Deciding the Boundaries of ‘Wisdom’

Whilst it is generally agreed that the book of Proverbs is the mainspring of ‘wisdom’, there is considerable disagreement as to what exactly, beyond Proverbs, to include in the wisdom category and what the criteria for inclusion should be. That Job and Ecclesiastes should also form this core and that it should be further defined by the apocryphal books of Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon is often taken for granted, but the material is very diverse in nature and genre. Then the question arises, should the net be widened to other parts of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, to narratives such as the Joseph Narrative and Succession Narrative or to a slippery selection of psalms that appear to be ‘wisdom’ in character, to Song of Songs and beyond. In fact, how do we classify any text showing significant wisdom influence? Indeed, is this categorization of ‘wisdom’ helpful at all? In this chapter, I suggest that there is a ‘core’ of wisdom material and that, as I have argued elsewhere, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes make up this core. Here, I go beyond this statement to evaluate the associations of other material with this core and suggest that the notion of family resemblance is a helpful descriptor for complex relationships between this material. I also consider the role of Solomon as the ‘father’ of wisdom and as the (symbolic?) figure that holds this ‘family’ together.

MOTIFS AND OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY

The article discusses the importance of motifs for understanding Old Testament literature. Motif is defined as the term is used in the biblical studies guild. The article begins by tracing the “clothing motif” in the Joseph narrative. Next, it progresses to a brief discussion of the methods of intertextuality, especially cultivating allusion competence and recognizing how motifs develop in Scripture. The article also demonstrates how this methodology can be applied to one specific motif: the “wilderness” as it unfolds in several early chapters in the book of consolation from the prophet Isaiah. This article demonstrates that studying motifs and their development intertextuality is a method that is beneficial and essential to a deeper description of Scriptural teaching.