In Search of a Real Woman in the Book of Proverbs

WISDOM, STRANGE OR SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN: IN SEARCH OF A REAL WOMAN IN THE BOOK OF PROVERBS By JEANETTE MAY HARTWELL A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Theology and Religion College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham January 2017 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT The focus of this study is the portrayal of the Strange Woman and the unnamed mothers and wives of Proverbs arguing for a realistic portrayal of these women within the book. Informed by a feminist approach it considers the impact of male-oriented reading strategies upon existing interpretation and attends to the way in which poetic parallelism and variant repetition create proverbial clusters which offer an alternative context for the interpretation of proverbs. The findings show, firstly, that current interpretations of women in Proverbs are unduly influenced by the portrayal of Wisdom, the Strange Woman and the Woman of Worth in the framework of chapters 1-9 and 31, rather than by the text itself. Secondly, women’s voices provide a possible source for material in the lectures of Proverbs 1-9 (along with the father), the poems of Proverbs 31, and as the narrator of the encounter with the Strange Woman in Proverbs 7. Thirdly, where mothers and wives are in focus, alternative interpretations can be offered which do not assess the character or behaviour of the woman, but rather focus on the son’s character and behaviour and its subsequent impact upon relationships with his parents, his wife and his own offspring. DEDICATION In loving memory of my father Thomas Ian Williamson (1944-2015) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people whom I wish to thank for enabling this research to come to fruition. Firstly, I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my supervisor Rev. Dr Knut Heim for encouraging me to undertake this project and for his subsequent patience, wise counsel and challenge to my thinking. I owe him a great deal for his continued faith in me and for believing that I had something to contribute to a subject for which he holds great passion. Thanks are due to colleagues and parishioners in the parishes in which I have ministered, and to colleagues in the Diocese of Lichfield for enabling time and space in a busy diary. To the Rt. Rev. Clive Gregory, Bishop of Wolverhampton, thanks are due for his generosity in granting a special leave of absence which enabled me to reach the finishing line. I would also like to express my thanks to colleagues at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham for their scholarly contributions and for providing space to think and write. Special thanks are due to Dr Rachel Starr and Dr Ann Conway-Jones for reading the drafts and for raising questions which developed my own thinking and to Rev. Dr Jonathan Dean for his offer of help to proof read the text. I am grateful to the Women’s Continuing Ministerial Education Trust for their financial support. For those who have supported me on a personal level I wish to thank my dear friend Rev. Irene Nicholls, a wise woman, for teaching me patiently to believe in myself. I also wish to thank my family for their love, support and encouragement. Finally, above all, my deepest gratitude and love to my husband Anthony and my sons William and Michael for not expecting me to be (and for whom I am definitely not) ʾēšet ḥayīl. It is they who are priceless beyond measure. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Aim of the study 2 1.3 Outline of thesis 3 1.4 Translations 4 Chapter 2 Women in Proverbs 5 2.1 Introduction 5 2.2 Scholarly contributions on women in Proverbs: a survey 5 2.3 Summary of findings 14 2.4 Conclusion 16 Chapter 3 Methodological Approach 18 3.1 Introduction 18 3.2 An integrated approach 20 3.3 Male-orientated reading strategies 23 3.4 Feminist approaches 28 3.5 Poetics 35 3.5.1 Poetic line terminology 37 3.5.2 Poetic parallelism 40 3.5.3 Variant repetition 46 3.6 Conclusion 50 Chapter 4 Proverbs 1-9 and 31: A Hermeneutical Framework? 52 4.1 Introduction 52 4.2 Literature Review 53 4.2.1 Murray Lichtenstein 54 4.2.2 Claudia Camp 55 4.2.3 Thomas McCreesh 57 4.2.4 R.N. Whybray 61 4.2.5 Madipoane Masenya 63 4.2.6 Bruce Waltke 65 4.2.7 Michael V. Fox 67 4.2.8 Fokkelien Van Dijk-Hemmes and Athalya Brenner 69 4.3 Summary of findings 75 Chapter 5 ‘Authorship’ of Proverbs 31 81 5.1 Introduction 81 5.2 The concept of authorship 82 5.3 The literary genres of the two poems of Proverbs 31 86 5.4 Women and genres of biblical poetry 89 5.4.1 Victory and Mockery 91 5.4.2 Wise behaviour 93 5.4.3 Rebuke 96 5.4.4 Lament 97 5.4.5 Summary 99 5.5 The relationship between the two poems of Proverbs 31 100 5.6 An exploration of biblical women’s speech 103 5.7 Conclusion 108 Chapter 6 The Case of The Strange Woman 110 6.1 Introduction 110 6.2 The Identity of the Strange Woman 111 6.2.1 The Strange Woman as ‘Foreign’? 113 6.2.2 The Strange Woman as ‘Other’? 120 6.3 The Identity of the Narrator 132 6.3.1 Type Scenes and Smoke Screens 132 6.3.2 The ‘F’ voice 141 6.4 Comparisons and contrasts with King Lemuel’s mother 144 6.5 Conclusion 148 Chapter 7 Do Not Forsake Your Mother’s Teaching 153 7.1 Introduction 153 7.2 The Ten Lectures of Proverbs 1-9 156 7.3 The Educational Context 159 7.4 The Mother’s Teaching 162 7.5 Conclusion 179 Chapter 8 Mothers and Fathers in Proverbs 10-29 181 8.1 Introduction 181 8.2 The structure of Chapters 10 - 29 182 8.3 Wise and foolish sons and the impact on their parents 185 8.4 What kind of fool am I? A review of foolish sons within Proverbs 187 8.5 Interpretation of Proverbs 189 8.5.1 Proverbs 10:1, 15:5 and 15:20 190 8.5.2 Proverbs 13:1 192 8.5.3 Proverbs 17:21 and 17:25 198 8.5.4 Proverbs 19:13 204 8.6 Conclusion 205 Chapter 9 Contentious Wives 207 9.1 Introduction 207 9.2 Female imagery in Proverbs 209 9.3 The hermeneutical framework revisited 212 9.4 Interpretation of proverbs 217 9.4.1 Proverbs 11:16 and 11:22 218 9.4.1.1 Proverbs 11:16 219 9.4.1.2 Proverbs 11:22 224 9.4.2 Proverbs 12:4 229 9.4.3 Proverbs 18:22 and 19:14 232 9.4.4 Proverbs 19:13 and 27:15 237 9.4.5 Proverbs 21:9, 21:19 and 25:24 238 9.4.5.1 Proverbs 21:9 and 25:24 239 9.4.5.2 Proverbs 21:19 242 9.5 Qumran 4QInstruction 244 9.6 Conclusion 245 Chapter 10 Conclusion 248 10.1 Summary of findings 248 10.2 Areas for future research 255 Bibliography 257 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BDB Brown, Francis, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament BHQ Biblia Hebraica Quinta. Edited by Adrian Schenker et al. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004 ‒ BHS Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Edited by Karle Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1983 BKAT Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament HALOT The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, and Johann J. Stamm. 3rd ed. Leiden: Brill, 1995, 2004 HAT Handbuch zum Alten Testament JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament LXX Septuagint MT Masoretic Text NRSV New Revised Standard Version OBO Orbus Biblicus et Orientalis TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren. Translated by John T.Willis et al. 8 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1974‒2006 TOTC Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction This research into the portrayal of women within the biblical book of Proverbs began with the seemingly naïve question ‘Is she as bad as everybody makes out?’ The ‘she’ in question was the Strange Woman1 of Proverbs 7, the female character designated as ʾiššâ zārâ and nokriyyâ, against whom the young man is warned, her paths allegedly leading to death and destruction (7:1-27).2 If the question was naïve, then the quest to discover an answer has involved not only an exploration of the portrayal of her identity and character, but also that of some of the identities and characters of women portrayed throughout the book, of which there are several in the forms of mother, wife, personified Wisdom, the Strange Woman, Folly and the Woman of Worth of 31:10-31.

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