Wisdom
Literature:
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Job
SCBC
Adult Sunday School
January – April, 2013
Approaching
the Wisdom Books:
Introduction & Interpretive
Issues

What is Wisdom? –
‘Embracing Tensions’
Barbara Leung Lai
I. Introduction—Proverbs, Job, Eccles.
A. Engaging the Wisdom Books in
Times like this—against the chaotic
world of the 21st century
B. Depth, ambiguity, and complexity of the
Old Testament (J. Goldingay) all
represented in the Wisdom Books
C. Intertextual tensions existing among the
three books (Diagram A)
(a)
The “Two-Way” Doctrine
Prov 3:33; 13:21
Eccles 7:15; 8:12-14
Prov 23:17
Job 22:13; 21:17
(b) The Incomprehensibility of God and the seeking
of Humanity
Prov 8:17; 2:2-7
Job 42: 1-5; Eccles 8:16-17;
Prov. 25:2
(c) Articulating the nature of the tension
E.g., norm and exception; macro and micro;
eternal and temporal; and …
D. Bridging between the ‘then’ and ‘now’
(a) A Big ‘HOW’?
(b) How to resolve? Or, How to be sustained
in tension?
Diagram (A): A Text-anchored and Reader-oriented Model
Leung Lai
The text imposes intrinsic textual
constraints upon the reader
The reader brings extrinsic
Contextual constraints to the text
( III )
The Dynamics of the Reading Process
(The Merging of the Two Horizons)
•
(I)
( II )
Text / Bible
Reader/Interpreter
Tension
(Text-centered and Reader-oriented)
II. What is Wisdom?
A. Defining Wisdom
(a) Criteria for definition: Concerns, thinking, genre/form
(b) Content/theme of each book
(c) Suggested Definitions(Common approach to reality):
Understanding of Reality
• The art of living
• The ability to cope/master life
• The way of wisdom (how to walk)
• The Steering of life
• The dynamics of life
• The Search for order (two dimensions):
o God’s created order
o the principle of God’s ruling
Murphy’s summary:
“Wisdom is not a single action,
nor the observation of a single proverb.
It is the orientation to life that a person has,
the core of one’s being or heart
from which actions bring.”
- Murphy, The Tree of Life (Millennium Supplement, p. 231)
Wisdom reflects a common approach
to the understanding of reality:
• through reflection;
• faith seeking understanding;
• collective lived experience under the sun;
• experiential knowledge …
God grant me
the SERENITY
to accept the things I cannot change.
COURAGE
to change the things I can.
and
WISDOM
to know the difference.
III. What is Wisdom Theology
(Diagram B)
(a) Wisdom and Creation
(b) The understanding of reality
(c) The Search for Order
(d) Experience as a means of
God’s revelation
(e) Faith seeking understanding
(f) Knowledge and the Fear of the Lord
Diagram “B”
Two-fold Hermeneutical Framework: God reaching-out/speaking to Humanity
& Humanity reaching-out/speaking to God
A New Dimension of God’s Revelation to Humanity
Rm 1:20
Natural
Revelation
UNIVERSE
God
Reveals
Himself
through the
history of
humankind
2 Tim 3:16
(Prov 6:6-8;
10:29; 30:18-32;
4:3-9; 7:6;11:24;
17:27-28; 18:16;
Eccles, Job,
Ps 73)
Human
Response
Human
Experience
under
the sun
GOD
Job,
Eccles,
Psalms
(Laments,
praises,
petitions)
BIBLE
Faith Seeking Understanding
HUMANITY
N.B. This diagram illustrates the `essence’ and `combination’ of Theocentric and Anthropocentric
Special
Revelation
Leung Lai
IV. Appropriation: Current Approaches
(interpretive Strategy) to the Wisdom
Books
(A) Paradigm Shift: purely theocentric 
radically anthropocentric
(B) Recommended Current Approaches
Trajectory:
formation--deformation--reformation
orientation--disorientation--reorientation
(a) character formation & Proverbs
(b) The Nature of Job’s Suffering (Job 1:8)
(c) Eccles-- A paradigm of ‘faith seeking understanding’
(a treatise, reflection, self-narrated life, journal,
thinking-out-loud)