Wisdom Literature and the Promise Doctrine

The difficulty of developing a theology of the Old Testament Wisdom Literature and of finding its place in the whole of Old Testament theology would be considerably less complex if, instead of those wisdom books which we find in the Old Testament canon, we had those which are found in the Apocrypha, particularly the books of Ben Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon. It seems that the tensions which the modem biblical theologian faces in dealing with the canonical wisdom corpus were realized by the authors of these later books, for they appear to have modified their views in order to avoid such problems. The particular areas of tension are two in number: the aspect of the source of wisdom, whether it is human, divine, or some tertium quid, and then the aspect of its universal perspective, for the writings are in no way as Judaeo-centric as those preceding them. Before dealing with these two difficulties, however, several other preliminary matters ought to be considered. The most basic of these is the extent of the canonical wisdom: in this category would class Proverbs, Song of Songs and Job. Although there are further examples of wisdom forms scattered throughout the Old Testament, it is these books which fall entirely within that category. A second consideration has reference to critical matters: i.e., date and authorship. In a paper of this scope it is it impossible to give full reign to the discussion of criticism and thus certain presuppositions will have .to be made in that area. The major assumption is that where a title, occurs it is to be treated as accurate. Consequently, three of the four books will be, to a great degree, dependent upon the work of King Solomon. This is not to say that there were no later: additions or perhaps even redaction, for we read of the work of "Hezekiah's men" in collecting and publishing Solomonic material (Prov. 25:1) which is a redactional function. Nevertheless, for our purposes the bulk of the literature derives from Solomon. Lastly, the schema of Heilsgeschichte into which the theology of wisdom will hopefully be fitted is generally that given in W. J. Beecher's The Prophets and the Promise: epangelicalism or the "theology of the Promise." Having aired the data to be presupposed, it is hoped that the conclusions, particularly those which lie heavily on the aspect of chronology, will be more easily acceptable.