Wisdom Tradition – See with New Eyes

The arts

The silhouette of wisdom is seen also in the work of men and women whom the Bible calls “skilled” in artistic practice, where “skilled” is often the prominent Hebrew word for wisdom, hkm (see part one). And a high degree of skill (wisdom) is meant. Such men and women are typically identified as artisans, builders, craftspeople, gold or silver smiths, jewelers, seamstresses, and suchlike, and they were often hired by kings and princes as designers and architects for palaces, large residences, and religious edifices such as temples.

As a brief example of just how significantly influential these artists could be, Exodus chapters 35 and 36 acknowledges that aesthetic skill (wisdom, hkm) was basic to the founding of Israel as a formal nation among nations. As with the founding of any nation, it was a huge undertaking and required top-notch artistic skills of all sorts. Several times in the narrative, aestheticians in various fields “who are skilled” are duly appointed to construct the religious edifices and create the symbols necessary to the forging of Israel’s emerging national identity.a people start behaving as a nation when this aesthetic process formally gets under way

As an aside, there is a very real sense in which a people start behaving as a nation when this aesthetic process formally gets under way. The principle holds true even for nations that do not constitutionally claim any particular religion religious belief for their founding identity. The United States is a case in point. Its bald eagle, the Declaration of Independence, the language of its constitution, the Liberty Bell, the design of its flag, its national anthem (The Star Spangled Banner), and the Great Seal of the United States (E Pluribus Unum; “one from many”) do not promote allegiance to any religion but nevertheless all symbolically betray ultimate values that helped to forge and establish “American” national identity.

America, then, has a fundamentally different relationship to politics and religion than does, for instance, a state like Iran, which, as a result of its 1979 Islamic revolution became constitutionally an Islamic Republic, as its national symbols since then clearly reveal. It would make an interesting thesis for some enterprising soul to step back in time and research the symbolic construction of the more secular American national identity, or that of other modern Western states, from the point of view of the wisdom of the designers who were commissioned for these various projects. And then perhaps compare or contrast that process and its implication with some constitutionally religious modern states. ¹

Proverbs and other wisdom literature

This summary review of the wisdom literature has not discussed the Book of Proverbs on its own, as it often is, extracted from the fuller literature as if it were an independent category of ideas. Instead, the article has been considering the book in its relationship to the fuller tradition, yet only as that has been necessary for the purposes of this particular review. Nevertheless, I mention the book, here, as its own compass heading because the few features of proverbs noted in this review barely begin to unpack what can be gained by exploring that book of wisdom literature. There is wisdom to be found for the aesthetics of communication, courtroom testimony, business psychology, social justice, diplomacy, a work ethic, and much, much more. Understanding the literary styles and forms of proverbs, their imagery or poetic character, their sentence structures, their imperative or indicative mood, and much more – friends, this isn’t meant to be left only to the scholars to gain from. Thankfully, they have done a ton of homework for us and we can enjoy the fruit of their labors by visiting their books.

Proverbs are both timeless and timely. As Raymond van Leeuwen writes, they “are addressed to particular people in particular situations, and yet, they embody common human truths, recurring patterns in ordinary life.” ²    Proverbs deals extensively with wisdom in the world of nature and in the world of human life, work, and interaction. (I recommend perusing the bibliography to anyone interested exploring proverbs (m?š?lim) in depth within the fuller tradition.)Proverbs deals extensively with wisdom in the world of nature and in the world of human life, work, and interaction

Other books of the Bible also occupy prominent roles as wisdom literature. The books of Job and Ecclesiastes have only been briefly noted, and those who explore these fascinating books will find significant twists and turns along the paths of wisdom. The narrative in Job, for instance, grapples profoundly with the kind of intensely deep personal suffering that by its very nature evokes the most difficult questions about the main character’s relationship with God, especially when his friends come calling. The book, by the way, “has its forerunners in both Egyptian and Babylonian literature, notably in some dialogues dealing with problems of human life and the justice of the gods.” ³

Ecclesiastes, with its hard-nosed realism, opens with a lead that in my profession is called the shocking statement, and it goes on from there to tackle the meaning, or is it the meaninglessness, of life. From thought to thought, it comes to conclusions that startle our materialist sensibilities about “the good life.” Both books remove the straightjacket tailored for God by earlier sages who presumed that divine prerogatives about our life in the world limited to the act-consequence connection of human behavior. At the end of the day, both books, humanly speaking, give sovereignty and independence back to God; God is not to be limited or coerced by human belief or behavior.

Psalms and Song of Songs (Canticle of Canticles, in the Catholic Bible) have also been included by the Christian church as books in the wisdom literature. Psalms per se, however, as a whole, cannot be attributed to the wisdom movement of ancient Israel, although it is generally recognized by scholarship that the sages collected and assembled the psalms. Attempts have been made by scholars to specify a class of psalms that embodies the wisdom literature, but a consensus has never arisen. What is certain are unmistakable characteristics of the wisdom tradition in passages of some psalms, such as in 1, 32, 34, 37, 112, and 128. Some scholars include 73 and 119.

The Song of Songs has been grouped with the wisdom literature, probably because the Hebrew tradition ascribed the work to Solomon, whose name appears several times in the song (it is actually several songs or odes). Quite unlike Psalms, there is no mention in the book of God, faith, prayer, worship, moral exhortation, or any other aspect of religious life. That is, unlike typical wisdom literature, it seems to be offering something only secular in nature. Yet it is not profane or immoral. Read as it stands, without spiritualizing it as intimacy between the believer and the Lord, it is a deeply moving love song about two people who are passionately in love.

In the Catholic and Protestant Bibles, the Book of Daniel is categorized with “The Prophets,” but not in the Hebrew Bible, where it is included with eleven books called “The Writings.” The Christian tendency to emphasize the prophetic and apocalyptic aspects of the book overshadows the equally prominent feature of the main character’s heightened wisdom. This, more than anything else about Daniel, stood out to the kings of the royal courts in which Daniel served over many decades. It was in fact the quality that earned him summa cum laude recognition at the end of his political apprenticeship in Babylon and by which he was elevated to increasingly high-level political offices. In the book, Daniel is called a ma?kîl (1:4, 17; 9:22; see also 5:11;12, 14), which is another of those interesting words indicating especially wise insight (see hkm, part one).

It is this neglected key for understanding the book’s narrative – Daniel’s wisdom-based approach to politics and government service in Babylon – that I focus on in some of my writings (see wisdom actors), and it is why I would argue for the book’s placement among the wisdom literature. And I would be remiss not to mention, as two other compass points, that the Roman Catholic Church has included the books of Sirach and Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon) under the heading of wisdom literature, books which have received much scholarly attention as wisdom literature by scholars in the Protestant tradition.

 

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