ABSTRACT

This volume examines biblical wisdom literature both in its historical context and as it relates to a host of contemporary themes, including overcoming social divisions, reading from a place of inclusion, healing from trauma, and challenging religious attitudes toward climate change and animals.

This volume delivers fresh insights on biblical wisdom texts, exploring ways in which wisdom literature speaks perennially to the human condition despite the differences in societies then and now. Employing both biblical studies and theological approaches, the diverse group of authors in this collection examine biblical wisdom literature from a variety of perspectives and methodologies to illuminate the relevance of wisdom for ancient audiences such as exiles, scribes, and leaders, as well as for contemporary audiences concerned with challenges such as climate change, social division, and healing from trauma. Its eleven chapters utilize an accessible style that brings erudite scholarship on biblical wisdom to a broader audience.

Biblical Wisdom, Then and Now will be an invaluable resource for undergraduates, graduates, and specialists in biblical studies, as well as the more general reader with an interest in biblical literature and its reception.

chapter |19 pages

Introduction and case study

Wisdom for challenging times: Ecclesiastes, Job, and a vote for compassionate theology

part I|42 pages

Biblical wisdom then

chapter 1|13 pages

Wisdom for the exiled

An intertextual approach

chapter 2|12 pages

Wisdom for the scribe

Ritual and the life of the scribe in Sirach

chapter 3|15 pages

Wisdom for the king

Wisdom for rulers throughout history

part II|104 pages

Biblical wisdom now

chapter 4|18 pages

Wisdom for those in the image of God

An eco-theological reading of human and serpentine knowledge in Genesis 1–3

chapter 5|16 pages

Wisdom for evangelical Christians

Reading the Bible wisely in relation to climate change

chapter 6|15 pages

Wisdom for animals and the cosmos

The Psalms and “anthropocentric religion”

chapter 7|15 pages

Wisdom for the silenced

Reading Psalm 32 as cautionary counsel in response to 2 Samuel 13–19

chapter 8|9 pages

Wisdom for all

Reading the liberating “I” of the psalms

chapter 9|14 pages

Wisdom for the imagination

Hammering heaven in William Blake$s illuminated books

chapter 10|15 pages

Wisdom for haters

Wisdom as an antidote for othering