24_Wisdom Literature; Conclusions

This lecture surveys a body of writing that modern scholars describe as wisdom literature. The Hebrew Bible provides some examples, including the Books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. These texts, and parallel texts from Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Hittite kingdoms, grapple with humanity’s oldest and deepest questions. Throughout this course, we have encountered these questions, which are often addressed in narrative form. Although the narratives embedded in myth address many of the same questions about the conduct and meaning of life, they do not do so directly. Their power, rather, is in their subtlety and indirection. Wisdom literature attempts to provide answers for ultimate questions in a more direct fashion. We will study two short collections of “instruction” or advice, one from Egypt and one from Mesopotamia. We then move to the question of suffering, particularly to the issue of why the good suffer and what our response to suffering should be.