This chapter investigates Archilochus’ relationship to the tradition of wisdom literature, using the poet as a case study for how we can think about inter-generic and intertextual relationships so early in the Greek literary tradition. Having established that Archilochus is familiar with (and expects his audience also to know) the conventions of didactic moralising, the chapter discusses the case for a stronger proposition: that his poetry demonstrates a specific relationship with the poems of Hesiod. The chapter examines some fragments which demonstrate the best case for an intertextual relationship (frr. 196a, 195, 177) and discusses how reading these through a Hesiodic lens enhances our understanding of what the poems aim to do and how they fit into Archilochus’ broader rhetorical strategy.

This chapter begins by exploring the issue of Proverbs as wisdom literature and its context within that group of books, it looks at the distinctive forms and content of the book and at the various possible context(s) for different sections of the work. It also looks at the Solomonic attribution and at other attributions to different characters found in Proverbs and at questions of orality and literacy.

This chapter looks at scholarly assessment of traditional issues in relation to Proverbs such as provenance, historical and cultural context and literary-critical history across the debates of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries leading into the twenty-first. Beginning in the nineteenth century when the term “wisdom literature” was coined, changing ideas regarding compositional issues, original social context, and authorship and the effect of key Egyptian parallels on those debates are all discussed.

The introduction to this volume captures virtue's dizzying variety by explaining its roots in classical ethics, transformation through theological appropriation, and engagement with global wisdom traditions. We propose that the work of Shakespeare patches together virtue's many realizations, active both on the horizontal axis of Aristotelian capacity and dynamism and the vertical axis of Judeo-Christian valuation. Threading together exemplary passages from Shakespeare and previews of the volume's contributions, the introduction proposes that Shakespeare creates virtue ecologies -- worlds that allow for person-affirming capacities to be tested and flourish. Alive to virtue's textual and performative dimensions, we establish a vocabulary and background for the essays that follow.

Tremper Longman begins the Companion by setting the stage for many of the chapters that follow. Of first importance is the fact that discussing ‘biblical wisdom literature’ is not as simple as it seems. For the category as such has been questioned, and, even among those scholars who agree to use the phrase, what it means and designates remains up for debate. Longman presents the various viewpoints in terms of the ‘traditional view’, reactions to it, and ‘the way forward’. Matters of genre, the grouping of biblical texts, and their social location or worldview arise, as do suspicions about how ‘wisdom literature’ came about within scholarship and a recent repudiation of what it has become. Longman’s way forward indicates that Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes do indeed have meaningful affinities, and that these texts can and should be studied together, as well as in relation to other OT texts.

In the Introduction, the editors briefly sketch the parametres of the volume, and give an overview of each subsequent chapter.

Will Kynes introduces the book of Job by asking ‘What is the book of Job, and how does that affect how you read it?’ This question entails investigation into the book’s genre, for genre recognition provides a horizon of expectations which shape the reader’s perspective. Job has traditionally been read as Wisdom Literature, based on perceived similarities with Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in form, theme, and Sitz im Leben. However, this genre grouping leads to Job’s unwarranted separation from the rest of the canon, theological abstraction, and hermeneutical limitations. Job is an open and ambiguous text which might be placed in multiple genre groupings. Kynes surveys several of these (sifre emet, lament, exemplary sufferer texts, poetry, drama, controversy dialogue, history, epic, didactic narrative, Torah, prophecy, lawsuit, and apocalyptic), as well as some meta-generic readings (parody, citation, and polyphony). Given this diversity, and recognising that all readings are culturally contingent and only partially appropriate, he advocates a multiperspectival approach which draws insights from many directions.

Darius I overcame rebellions and seized the throne of Babylon, but cuneiform scholarship continued and developed; religious practices did not change, nor did the great buildings on the citadel. The zodiac scheme came into use. The Achaemenid king took Babylonian royal titles and promoted the worship of Marduk for local purposes. Xerxes broke the continuity. Following an uprising, a purge led to the ending of many archives. The province of Babylon was divided in two. Subsequent Achaemenid kings continued to treat Babylon with reverence. Alexander the Great defeated Darius III, entered Babylon, retained the Persian satrap, and moved treasure from Susa and Ecbatana to Babylon. He was recognized as a god. Lack of sons at his premature death precipitated a civil war from which Alexander’s commander Seleucus emerged to take the throne jointly with his son Antiochus. The derelict ziggurat was demolished, but temples and rituals, chronicles and astronomical diaries, continued as before. Aramaic was widely used, and fewer texts were inscribed in cuneiform. Interest in the fall of Assyria and of the Babylonian empire is apparent in Greek literature. Famous scholars include Berossus and named astronomers. Parthians invaded and eventually ended the dynasty.