Wisdom Tradition – See with New Eyes
Wisdom narratives
In addition to entire books of wisdom literature, the Bible includes many incidents and longer narratives that involve political actors of various kinds and center on wisdom-based ways of reasoning in pluralist situations. In part one, I mentioned the story in Genesis of the Israelite slave Joseph, who is called a h?k?m in Genesis 41:33, and who became a kind of prime minister under Pharaoh in Egypt. Let’s think too, for a minute, about the books of Ezra and Esther. Although they are not classified as wisdom literature, in my mind they could be.the Bible includes many incidents and longer narratives that involve political actors of various kinds
Ezra, an Israelite priest, was also a key political actor serving as a shuttle diplomat in Artaxerxes government at the end of a long period of Israelite change and reorganization under Persian rule. Appointed by Artaxerxes, Ezra holds a high-profile government position as a distinguished s?per, which is another of those interesting Hebrew words indicating an official known for wise insight. The s?per?m, in fact, were close colleagues in the old-world Middle East of the hak?m?m (see part one), so close, in fact, that overlapping functions are commonly seen in the biblical literature between the two broad classes of officials. McKane, who has done a lot of work in this area, notes that although a diversity of function is a characteristic that must be expected, the s?per?m share many characteristics of the hak?m?m. These two broad classes of officials, McKane explains, “belonged to an educated class whose mental habits were shaped by a common educational discipline [in the wisdom tradition] and they have the basic intellectual equipment for positions of power and responsibility…” (Prophets, p. 106; for much more on these old-world political actors, see also: Wisdom Actors, part 1 and Wisdom Actors, part 2 and Wisdom Words).
The story of Esther and her uncle Mordecai, both Israelite nationals, takes place in Persia and is really the story of how the wise, cool head of Mordecai combined with Esther’s tact, thoughtfulness, and sensitivity in the Persia royal court prevailed against the privy council of the king Xerxes’s hak?m?m (see part one). Like the Song of Songs, the Book of Esther is a patently secular story, which even seems to go out of its way not to mention “the Lord” even when it would have been quite natural to (e.g., 4:14-16; 6:1, 13).
In the Book of Second Samuel, chapters 14 and 20, the “wise woman from Tekoa” and “a wise woman” in the besieged town of Abel Beth Maacah are two other fascinating wisdom narratives. Both women become key figures in separate political situations in which they have dealings with king David’s decorated military commander, Joab. In the former, Joab hires the wise woman from Tekoa to act out a dramatic scene before king David concerning his exile of his third son, Absalom. In the latter, the wise woman of Abel Beth Maacah negotiates a settlement with Joab that prevents his army division from destroying the town (see Wisdom Actors, part 1 for more on both wise women).
I’ll just mention one more narrative, here, a quite sophisticated one, that of the tragic figure of Ahithophel. Once the most skilled and highly prized political advisor in king David’s privy council, he is a study in loss of reputation and political treachery (2 Sam. 15-18).
Many titles in the bibliography will help you explore the compass headings noted in parts one and two, and many others besides. Only one of those books, however, concentrates primarily on the wisdom tradition’s relationship with the international relations and foreign policy of the old-world Middle East and the political actors who were trained in that aspect of the tradition. But that book, William McKane’s Prophets and Wise Men, does not also deal with contemporary applications.
International relations and foreign policy
This brings us to a “last but by no means least” consideration, to what I call the “lost” dimension of the wisdom tradition. Although the international relations and foreign policy aspects of wisdom stand out in the literature, there is, to my knowledge at least, no body of contemporary work that focuses on how we today might apply ideas, principles, and norms of the historic wisdom tradition to our benefit in international relations and foreign policy decision-making.
Perhaps someone can help me out, here. Over the course of many years, I have been able to find only McKane’s Prophets and Wise Men specifically dedicated to this field of study. It’s a tremendously helpful text, actually, despite its short length and that it keeps its eyes on the distant past. Also, McKane’s Proverbs: A New Approach has been helpful. Although his purpose in that book was not solely to illuminate old-world international relations in particular, McKane spends many of the first two hundred pages doing just that. (A few wisdom literature titles in the bibliography do comment at times on the international relations and foreign policy of the old-world Middle East, but chiefly as that relates only to a particular book’s larger purpose, not with international relations and foreign policy as its main subject.)the agency wisdom is a unique medium that world leaders would do well to rely much more heavily on
This was clear to me long before 9/11, during the years when my work was focused on wisdom-based approaches to many other areas of contemporary life and work. Waiting in the wings was the highly esteemed role that kings, foreign ministers, political advisors, policymakers, and other high-level officials of the old-world Middle East gave to wisdom in their international dealings with each other. Over the years, I had made brief notes about this narrative but never went beyond that initial stage.
Then one day the incendiary conduct of nineteen men aboard four other aircraft led to severe changes in the foreign policy of the United States. I happened to be six miles above the Atlantic Ocean that bright blue morning, flying from London to Atlanta. It changed my life, too. Our flight was diverted to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where we lived for fours days on a Canadian air force base (see: The Kindness of Strangers). Long story short, I had been knocked off stride and, disoriented back home, couldn’t get my bearings. But I soon found myself drawn back to the wisdom literature’s narratives about international relations.
My goal was pretty basic, really. I wanted to see what, if any, normative ideas of the tradition might help leaders and policymakers in the West and in the Middle East, who were suddenly faced with a future in which building more cooperative relationships would be like struggling in quicksand. Having seen, first-hand, wisdom-based reasoning successfully practiced in our time in other areas of life, I wondered how the wisdom tradition might now also speak to U.S. – Middle East relations. It wasn’t long before I felt compelled to turn it into a full time research and writing project.
You will find much more about all this elsewhere on this website (see, e.g., Wisdom Project Précis and Wisdom & Foreign Relations). I mention wisdom’s silhouette in the halls of power at the end of this summary review merely to note that it is another aspect of our work in the world where wisdom seeks to be heard, sought, and, when found, applied. I don’t have any sort of final word on this; only some initial words. And what I offer is provisional, experimental, and subject to correction. It seems to me that with its emphasis on learning from experience, along with its transcultural character and its non-ideological and more relational approach to life and decision-making, as well as with its forbearance toward religion and its stress on building more cooperative pluralist arrangements peaceably, the agency wisdom is a unique medium that world leaders would do well to rely much more heavily on.
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