Wisdom in Israel

by Gerhard von Rad

Publisher:

SCM Press

, 1972

Overview

In his last major work, Gerhard von Rad asserts that the Hebrew conception of wisdom involved an “encounter with the world as the creation of God.” Arguing that the wisdom teachers radically reinterpreted earlier creedal formulations, von Rad demonstrates that Hebrew wisdom was fundamentally different from both the teachings of the Pentateuch and the prophetic movement. Basing his study on a wide range of literary materials such as the books of Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Wisdom of Ben Sirach, von Rad provides a foundational text for understanding the ancient Hebrews’ conception of wisdom.

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Key Features

• Focuses on the combination of human experience and divine knowledge as the basis for wisdom
• Argues that Israel’s wisdom authors departed drastically from the nation’s historians and prophets
• Shows the influence of the wisdom tradition Israel’s culture and religion

Contents

• Introduction
  • The Problem
  • Centres and Transmitters of the Didactic Tradition
  • The Forms in which Knowledge is Expressed
• The Liberation of Reason and the Resultant Problems
  • Knowledge and the Fear of God
  • The Significance of Orders for Correct Social Behavior
  • Limits of Wisdom
• Individual Subjects of Instruction
  • The Essentials for Coping with Reality
  • The Doctrine of the Proper Time
  • The Self-Revelation of Creation
  • The Polemic Against Idols
  • Wisdom and Cult
  • Trust and Attack
  • The Wisdom of Jesus Sirach
  • The Divine Determination of Times

Top Highlights

“Rather, there is, in his case, a lack of ability or readiness to accommodate himself to the orders, the knowledge of which the wise men taught. The fool is the undisciplined man, who does not control his passions (Prov. 29:11), the presumptuous man. Folly is a lack of order in a man’s innermost being, a lack which defies all instruction; often, indeed, folly is regarded as something which cannot be corrected (e.g. Prov. 27:22).” (Pages 64–65)

“We hold fast to the fact that in the case of the wise men’s search for knowledge, even when they expressed their results in a completely secular form, there was never any question of what we would call absolute knowledge functioning independently of their faith in Yahweh. This is inconceivable for the very reason that the teachers were completely unaware of any reality not controlled by Yahweh.” (Page 64)

“The thesis that all human knowledge comes back to the question about commitment to God is a statement of penetrating perspicacity.” (Page 67)

“The teachers vacillated between two possibilities of expression: one adhered quite objectively to the causality of events, while the other was credal and spoke of Yahweh’s direct dealings with men. These two types of expressions ran parallel to one another, so to speak.” (Page 105)

“The question is therefore justified whether the attractive code-name ‘wisdom’ is nowadays not more of a hindrance than a help, in so far as it disguises what stands behind it rather than depicts it properly.” (Page 8)

Praise for the Print Edition

Highly recommended both to biblical and non-biblical scholars and students.

—R.E. Clements, The Expository Times

A must for every minister and man who feels himself caught in a secular and apparently materialistic society.

—G. Henton Davies, The Baptist Times

Product Details

• Title: Wisdom in Israel
• Author: Gerhard von Rad
• Publisher: SCM Press
• Print Publication Date: 1972
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Pages: 344
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Wisdom literature › Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Resource ID: LLS:SCMWISDOMINISRAEL
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-08-29T20:19:45Z

About Gerhard von Rad

Gerhard von Rad (1901–1971) was a prominent German Old Testament scholar. In the years following the two World Wars, von Rad focused on Old Testament studies in response to anti-Semitic tendencies in German academia. He is noted for pioneering the tradition-historical method of biblical studies. He taught at the University of Jena, University of Gottingen, and Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg.

Sample Pages from Wisdom in Israel