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Early Israelite Wisdom
This is a new and ground-breaking study of the nature and origins of the earliest material in the book of Proverbs, drawing on evidence from Israel and neighboring countries in the ancient Near East. This literature has been widely believed to have originated as pedagogical material, designed for the education of future administrators in the royal bureaucracy from the time of Solomon. That belief has played an important part not only in the interpretation of the texts, but in reconstructions of Israelite society and history. In this book, Weeks challenges this belief, arguing that it is largely founded on assumptions which are now widely discredited, and he sets out to re-evaluate the evidence in the light of more recent research. Weeks's illuminating conclusions will have important implications for the future study of this material, and for our understanding of ancient Israel's society and history.
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First published February 17, 1994
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January 22, 2021
Built off his work for his doctoral dissertation, Stuart Weeks’ Early Israelite Wisdom is a little gem of a book. Its strength, however, is balanced by its weakness. Its strength is, as one would expect in a groundbreaking dissertation, fresh perspectives and refined methodologies. Its weakness is that academic works have a tendency to parse positives and negatives such that ambiguity and uncertainty is ignored. So, where I started reading Early Israelite Wisdom as a valuable tour de force summary of early “wisdom literature” theories with the application of new methodologies. Yet, as one moves deeper into the volume, the more it seems Weeks’ parses matters with too fine a scalpel.
So, on the positive side, Weeks does a marvelous job of examining the way in which “nearest-neighbor theory” can help critics understand how the collection(s) of sayings in Proverbs may have been positioned in the overall text. This theory looks for three different types of linkages between wisdom sayings, but none of the types are exclusive as a certainty. Weeks cites: a) thematic links where, obviously, there is a similar subject or idea in all or most of the sayings in a text; b) verbal links where key words (whether nouns or verbs) seem to connect several sayings in a complex; and c) literal (in the sense of “letters”) where there is alliteration (at least with letters as the opening of sayings) or assonance/consonance (where there may be both initial or internal sequences of letters repeated) between sayings (p. 21). Consequently, one of the most valuable pages in the book is where Weeks painstakingly charts all three types of connections in Proverbs 10:1 to 22:6 (p. 22) and explains the process and significance in the subsequent pages. In the same chapter (p. 25), Weeks considers the use of antithetical sayings and posit that the percentages of antithetical sayings in each chapter may assist the critic in knowing where to divide the collection (different from previous scholarship—p. 26). Personally, this would have been a grand endeavor if the entire book had been built off this type of stylistic study.
In his chapter on “Proverbs and the Court,” Weeks does the service of setting up the idea that evidence for a court school of wise men may not be as determinative as earlier scholars (and some modern scholars) believe. He sees the “attributions to the wise” in Proverbs to be convenient headings rather than references to a court tradition (p. 46). In a similar vein, Weeks fairly soundly undercuts assumptions of a royal administration based on the Egyptian model, particularly arguments based on alleged etymological similarity in the Davidic and Solomonic officials lists (pp. 117-126). And, while not completely dismissing Andre Lemaire’s assertions that epigraphic evidence such as the Gezer “Calendar” represent schoolboy exercises, Weeks offers up so many doubts that one must regard even these “exercises” as improbable, much less the existence of schools Lemaire was trying to prove (pp. 139, 141, 144, 146, 147, 148, 153).
Weeks’ conclusion on the supposed use of “wise men” as a technical term is probably correct. He doesn’t believe that the evidence warrants it (p. 90). Yet, here is where I think he is parsing things too fine. Some of his arguments seem almost ridiculous. For example, he states that the wise men in Egypt could not be associated with the court because the Pharaoh had to “send and call” them (p. 81). Weeks thinks that “sending and calling” shows that they had to be in a separate building or facility. Believe it or not, even in the modern era, many supervisors have to send and call for their direct reports on occasion (unless they manage by “walking around”). Is it unreasonable to assume that a Pharaoh, sitting ex cathedra as he entertains a foreign representative might send for his advisors rather than going to them. Would he even have to have them present unless he knew what the agenda was going to be? After all, in the biblical account, Pharaoh doesn’t know Moses is going to resort to demonstrating “wonders” in proof of his God. Even when the “wise men” of Edom are threatened with destruction in Obadiah 8, Weeks argues from the parallelism of the “wise men” with understanding that the prophet really means “wisdom” will be taken away (p. 82). Wouldn’t a nation essentially lose both a body of wisdom and a practice of understanding if its wise men were destroyed?
But while I agree with Weeks’ conclusion regardless of some of his overstated (in my opinion) arguments, I felt like his argument against Gerhard von Rad’s attribution of wisdom elements in the Joseph narrative were the most extreme. Weeks doubts that there is evidence of Joseph rising in the bureaucracy due to his administrative acumen (p. 94). I’m not sure what evidence Weeks would require. After all, Joseph apparently rises to a position of responsibility in Potiphar’s house and Potiphar attributes his success to Joseph. Then, Joseph rises from prisoner to trustee. Then, after properly preparing to enter the Pharaoh’s presence, he proves himself more capable (with God’s help, of course) than the Egyptian diviners, and then, he proposes a plan which the Pharaoh adopts before renaming Joseph, giving him a court responsibility, and providing him with the daughter of a priest for a wife. No administrative rise? Simply because the narrative clearly attributes Joseph’s successes to God’s intervention (p. 96) does not preclude Joseph’s acuity and organizational skills. Weeks speciously juxtaposes George Coats’ assertion that Joseph refuses Potiphar’s wife out of loyalty to his master and Brevard Child’s consideration that the refusal is due to Joseph’s loyalty to God when it could clearly be both (pp. 96-97). Weeks says there are no grounds for assuming that Joseph is intended as a model for emulation (p. 99). Uh, maybe his success in rising to the top in whatever situation he found himself? Again, Weeks suggests that because Joseph doesn’t himself initiate all of the appropriate actions that he is not a wise administrator (p. 100). Yet, even in the modern corporation, a wise manager learns to listen and, when appropriate, to implement the suggestions of others. In short, the entire chapter on Joseph seemed like Weeks took aim at von Rad’s thesis (rightly or wrongly) and was forcing his own “logic” to subvert reasonable considerations.
In general, Weeks is most convincing when he says that the influence of an international wisdom literature did not have to enter Israel via the scribal community (p. 158) nor need to be association with schools (p. 159). Indeed, the exhortatory and cautionary nature of the wisdom literature would make the literature less likely to be “educational curricula” (p. 159). Rather, Weeks sees the development of the wisdom literature as a “high literature,” that which would be read and assimilated by the literate (p. 160). In short, Weeks has contributed much to the study of this biblical genre, marred only by his tendency to force his reasoning, at times, in a pre-determined direction.
So, on the positive side, Weeks does a marvelous job of examining the way in which “nearest-neighbor theory” can help critics understand how the collection(s) of sayings in Proverbs may have been positioned in the overall text. This theory looks for three different types of linkages between wisdom sayings, but none of the types are exclusive as a certainty. Weeks cites: a) thematic links where, obviously, there is a similar subject or idea in all or most of the sayings in a text; b) verbal links where key words (whether nouns or verbs) seem to connect several sayings in a complex; and c) literal (in the sense of “letters”) where there is alliteration (at least with letters as the opening of sayings) or assonance/consonance (where there may be both initial or internal sequences of letters repeated) between sayings (p. 21). Consequently, one of the most valuable pages in the book is where Weeks painstakingly charts all three types of connections in Proverbs 10:1 to 22:6 (p. 22) and explains the process and significance in the subsequent pages. In the same chapter (p. 25), Weeks considers the use of antithetical sayings and posit that the percentages of antithetical sayings in each chapter may assist the critic in knowing where to divide the collection (different from previous scholarship—p. 26). Personally, this would have been a grand endeavor if the entire book had been built off this type of stylistic study.
In his chapter on “Proverbs and the Court,” Weeks does the service of setting up the idea that evidence for a court school of wise men may not be as determinative as earlier scholars (and some modern scholars) believe. He sees the “attributions to the wise” in Proverbs to be convenient headings rather than references to a court tradition (p. 46). In a similar vein, Weeks fairly soundly undercuts assumptions of a royal administration based on the Egyptian model, particularly arguments based on alleged etymological similarity in the Davidic and Solomonic officials lists (pp. 117-126). And, while not completely dismissing Andre Lemaire’s assertions that epigraphic evidence such as the Gezer “Calendar” represent schoolboy exercises, Weeks offers up so many doubts that one must regard even these “exercises” as improbable, much less the existence of schools Lemaire was trying to prove (pp. 139, 141, 144, 146, 147, 148, 153).
Weeks’ conclusion on the supposed use of “wise men” as a technical term is probably correct. He doesn’t believe that the evidence warrants it (p. 90). Yet, here is where I think he is parsing things too fine. Some of his arguments seem almost ridiculous. For example, he states that the wise men in Egypt could not be associated with the court because the Pharaoh had to “send and call” them (p. 81). Weeks thinks that “sending and calling” shows that they had to be in a separate building or facility. Believe it or not, even in the modern era, many supervisors have to send and call for their direct reports on occasion (unless they manage by “walking around”). Is it unreasonable to assume that a Pharaoh, sitting ex cathedra as he entertains a foreign representative might send for his advisors rather than going to them. Would he even have to have them present unless he knew what the agenda was going to be? After all, in the biblical account, Pharaoh doesn’t know Moses is going to resort to demonstrating “wonders” in proof of his God. Even when the “wise men” of Edom are threatened with destruction in Obadiah 8, Weeks argues from the parallelism of the “wise men” with understanding that the prophet really means “wisdom” will be taken away (p. 82). Wouldn’t a nation essentially lose both a body of wisdom and a practice of understanding if its wise men were destroyed?
But while I agree with Weeks’ conclusion regardless of some of his overstated (in my opinion) arguments, I felt like his argument against Gerhard von Rad’s attribution of wisdom elements in the Joseph narrative were the most extreme. Weeks doubts that there is evidence of Joseph rising in the bureaucracy due to his administrative acumen (p. 94). I’m not sure what evidence Weeks would require. After all, Joseph apparently rises to a position of responsibility in Potiphar’s house and Potiphar attributes his success to Joseph. Then, Joseph rises from prisoner to trustee. Then, after properly preparing to enter the Pharaoh’s presence, he proves himself more capable (with God’s help, of course) than the Egyptian diviners, and then, he proposes a plan which the Pharaoh adopts before renaming Joseph, giving him a court responsibility, and providing him with the daughter of a priest for a wife. No administrative rise? Simply because the narrative clearly attributes Joseph’s successes to God’s intervention (p. 96) does not preclude Joseph’s acuity and organizational skills. Weeks speciously juxtaposes George Coats’ assertion that Joseph refuses Potiphar’s wife out of loyalty to his master and Brevard Child’s consideration that the refusal is due to Joseph’s loyalty to God when it could clearly be both (pp. 96-97). Weeks says there are no grounds for assuming that Joseph is intended as a model for emulation (p. 99). Uh, maybe his success in rising to the top in whatever situation he found himself? Again, Weeks suggests that because Joseph doesn’t himself initiate all of the appropriate actions that he is not a wise administrator (p. 100). Yet, even in the modern corporation, a wise manager learns to listen and, when appropriate, to implement the suggestions of others. In short, the entire chapter on Joseph seemed like Weeks took aim at von Rad’s thesis (rightly or wrongly) and was forcing his own “logic” to subvert reasonable considerations.
In general, Weeks is most convincing when he says that the influence of an international wisdom literature did not have to enter Israel via the scribal community (p. 158) nor need to be association with schools (p. 159). Indeed, the exhortatory and cautionary nature of the wisdom literature would make the literature less likely to be “educational curricula” (p. 159). Rather, Weeks sees the development of the wisdom literature as a “high literature,” that which would be read and assimilated by the literate (p. 160). In short, Weeks has contributed much to the study of this biblical genre, marred only by his tendency to force his reasoning, at times, in a pre-determined direction.
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