Moving into the wider world of the ancient Near East, Michael Fox and Suzanna R. Millar examine Egyptian wisdom literature. They begin with an overview of extant examples from the Old Kingdom to the Late Period, and then turn to some major themes and issues. They consider Ma’at (the regulating force of truth/justice), character development (particularly as expressed through polar character types), pedagogy (including the debate about who is capable of learning), and transmission (through the generations in oral and written forms). The second half of the chapter assesses some commonly proposed examples of Egyptian influence on biblical wisdom literature, namely the influence of Amenemope on Prov 22:17–23:11 and elsewhere in Proverbs, Egyptian parallels to Proverbs 8, Egyptian parallels to Prov 23:12–24:22, an alleged precursor to Job 38–39 in Egyptian onomastica, and connections between Ben Sira and the Demotic Instruction Phibis.

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

This chapter introduces the volume’s first thematic strand (Home and Away) with a study of Normandy and the Continent in the age of William the Conqueror. It commences with a consideration of terminology, followed by an analysis of Normandy’s developing boundaries and the Normans’ adjustment to Christianity. The chapter then takes a comparative view of Normandy’s neighbours (Brittany, Flanders, Maine, Blois, and France) before studying the duchy’s rise as a major player in eleventh-century north-western Europe. It concludes with discussions of knightly culture, Church reform, and the influence of popes and emperors.

Mark Sneed introduces readers to the world of scribes. Drawing first on some of the earliest developments of Sumerian scribalism, he gives an overview of how scribes trained and worked in the ancient Near East more broadly. In Egypt and elsewhere, scribal training began at an early age and involved a wide range of curricula, including wisdom literature, which scribes copied and memorized, as it played a significant role in scribal education. Although concrete evidence for Israelite schools is lacking, Sneed finds reason to believe that similar scribal practices existed there, where wisdom literature too served technical and ethical purposes. Scribes, then, existed in ancient Israel, and for Sneed could be identified in various ways: priests, prophets, and sages. Behind each of these lies the “scribe” as one who composed the texts themselves. Thus Sneed finds far more that is common than different among the biblical materials, wisdom texts included, and conceives of the scribe as holding a wide-ranging professional role in Israel that was not tied down to a single genre of literature.

With his ‘Solomonic Connection’, David Firth observes the man Solomon as he appears in Kings and Chronicles. Solomon is ‘paradigmatic’ for understanding wisdom in both of these books and yet he is not treated identically therein. Kings and Chronicles offer different portraits of the exceedingly wise king, whether that be his foundational role for wisdom or his problematic relationship with it. Matters of the temple, Solomon’s behaviour, torah, and the very conception of wisdom itself all have a place in biblical presentations of Solomon. Firth looks closely at 1 Kings 1–11 and 2 Chronicles 1–9 with a literary and theological reading that does not let one account determine the other or allow the Solomonic portraits in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes to have all of the attention.

This chapter concludes the volume’s fourth thematic strand (Cultural Perspectives) with a study of schools and education in the age of William the Conqueror. Utilising the perspective of the long eleventh century, it scrutinises different cultures of schooling in Normandy and England and the relationships that existed between them. This is followed by a discussion on the memory of pre-Conquest English learning in post-Conquest England and a concluding case study of King Harold’s Waltham.

Mette Bundvad considers Ecclesiastes as a book of contradictions and one that has a peculiar narrator and special thematic concerns. Instead of giving a catalogue of possible or plausible contradictions in the book, Bundvad surveys the ways in which scholars have reckoned with the book’s evident tensions. The question that emerges, then, is whether these contradictions are a feature of the book or a ‘bug’ of sorts. Ecclesiastes’ portrayal of its narrator falls under the rubric of these very tensions, exhibiting a man, or men, who wears various guises and no one persona. Bundvad concludes with reflections about the book’s treatment of time, a theme that does not resolve every tension but does open up new questions and possible structures.

The third chapter in the volume’s final thematic strand (Cultural Perspectives) concerns language and literacy in the age of William the Conqueror. Following an introduction explaining the languages and linguistic developments in the cross-Channel Anglo-Norman state, the chapter casts its view broadly across Britain and beyond, before offering some considerations of the important subjects of literacy, Latinity, and genre. Detailed attention is given to questions concerning the persistence of Old English and the advent of Anglo-Norman, as well as to book production.

This epilogue concludes the volume with an investigation of the legacy of William the Conqueror and his age in public culture, international politics, media, and social memory.

Arthur Jan Keefer discusses the relationship of wisdom literature and virtue ethics. Posing questions of both method and substance, the chapter proposes how interpreters might make use of virtue theories for reading biblical wisdom literature. Of foremost importance are precise definitions for concepts of ‘virtue’, a selection of particular texts that set out an understanding of virtue, and an appreciation of traditional methods of biblical interpretation, all of which guards against vague conclusions and artificial comparison. Within the last decade, several scholars have pioneered the study of virtue ethics and wisdom literature, most notably through Proverbs and Job. Keefer presents this work and then suggests some inroads for similar studies of Ecclesiastes and Ben Sira, which have received less attention with respect to virtue. Lastly, he considers how the possibilities of virtue within each of these books link up with notions of ‘the good’ and a teleological orientation for ethics.