Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament: The Ordering of Life in Israel and Early Judaism (Oxford Bible)

Rating:
Summary: The Ordering of Israel's Life by Wisdom and Law
Review: "An excellent treatment providing both overview and critical depth...Represents the culmination in thinking of one of the finest OT scholars alive today." Donald G. Schley

Law & Wisdom:
Law is the core of Israel's culture that established the Judeo-Christian universal moral value behind it. Law in the Old Testament practically means 'the Law promulgated by Moses', with sundry later modifications or additions, rules as to which have been inserted in the record of the Mosaic law. As an example, some have suggested the prohibition on trimming your beard [Lev. 19:27] relates to pagan practices that cut facial hair for magical purposes. So the universal behind this cultural would be, don't do the occult.
Wisdom is really an approach to life, a way of looking at the world and, for Israelites, a way of living out in very deliberate, rational ways their commitment to God.
-The quality of being wise; knowledgeable, and having the capacity to make due use of it; discernment and judgment; " Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding." Job 28:28.
-Acquired knowledge; erudition. "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds." Acts 7:22, and
-The results of wise judgments; scientific or practical truth.

OT Wisdom Literature:
In the Hebrew Bible, 'wisdom literature' is generally understood to refer to Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes; among the Apocrypha, it includes Ecclesiasticus (The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach) and The Wisdom of Solomon. The extent to which other parts of the Bible can be described as `wisdom' is disputed, but certain Psalms seem to betray wisdom influence (e.g., Ps. 37). While Wisdom's roots go back to the early days of Israelite history, it began to flower in the latter part of the Old Testament period, and flourished in the Intertestamental period. The relationship between wisdom and apocalyptic and the extent to which the latter was influenced by the former also remains a debatable issue.

Characteristic traits:
In dealing with the Hebrew Wisdom literature it is demanded that the whole body of it, so far as it has come down to us, should be taken into consideration, and not merely those books that have been admitted into the Canon. For the distinction between canonical and non canonical Wisdom books is quite arbitrary.
The objective of the Hebrew sage is to preserve and transmit the acquired lessons of experience, so that one may learn to cope with life. Proverbs upholds the optimistic view shared by such books as Deuteronomy but disputed by Job and Ecclesiastes. IT is characterized by an absence of reference to the typical salvation beliefs, such as the patriarchal promises, the Exodus, or the Sinaitic covenant. While certain literary forms are cultivated: the discrete, separate saying, which is usually an admonition, expressed in two parallel lines; whether positive or negative.

Book Description & Review:
This revised edition, considerably expanded to take in the legal and didactic material, gives additive attention to the different literary types used by Israel's sages and to the social settings in which the saying came into existence and circulated thereafter. The main purpose of Professor Blenkinsopp, however, remains the same from the first edition, to trace the course of two related key streams of tradition, law and wisdom, throughout the history of Israel in the biblical period, and to demonstrate their essential line of continuity with classical Jewish thought and early Christian theology.
The title specificity for the book as; 'The Ordering of Life in Israel and Early Judaism,' leads the reader to believe that the versatile, in depth, author is just going to deal with OT wisdom literature impact on shaping of life in Israel. Although his integrated approach was much more instructing than a mere reconstructive analysis of wisdom literature within the canon, or critical comparative evaluation with Egyptian and other wisdom literature but he could not have done better treating Law as wisdom in his flowing discussion that maintained the Life in Israel as an ultimate goal, as his title implies.
As insightful Reviewer Lorna L. Wilson alleged for Crenshaw on the same subject, the same goes for Blenkinsopp. "The title of the book can be pleasantly deceiving. It goes well beyond the wisdom tradition found in the biblical books of Ecclesiates, Psalms, Proverbs, and Job. He takes a broader perspective and includes apocrypha writings as well as Egyptian and Mesopotamian literature."
Overall, this book covers more than its declared purpose claims, which makes this concise book an in-depth visualization rather than a conventional text. Despite the variety and novelty of its treatment, the method pursued in this book, serves an excellent job of exposing the various component of form, content, and themes found within wisdom literature, as canonized by the Great Church of Alexandria, and other pseudo epigraphic writings.


Praise & Reviews:
"An excellent little book. It combines serious scholarship with readability." Mary M. McGlone, Avila College (for the first edition)
"What a pleasure to find a book that takes seriously the meaning and importance of `law' in the Hebrew Bible...This book is a helpful introduction to the current state of critical theology...both informative and stimulating." The Universe