The Wisdom Books

 The wisdom writings of the OT include a wide variety of books that reflect a very important side of Israel’s religious faith  The wisdom books differ among themselves in both style, subject matter and language, but they all have in common certain characteristics which set them off from other biblical books 1. A minimum of interest in the great acts of divine salvation proclaimed by the Torah and the prophets 2. Little interest in Israel as a nation or in its history 3. A questioning attitude about the problems of life: why there is suffering, inequality and death, and why the wicked prosper 4. A search for how to master life and understand how humans should behave before God 5. A great interest in the universal human experiences that affect all people and not just believers in Yahweh 6. A joy in the contemplation of creation and God as Creator  A few books can be classified as wisdom-like because they maintain a consistent focus on the intellectual reflection about life’s problems, the quest for universal truth, the rules for life and the nature of created reality before God. These books are: 1. Proverbs 2. Job 3. Ecclesiastes (Hebrew: Qoheleth) 4. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach, Ben-Sirach [Son of Sirach]} 5. The Wisdom of Solomon 6. Canticle of Canticles (Song of Songs): Poetic dialogue between husband and wife; soul and Jesus (Christian interpretation) 7. Psalms: Prayers (together with Wisdom Literature)

Proverbs:  Solomon’s reputation for wisdom was so great that Israel considered him the forerunner of their wisdom tradition  He was believed to have been the author of the Books of Proverbs, The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes. Of course, the Wisdom of Solomon is attributed to him  One legend is that his wrote the Song of Songs in his youth; Proverbs in his mature middle age and the skeptical Ecclesiastes as an old man  The book of Proverbs contains a great number of sayings whose message is as old as the civilization of the Sumerians in 3000BC and there is no reason why many of these could not have been collected under Solomon’s command and formed into a book  The present book has later additions: Chapters 25-29 are attributed to Solomon but were not written down until two centuries later  Other small collections are labeled from other wise teachers and kings, not necessarily Jewish

Job:  Contains the dramatic dialogue between Job and this three friends about the relation of suffering to human behavior and Job’s impassioned assault on God himself  There are two separate sources to this book; the prose folktale in chapters 1-2 and 42: 7-27 was an older and quite legendary story of a wise man whom God tested and found faithful; a later author might have composed the rich and profound exploration of human innocence and suffering, divine power versus a man’s search for meaning  Job asks the most difficult questions in all philosophy: why do good people suffer? In the afterlife, God judges based on one’s early conduct  The final form most resembles the great psalms of lament with (1)their threefold cry of human pain and lament; (2)their call for help to God; (3)their promise to praise God forever. Ultimately from the midst of doubt and questioning, Job teaches us how to trust

Ecclesiastes:  Known as the most skeptical book in the Bible  Has a unified approach to the value of wisdom: pessimism, everything is vanity  This book has its doubts whether such confidence has any basis in human experience  Asks the most basic existential question: Is life worth living?  Qoheleth is Hebrew for one who puts together, assembles, reunites  That the author was Solomon is implied by the first verse when it says “Qoheleth” was the son of David in Jerusalem, but cannot be taken as fact  The book shows the development of Israelite thought that comes after the exile, especially in its doubts about old answers and its attacks on the rational approaches of Greek thought to influence the Near East at that time (Persia [Iran]; Babylon [Iraq]; Canaan [Syria])  The author admits that God does direct all things and the author insists that we cannot know what God is doing or why, and so our proper human response is to enjoy what God gives us now and use it the best we can.  In the end, Ecclesiaste’s message is one with that of Job-trust, and surrender yourself to God’s loving care even if you cannot know where it will lead

Song of Songs:  Is a love poem; Jewish and Christian interpreters also see it as an allegory of the love of God for his people  The Song of Songs shows signs of being worked and reworked through many centuries  There is not enough unity among the different songs to say more than that it is a collection extolling the undying power of love between two people  St. Bernard of Clairvaux, in the twelfth century, wrote a great number of sermons on the Song of Songs describing the love of Christ for the soul and the mystical union that came from this love

Sirach (Ecclesiasticus):  Longest of the wisdom books with 51 chapters  It is one of the deuterocanonical books  It is a mixture of proverbs and lengthy essays on major themes within the wisdom tradition: use of speech, self-control, evil friends, the value of work, death, sickness, etc.  Sirach stresses the ethical aspects of everyday life  He exalts the role of law and fear of the Lord as true wisdom

Wisdom:  It was originally composed in Greek and may be the last book of the OT to be written  Stands out from previous wisdom writings in Israel by its intense concern with two themes: (1)salvation history as a lesson for learning wisdom; (2)immortality as an explanation of how God rewards the sufferings of the just  Throws light on the struggles of Judaism in the Greek and Roman eras to preserve its heritage faith in the midst of alien values and to fight pagan ideas by means or their own arguments  Wisdom serves to unite teaching and reality, to integrate the ideals of faith into the practical experience of everyday doubt and uncertainty; and above all it helped Israel to understand that their faith in Yahweh spoke to the concerns of everyone in the world and had a universal message that was not to be kept hidden only in Judah

Psalms:  Traditionally the author is considered to be King David  Considered the greatest hymnbook of Israel, full of liturgical poetry that still resounds in the words of our Mass today

Premise: Everything is seen in the light of Jesus and points towards him and the Church he founded