Tuesday 26 October 2010

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.

7 comments:

Adam Morton said...

Great post. I'm in general agreement.

Here it can't be incidental that the name of the Lord is historically given (even as part of the redeption from Egypt).

Similarly, notice the crying out of Wisdom in Proverbs 1--a narrative is implied, of the rejection of wisdom and a consequent judgment, of paths of life and death. Why, it's positively deuteronomistic.

And yes, it all depends on God giving himself in his acts--history and creation are not here set at odds but united.

Phil Sumpter said...

Thanks for your thoughts Adam.

I do wonder what "Yhwh" means in the wisdom literature, both at an original historical level and a canonical level. It's one thing to say that the Yhwh of wisdom is brought into relation to the Yhwh of Sinai, it's another to say that wisdom was consciously referring to the Yhwh of Sinai. I think Childs would opt for the first option.

The relation between history and creation is another key area I need to get my head around, especially as I'm studying Ps 24!

Adam Morton said...

I'm not sure there's overwhelming reason to suppose that Yhwh always meant the same thing, on an original historical level, even within the wisdom literature.

That is, what if in some wisdom literature the Yhwh of wisdom really always meant the Yhwh of Sinai, and in some it didn't, and those were brought together within the wisdom literature at a stage of canonical process prior to individual wisdom books actually being set alongside Exodus?

In that case there simply wouldn't be an "original" YHWH of wisdom, because the category of wisdom as entailing all we mean by it only comes into being with the merger.

Phil Sumpter said...

A more fundamental question I can't get my head round is "What is 'wisdom' anyway?" Childs talks of the way that the canonical form preserves wisdom as an independent tradition with its own integrity by anchoring it to Solomon, a king who, as far as Israel's salvation history is concerned, has already "arrived" it its destination: Zion and then in that position is given the gift of wisdom. Does that give Biblical wisdom an eschatological flavour, I wonder ... ?

Adam Morton said...

Biblical wisdom often seems to have a touch of eschatology to it, both in terms of canonical setting (the link to Solomon, or, occasionally in the Psalms, David) and content (Psalm 49, or the descriptions of the "wise" in Exodus 35 and 36 who are involved in the manufacture of the tabernacle).

If cult and wisdom belong together, then so do wisdom and eschatology..

Phil Sumpter said...

Adam, that's really helpful, thank you! Can you recommend any decent publications on this?

Adam Morton said...

I can't think of much, but then, I'm not an Old Testament specialist (just a guy finishing off an MDiv at this point, who happens to think that reading the Old Testament might one day make a better theologian, or even a better pastor of him). Wish I could help more.

But I do remember an interesting piece by Katharine Dell ("I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre" was the title) about connections between wisdom psalms and the cult in psalm 49.