ABSTRACT
This chapter combines an understanding of wisdom as the Law with the second theological meaning of the word: wisdom as the principle of the divine work of creation. Unlike amphictyony and myth, however, the noun 'wisdom' is a thoroughly biblical word. It is taken for granted throughout the Old Testament that wisdom, like all human virtues, is a divine gift. This implied, for the Israelites, that Yahweh, the sole giver of wisdom, himself possessed wisdom in a pre-eminent degree. That God is the source of wisdom does not in itself, however, make 'wisdom' a theological term. The truest wisdom is that of the person who continues to grow in wisdom throughout his life. The emphasis on the native roots of Israelite 'wisdom' is a welcome reaction against the tendency of recent years to regard it as mainly foreign in origin.
