Understanding the Law and Wisdom/Poetry
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Understanding the Law and Wisdom/Poetry
Focusing on the two genres of Poetry and Wisdom, discuss how we should treat poetical passages in Psalms and wisdom passages in Proverbs. In what sense are Psalms revealing truth to us? If we follow Proverbs exactly, are we guaranteed good results?
Wisdom or Poetry
The wisdom or poetry section of the Old Testament is literally, physically, in the middle of the Bible. If one opens the Bible in the middle, one will often open to a psalm, the book of Job, or Proverbs. Wisdom is also at the heart of both the Jewish and Christian faith in such areas as understanding questions about evil and suffering (Job), worship (Psalms), guidelines for living (Proverbs), perspectives on life (Ecclesiastes), and beautiful, romantic marriage poetry (The Song of Solomon).
Western interpreters are often challenged by the genre of poetry since those who are classically trained in theology are more adept at discussing narrative and historical data and its meaning. But Hebrew poetry delivers its message on an emotional level which moves far beyond the questions of “right” and “wrong” regarding factual issues. As an interpreter, it is important to see the material presented to us in all of its richness and diversity. We experience “heart” even more than “head” here, empathizing with ancient people who, long ago, experienced God in so many dimensions.
Biblical “wisdom,” might be defined as skill in the art of godly living, or more fully, that orientation which allows one to live in harmonious accord with God’s ordering of the world. And “Wisdom Literature” consists of those writings that reflect on or inform that orientation.
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Job (God and Suffering)
In many cultures, the name and book of Job have become synonymous with suffering. Through the ages, many people have turned to this most enigmatic of Bible texts as they struggle with questions such as how a good God could allow people to suffer.
Good interpretation often tried to ‘locate’ the text in its appropriate time and place. Here is where the challenge of Job confronts us with many puzzling clues. While the central focus is the man, Job, it would appear he is not the author of the work. The throne room scene where God and Satan converse is unique (and perhaps troubling?) to our theological sensibilities. The location of “Uz” has been difficult to confirm. The habits of Job’s worship seems to place him in patriarchal times (prior to a tabernacle or Temple), but beyond having this “ancient feel”, there is very little to go on regarding its place or date of authorship.
The very fact that the book can be found in multiple locations even in the ordering of the books of the Hebrew Bible over against the Septuagint (which is what English Bibles follow), speaks of the uniqueness of the book, and its lack of identification with any other text for which we can provide a more firm dating.
Does this lack of specifics provide a clue that the book may not be historical? Many commentators think so. While this can be troubling to some, it may also allow us to free it from interpretations that strain to force it to conform to a preferred theology, and allow it to stand as an extended type of ancient “parable” which focuses far more on the universal subject of suffering in a world ruled by a good God.
We are in a different world, then, when we enter into this poetical book which provides the wisdom of how to handle “not knowing” rather than that of prideful human certainty.
Songs and Wisdom: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs
The Hebrew “Psalter” or songbook is a remarkable collection of the songs and poems of Israel. The time frame of the collection covers about eight centuries, almost the entire range of the Old Testament. Individual Psalms attribute their origin from Moses (see Psalm 90) through psalmists during the exile (see Psalm 137). Such attributions may indicate actual authorship, while others are attributed so as to honor kings or leaders of choirs or guilds, with the most attributions given to David the Shepherd King, at seventy-eight. Some interpreters see his reign as instrumental in collecting those that pre-dated him and in sponsoring the creation of new Psalms.
Similarly, the first audiences of the various psalms stretched over the same time period. In the centuries and millennia since the writing of the psalms, all generations down to the present (“a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by”—Psalm 90:4) have benefitted from this important portion of the Bible.
The themes of Psalms vary, as one would expect over the course of that time frame. The 150 (or 151, depending on how one counts them) have been categorized in various ways with a five-fold structure being the most prominent.
What the Psalms do provide for us, beyond the timeless record of call and response to the God of Israel, is many of the varieties of Hebrew poetry that existed through these same centuries. By honoring the genres found within this “wisdom/poetry” genre, we can find places where the song brings emphasis to the themes presented here.
Psalms present poetry not like that of the West, but rather, parallelisms (two-line and three-line), oppositional lines (one line negating the other), and other patterns which display a richness and depth to the great variety of expressions found here.
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