Proverbs, supposedly the exemplar of Israelite wisdom, is, in fact, undervalued by many scholars, often held to be facilely optimistic and compared unfavourably with the, apparently, more radical Job and Qohelet. Traditionally, Proverbs was highly valued by Christians and Jews but – together with Israelite wisdom as a whole – it was marginalized by critical scholarship and has yet to share fully in the revival of interest in Israelite wisdom literature that began in the 1960s. The religious suppositions of German Protestant Old Testament scholars, who distrusted the supposed secularism and rationalism of Proverbs, led them to undervalue the book. This ‘traditional neglect’ (Murphy) continues, in spite of von Rad’s more positive account of the book, to dominate scholarly debate, although in recent years welcome signs of a more positive approach can be detected.