After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the
  Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite My wrath is
  kindled against you and against your two friends
  for you have not spoken of me what is right, as
  my servant Job has. (427)
• Werent the friends defending Gods justice along
  the lines of what Proverbs espouses.
• The author of Job seems to be taking the problem
  of suffering to the furthest extreme he can take
  it.

10
Behavior and its consequences in Ecclesiastes

• Job argues that there is no relationship between
  the good or evil a man does and what happens to
  him in life.
• Where Job leaves off, the author of Ecclesiastes
  picks up.
• Not only are there no guarantees that doing good
  or bad will lead to good or bad consequences for
  the doer, there are no guarantees that any kind
  of action will have the consequences the doer
  intends or thinks he has a right to expect. The
  only certainties in this world are that natural
  processes will continue foreversunrise, sunset,
  and that death will follow life.
• All human speculation about cause and effect
  comes to nothing.
• For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is
  the same as one dies, so dies the other. They
  all have the same breath, and humans have no
  advantage over the animals for all is vanity.
  319
• Death is nothingness, the same as animals as for
  people.

11

• So, what behavior does the author of Ecclesiastes
  recommend?
• Reach for short term satisfaction
• Its better to be wise than foolish,
• Its better to have food than not,
• youth is better than age,
• life is better than death
• Cherish the good things you have.
• Dont entertain great expectations. Live with the
  knowledge that you will soon die.
• Is Ecclesiastes Ironic?
• Was the epilogue added later? (129-13)

12
Conclusion

• How can these different views be reconciled with
  each other?
• Could they all be the thoughts of the same person
  on different days?
• Life provides a wide spectrum of differences.
  Each of these points about wisdom has ideas that
  we can contemplate.
• What is the truth about the relationship between
  how we act the consequences?
• What is the truth about reasons behind human
  suffering?
• Viewed together, the books of wisdom offer no
  simple solution, but a serious and profound
  dialogue.