Revisiting the prologue of Proverbs

Journal of Biblical Literature

Volumn 126, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 455-473

  Sandoval, Timothy J ^a  

^a Chicago Theological Seminary   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 63149127452     PISSN: 00219231     EISSN: 19343876     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/27638448     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, "Proverbs: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections," NIB 5:32
2. Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs (WBC 22; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 3
3. Otto Plöger, Sprüche Salomos (Proverbia) (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984), 8
4. Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1-9: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 18A; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 58
5. William McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 262
6. Richard J. Clifford, Proverbs (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999), 32
7. McKane, Proverbs, 263
8. Murphy, Proverbs, 3-4
9. Clifford, Proverbs, 35
10. Fox, Proverbs 1-9, 58
11. Plöger, Sprüche Salomos, 9
12. Hans F. Fuhs, however, understands the infinitives of the prologue to be dependent on the finite clause of v. 5 (Das Buch der Sprichwörter: Ein Kommentar [FB 95; Würzburg: Echter, 2001], 37)
13. It is also sometimes suggested that v. 5 was inserted in the prologue under the influence of 9:9. See, e.g., Crawford H. Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs (1899; ICC; repr., Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 8
14. R. N. Whybray, Proverbs (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 33
15. Van Leeuwen, "Proverbs," 33
16. Toy, Proverbs, 10.1 adopt this view as well and hence will not be considering 1:7 in my analysis of Proverbs' prologue. See further Alonso Schökel and Vilchez Lindez (Proverbios, 158), who call v. 7 "the great principle" (el gran principio). Fuhs (Das Buch der Sprichwörter, 42) declares it the book's "thesis" (These). For some interpreters, however, v. 7 is an integral piece of the prologue. See, e.g., William P. Brown, Character in Crisis: A Fresh Approach to the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 23-30
17. Fox, Proverbs 1-9, 53, 58
18. Fuhs, Das Buch der Sprichwörter, 38
19. Van Leeuwen, "Proverbs," 32
20. Alonso Schökel and Vilchez Lindez, Proverbios, 157
21. Leo G. Perdue, Proverbs (Interpretation; Louisville: John Knox, 2000), 69
22. Christine Roy Yoder, Wisdom as a Woman of Substance: A Socio-Economic Reading of Proverbs 1-9 and 31:10-31 (BZAW 304; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001), 3
23. Perdue, Proverbs, 70-75
24. Brown, Character in Crisis, 23-25
25. See Roland E. Murphy, The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 16
26. Fuhs, Das Buch der Sprichwörter, 12, 37
27. Diane Bergant, for instance, notes that there appears in the book "a definite structural framework that bespeaks editorial intentionality" (Israel's Wisdom Literature: A Liberation-Critical Reading [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997], 78)
28. See also Patrick W. Skehan, "A Single Editor for the Whole Book of Proverbs," CBQ 10 (1948): 115-30
29. R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs. Ecclesiastes: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB 18; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965), 22
30. Note further Raymond C. Van Leeuwen's structuralist and semantic study of chs. 25-27, in which he discerns several "proverb poems" (Context and Meaning in Proverbs 25-27 [SBLDS 96; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988])
31. and see Knut Martin Heim, Like Grapes of Gold Set in Silver: An Interpretation of Proverbial Clusters in Proverbs 10:1-22:16 (BZAW 273; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2001)
32. See also Claudia V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Bible and Literature Series 11; Sheffield: Almond, 1985)
33. For an overview of the modern discussion surrounding the structure of Proverbs, see R. N. Whybray, The Book of Proverbs: A Survey of Modern Study (History of Biblical Interpretation 1; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 34-61
34. and Whybray, Proverbs, 15-17
35. Whybray's own statement regarding the structure of the text is The Composition of the Book of Proverbs (JSOTSup 168; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994)
36. For contributions pertinent to the long debate in studies on Proverbs regarding whether the book primarily preserves the oral sayings of the folk or more literary proverbs produced in the royal court, see Hans-Jürgen Hermisson, Studien zur israelitischen Spruchweisheit (WMANT 28; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1968)
37. Claus Westermann, Roots of Wisdom: The Oldest Proverbs of Israel and Other Peoples (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995)
38. Friedemann W. Golka, The Leopards' Spots: Biblical and African Wisdom in Proverbs (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993)
39. Michael V. Fox, "The Social Location of the Book of Proverbs," in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran (ed. Michael V. Fox et al.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 227-39
40. see also Toy, Proverbs, 7
41. See Harold C. Washington, Wealth and Poverty in the Instruction of Amenemope and the Hebrew Proverbs (SBLDS 142; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), 1
42. GKC §69v. See also Toy, Proverbs, 7
43. see n. 17 above. Although the lexica reveal an instability to the prefixed verbal forms of the I-weak root , the imperfect would likely be (yôsip) rather than (yôsep), which the MT records
44. cf. Whybray, Proverbs, 30-31
45. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs, 58
46. The translation and text citation are from Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings (3 vols.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973-80), 2:171
47. Hans-Josef Fabry, TDOT 9:480
48. cf. Fox, Proverbs 1-9, 62
49. Satire of the Trades, 5
50. Without evaluating the merits of each position, it can be noted that certain modern discussions of developmental psychology have intimated that it is not until some point in adolescence at the earliest that youths develop the capacity for cognitive abstraction, including the ability to reason metaphorically (e.g., Jean Piaget), and subsequently, the ability to engage in moral reasoning (e.g., Lawrence Kohlberg). These views, however, have been critiqued for, among other things, their universalizing of the experiences of European males and North American males of (primarily) European descent. For an overview of the work of Piaget, Kohlberg, and others, see William Crain, Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications (3rd ed.; Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992)
51. See, e.g., the etymological and literary-historical study of Otto Eissfeldt, Der Maschal im Alten Testament: Eine wortgeschichtliche Untersuchung nebst einer literargeschichtlichen Untersuchung der genannten Gattungen "Volkssprichtwort" und "Spottlied" (BZAW 24; Giessen: Töpelmann, 1913)
52. Cf. A. R. Johnson, in Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East: Presented to Professor Harold Henry Rowley by the Society for Old Testament Study in Association with the Editorial Board of Vetus Testamentum, in Celebration of His Sixty-fifth Birthday, 24 March 1955 (ed. M. Noth and D. Winton Thomas; VTSup 3; Leiden: Brill, 1955), 162-69
53. A. S. Herbert, "The 'Parable (Māšāl) in the Old Testament," SJT 7 (1954): 180-96
54. Hans-Peter Müllers point of departure is the ("Der Begriff'Rätsel' im Alten Testament," VT 20 [1970]: 465-89)
55. David Winston Suter, in his study of the Vu>D in the Similitudes of Enoch, speaks in a Wittgensteinian vein of "the family" and strives to understand the multifaceted use of the term by attempting to identify "resemblances between various examples" of ("'Māš āl in the Similitudes of Enoch," JBL 100 [1981]: 193-212)
56. Timothy Polk, by contrast, emphasizes the "reader-involving quality" of different sorts of and their "hermeneutical" function, or the fact that "when used in and as religious discourse, the māšāl wants to do something to, with, or for its hearers/readers" ("Paradigms, Parables, and Mēšā lîm: On Reading the Māšālin Scripture," CBQ 45 [1983]: 564-83, esp. 567; italics original)
57. Toy, Proverbs, 4, 8
58. C. Barth, TDOT 7:547-52
59. The term also appears in Sir 47:17, again in conjunction with . See Fox, Proverbs 1-9, 63
60. Barth (547-52) contends that the hiphil participle (" interpreter") must be derived from a root, rather than . Together with the fact that is perhaps derived from, this creates some uncertainty as to the relationship of to. See H. N. Richardson, "Some Notes on and Its Derivatives," VT 5 (1955): 163-79
61. Fox, Proverbs 1-9, 64. Yet regardless of whether and are derived from different roots, their homophonic relationship and the association of each with some sort of discourse in need of interpretation make it likely that the connotations of each would leave traces on the meaning of the other
62. For a convenient introduction to the contemporary study of proverbs, see Wolfgang Mieder and Alan Dundes, eds., The Wisdom of Many: Essays on the Proverb (New York: Garland, 1981)
63. See Archie Taylor, "The Wisdom of Many and the Wit of One," in Wisdom of Many, ed. Mieder and Dundes, 5
64. (reprinted from Swarthmore College Bulletin 54 [1962]: 4-7)
65. Peter Seitel, "Proverbs: A Social Use of Metaphor," in Wisdom of Many, 126-28
66. Ruth Finnegan, "Proverbs in Africa," in Wisdom of Many, 17
67. (reprinted from Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa [Oxford: Clarendon, 1970], 389-418)
68. See further George Lakoff and Mark Turner, More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 166, 174
69. Paul Ricoeur, "Biblical Hermeneutics," in Paul Ricoeur on Biblical Hermeneutics (ed. John Dominic Crossan; Semeia 4; Missoula, MT: Society of Biblical Literature, 1975), 79
70. Cf. Polk, "Paradigms," 564, 567, 570
71. George M. Landes, "Jonah: A Māšāl?" in Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1978), 137-58. With such a view, the absence of the literary form of the in the text is, in one other sense, perhaps not as anomalous as it may initially appear. In Biblical Hebrew riddles can, of course, be associated with sexuality, as the celebrated case of Samson reveals. Given the significant erotic rhetoric that Proverbs employs (e.g., in regard especially to the strange/foreign woman, Woman Folly, and Woman Wisdom in chs. 1-9), the mention of riddles in the prologue may intimate that the reader, who is to discern the book's figurative language, ought to attend, among other topics, especially to the "riddle of the women" - that is, which way or manner of life each represents or symbolizes