Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

interpret and allude to specific passages; they sometimes use scriptural

patterns but also emulate or rework specific biblical sections, such as

Psalm 18 in 1QHaXI and in thePrayer of the Man of GodinNoncanonical

Psalms B(4Q381).

Understanding All There Is: Sapiential Texts

The term “wisdom literature” is used in a general way for those texts that

have several, but not necessarily all, of the following characteristics: in-

structional or admonitory style; practical, proverbial, or didactic advice;

intellectual reflection on the order of creation, human nature, and society;

a concern with the meaning of human life and fate after death; and overtly

sapiential terminology. The most substantial wisdom texts in the corpus

are three very different works, 4QInstruction, theBook of Mysteries,and

Beatitudes.4QInstruction combines practical advice on many different

matters of life with descriptions of eschatological judgment. The work

contains discourses on the predestined order of creation and the nature of

human beings. It is based in part on exegesis of Genesis and displays an in-

terest in the angelic world. The multiple levels of discourse in the text and

the different topics and addressees suggest that the composition may have

been a handbook for a specific group of religious teachers, who in their

turn had to instruct others.

TheBook of Mysteriescomprises many diverse materials, ranging from

depiction of the eschatological judgment based on interpretations of the

prophets, proverbial riddles, taunts of opponents, legal discussion of Tem-

ple issues, to a Hekhalot-like hymn in 4Q301.Beatitudes(andWiles of the

Wicked Woman) can be characterized as an eschatologizing rewriting of

Proverbs 1–9 and is more homogeneous than the other sapiential works.

4QInstruction, and to some extent alsoMysteries,attest to a transfor-

mation of older wisdom traditions. These works appropriate originally

non-Jewish scientific concepts (such as the horoscope and Platonic ideas

about the spirit) and expand the topic of wisdom to include not only

earthly but transcendent realities. The acquisition of insight depends

both on the pursuit of truth (including the exegesis of Scripture) and on

divine enlightenment, which allows one to have insight into transcendent

secrets. One may refer to this phenomenon as the apocalypticizing of wis-

dom. A less speculative concern with transcendent realities, but nonethe-

less a concern with divine judgment, is also found in wisdom texts such as

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EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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