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3 - The Multiple Genres of Wisdom

from Part I - The Context of Wisdom Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2022

By
Suzanna R. Millar
Edited by
Katherine J. Dell
Edited in association with
Suzanna R. Millar  and
Arthur Jan Keefer
Katherine J. Dell
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Suzanna R. Millar
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Arthur Jan Keefer
Affiliation:
Eton College
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Summary

Noting the debates around whether ‘wisdom’ constitutes a genre, Suzanna R. Millar instead studies the multiple smaller genres of which wisdom literature consists. Texts use (and sometimes intentionally misuse) genres to communicate with readers, providing them with conventions for interpretation and expectations about content. Surveying Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Ben Sira, and Wisdom of Solomon, Millar discerns four clusters of genres, grouped according to their communicative purpose. Some genres intend to instruct their users (sayings, instructions, diatribe, protreptic, and didactic narratives); others engage in reasoning (reflections and wisdom dialogues). These genres are not unexpected in wisdom literature, but the next are more familiar from other biblical corpora: some genres offer praise (either to wisdom, people of God), and others enunciate complaints (laments and legal complaints). These multiple genres combine and interact in complex ways within the wisdom book

Keywords

genreProverbsEcclesiastesJobBen SiraWisdom of Solomonsayingsinstructionsdiatribeprotrepticdidactic narratives
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Wisdom Literature , pp. 34 - 56
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Further Reading

Gammie, John G. ‘Paraenetic Literature: Toward the Morphology of a Secondary Genre’. Semeia 50 (1990): 41–77.Google Scholar
Kynes, Will. An Obituary for ‘Wisdom Literature’: The Birth, Death, and Intertextual Reintegration of a Biblical Corpus. Oxford: 2019.Google Scholar
Murphy, Roland E. Wisdom Literature: Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Canticles, Ecclesiastes and Esther. Forms of the Old Testament Literature. Grand Rapids: 1981.Google Scholar
Nel, P. J. ‘The Genres of Biblical Wisdom Literature’. JNWSL 9 (1981): 129–142.Google Scholar
Newsom, Carol A. ‘Spying out the Land: A Report from Genology’. Pages 437–450 in Seeking out the Wisdom of the Ancients: Essays Offered to Honor Michael V. Fox on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Edited by Troxel, Ronald L., Friebel, Kelvin G. and Magary, Dennis Robert. Winona Lake: 2005.Google Scholar
Newsom, Carol A. The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations. Oxford: 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perdue, Leo G. The Sword and the Stylus: An Introduction to Wisdom in the Age of Empires. Grand Rapids: 2008.Google Scholar
Weeks, Stuart. ‘Wisdom, Form, and Genre’. Pages 161–180 in Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies. Edited by Sneed, M.. Ancient Israel and Its Literature 23. Atlanta: 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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