Reviews: Wisdom Literature

Fourth Quarter 1999 

Eugene Peterson describes our day as one of "information glut and wisdom famine." This seems especially true during an American campaign season. Political wisdom is typically in short supply.

Craig Bartholomew has written an illuminating book that may help fill the void: Reading Ecclesiastes: Old Testament Exegesis and Hermeneutical Theory, published by the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome (1998). A research scholar at Cheltenham and Gloucester University in England, Bartholomew reads Ecclesiastes in a way that puts us in touch with the rich resources of ancient Israel's wisdom tradition, which stresses that life should be lived in the fear of the Lord.

While it does not address politics directly, Reading Ecclesiastes suggests that the roots of our modern "wisdom famine" may be found in the secularity and shallowness of much of contemporary public life. The worldview of those to whom Ecclesiastes was originally addressed reminds one of the secularized outlook of those who put their trust primarily in reason or experience. Furthermore, many Israelites were tempted to succumb to an Epicurean spirit—to pursue "prosperity without a purpose."

"Ecclesiastes," writes Bartholomew, "is crafted by a wisdom teacher as an ironical exposure of such an empiricistic epistemology which seeks wisdom through personal experience and analysis without the 'glasses' of the fear of God." He concludes: "Ecclesiastes exhorts Israelites struggling with the nature of life's meaning and God's purposes to pursue genuine wisdom by allowing their thinking to be shaped integrally by a recognition of God as Creator so that they can enjoy God's good gifts and obey his laws amidst the enigma of his purposes."

Bartholomew surveys how Ecclesiastes has been read by biblical scholars down through the centuries. He notes widely varying interpretations among diverse schools, offers a devastating critique of historical-critical approaches, and challenges Christian scholars to develop a hermeneutic that is shaped by a biblical worldview.

—Stephen Lazarus

Another recent and important contribution from a biblical scholar to our understanding of the Bible's wisdom literature is the commentary on Proverbs by Raymond C. Van Leeuwen. His commentary is included in Volume 5 of The New Interpreter's Bible (Abingdon Press). Each section of the text is accompanied by both commentary and reflections, and Van Leeuwen offers a general introduction to the whole.

In his "Reflections" on Proverbs 28-29, Van Leeuwen says that these sections cast '"a penetrating gaze at the interaction of government, money, justice, and poverty. These chapters call Christians to social and governmental reflection and reform. To reflection because uninformed reform does damage. To reform because much in the land is wrong and crooked. The sages were not prophets, but their standards for government and civic life have a prophetic ring. Their concern extends far beyond the red flag moral issues that exercise many religious folk in America today: (other people's sexual) immorality, abortion, and drugs. These issues are important, and in a pluralist society their resolution is complex. Unfortunately, passion about them is no substitute for a biblically informed, wise view of the government's task. Here Christians are desperately divided. . . .

"The OT [Old Testament] insists that the basic task of rulers is to do justice internationally by preserving the nation's boundaries and integrity, and domestically by protecting the boundaries of widows and orphans ...and righting wrongs. Royal justice, like Yahweh himself, is especially dedicated to the cause of the weak and defenseless (28:27; 29:7, 14; Psalm 72)....

"Biblical wisdom and biblically informed common sense concerning government will grow, not by proof-texting this or that specific issue, but when God's people learn to read the Bible as a book of justice and to see their world in its light. For Proverbs 28-29 the 'law' is both the 'Torah' of Moses and the 'teaching' of the wise. ...These chapters imply that knowledge of the Scriptures and wisdom concerning practical politics and good government cannot be separated (cf. Josh 1:6-9; I Kgs 2:1-4). We need to saturate our minds and imaginations in the Scriptures and then open our eyes to the reality around us. We need to act, not rashly, but wisely and decisively, not out of partisan interest, but with a humble passion for 'justice and liberty for all'."

—James W. Skillen