Last night I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to get a little reading done. For my historiography seminar, I am giving a presentation on Gerhard von Rad, which will be due in a few weeks. I have decided to limit my talk to von Rad’s views on the wisdom literature. While I may have a different perspective than von Rad in this area, his challenge to have us think through our presuppositions is a point well taken. For instance, is there really such thing as a wisdom psalm?
“The designation of a text as ‘wisdom’, indeed this whole term ‘wisdom’ as a total phenomenon, is by no means directly rooted in sources. It first emerged in the scholarly world and has since become established. It belongs, therefore, to the fairly extensive number of biblical-theological collective terms whose validity and content are not once for all established and which have to be examined from time to time from the point of view of whether they are being correctly used. It could even be that scholarship has gone too far in an uncritical use of this collective term; it could even be that by use of this blanket term it is suggesting the existence of something that never existed and that is is in this way dangerously prejudicing the interpretation of varied material.”
von Rad, Gerhard. Wisdom in Israel. Translated by James D. Martin. 7th ed. Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1993. 7.
p.s. During this hectic semester, my posts are going to be few and far between.
