Theological parallels between Israel's wisdom traditions and salvation-historical traditions

It's often said that Israel's wisdom traditions are devoid of the kind of theology one finds elsewhere in the Old Testament. Brueggemann represents the majority opinion: 

wisdom teaching, in the book of Proverbs as elsewhere, completely lacks the primary marks of Israel's history or of Israel's covenantal tradition. As a consequence in this teaching, Israel stands alongside its non-Yahwistic neighbours in pondering the inscrutible mystery of life, even as that mystery permeates the most concrete and mundane dimensions of daily existence [*]

The following is a thought experiment in relation to this. Assuming a single theological pattern, in which God creates a material universe for the purpose of giving it to humanity to enjoy, yet making that enjoyment conditional upon obedience to will, I came up with the following parallels:

Wisdom:

i) The ultimate telos of wisdom is "salvation," understood in the "this worldly" sense of a long happy life in the land.

ii) The means of achieving this is through 1) discovering and then 2) implementing the insights of wisdom.

iii) The place where one goes in order to acquire this salvific information is the created order, in both its "natural" and "social" dimensions (i.e. through the observation of natural and sociological patterns and the development of codes of conduct).

iv) The epistemological condition for comprehending this reality is "the fear of the Lord." There is no neutral starting point.

v) The source of this information is the Lord. I.e. God himself, through revelation of himself, creates the epistemological conditions by which we can perceive his will in creation.

vi) The reason why this reality (wisdom) does what it does (i.e. give life) lies within the will of the Lord. It's what he wants.

vii) Identifying this reality (wisdom) is equivalent to identifying the Lord's will/purpose (i.e. to offer us salvation in a material paradise).

viii) Wisdom reveals the Lord to the degree that it reveals his will, which is for a healthy created order (Garden-of-Eden-style).

This seems to correspond to the theological logic found in the Pentateuch:

i) The ultimate telos of history is "salvation," understood in the "this worldly" sense of a long happy life in the land.

ii) The means of achieving this is through 1) discovering and then 2) implementing God's revealed will (Torah).

iii) The place where one goes for this salvific information is the Lord's history with his people, in both its experienced and then narrated/liturgically re-enacted dimensions (i.e. tradition and Scripture).

iv) The epistemological condition for comprehending this reality (i.e. truly understanding the spirit of the law, its purpose) is thankfulness to the Lord for what he has done prior to the revelation of his will (e.g. I.e. redemption from Egypt; this experience provides the categories for understanding how to treat ones own slaves).

v) The source of this information is the Lord.

vi) The reason that this reality (his will in Torah) does what it does (i.e. give life) lies within the will of the Lord. It's what he wants.

vii) Identifying this reality is equivalent to identifying the Lord's will/purpose (i.e. salvation).

viii) History (as narrated in the Pentateuch) reveals the Lord to the degree that it reveals his will, which is a healthy created order (i.e. saved from Egypt for Canaan).

Given these parallels, you can see how the Bible exerted a certain "co-ercion" on early Jewish interpreters (Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon) to collapse wisdom and torah into one reality. This wasn't an attempt to impress the Greeks, it was a response to the total witness of Scripture, a response consistent with the Bible's own logic.

To make the parallels more explicit, you get the following pairings:

Law / Wisdom (object to be sought)

Thankfulness for historical preservation / Fear of the Lord (epistemological condition for perceiving this)

land of milk and honey / a good long life (goal of seeking)

obedience / obedience (means of implementation)

the Lord / the Lord (source)

instruction from priests, parents, Scripture etc. / instruction from wise men, parents, Scripture etc. (vehicle for source)

history / creation (location)

Any thoughts?

[*] Brueggeman, An Introduction to the Old Testament, 306.

Useful Posts on 'Wisdom'

A blog which I think I will be visiting regularly is Tolle Lege, hosted by Dave. Not only are our respective doctoral supervisors close colleagues (mine was the first ever doctoral student of his, and they worked in the same faculty for many years and were known as the two Gordons), the topics that interest him will be important to me: Creation and Wisdom. He has series of helpful posts worth checking out: First, he gives a brief outline of various approaches to Wisdom in the modern period, pointing out the inadequacy of approaches which see the 'genre' as either essentially anthropocentric or theocentric. Second, he points out the 'ethno-centrism' of the secular/religious dichotomy which currently prevails in our culture (with a great von Rad quote), as well as the potential significance of Creation Theology for understanding Wisdom. His most recent post offers a great quote on the significance of creation, as understood by a biomedical ethicist.

I look forward to reading more!

Oh, and here's his great von Rad quote:

"The modern exegete is always tempted to read into the old texts the tension with which he is all too familiar between faith and thought, between reason and revelation. Accordingly, there has been a tendency to infer too much from the preponderance of worldly sentences over religious ones. The conclusion has, for example, been drawn that this old proverbial wisdom was still scarcely touched by Yahwism and that it was still only at the very beginning of a process of interpenetration by Yahwism. Against this, it can be categorically stated that for Israel there was only one world of experience and that this was apperceived by means of a perceptive apparatus in which rational perceptions and religious perceptions were not differentiated. Nor was this any different in the case of the prophets. The reality surrounding Israel was much more comprehensive than we would imaging, whether in political or socio-ethical or any other kind of terms." (1975, Wisdom in Israel)