Ancient Wisdom Today » Roland E. Murphy

Qohelet the Skeptic?

Maer — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:14:30 +0000

In any discussion of Qohelet, one needs to quickly decide how the epilogue is to be understood because, in a way, this will inevitably drive the interpretation of the entire book. Because of the seemingly unorthodox character of Qohelet, many commentators have proposed the recognition of glosses that either contradict or soften his “unorthodoxy.” Murphy says that

the tendency today, however, is to recognize such a procedure [contradicting and sugar-coating glosses] as arbitrary; the “contradiction” may well lie in the interpreter’s understanding of the text, rather than with Qoheleth. Hence it seems better to take the book as all of one piece, despite the difficulties. This allows for tensions that would have existed within the author himself, and it attempts to explain the book as it stands (52).

Job The Steadfast

Maer — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:28:35 +0000

I am finding Roland to be a quite thought-provoking writer. This has been especially true of his chapter on Job. He says that “while the Book of Job can comfortably be classified within wisdom literature, it remains wisdom of an unusual kind. Scholars often speak of a crisis of wisdom in connection with Job and Ecclesiastes” (34). I think that sort of captures part of what makes the book of Job so fascinating. As Roland said, “the entire work is a sophisticated literary achievement” (35).

I especially liked his provocative discussion on the prologue, so I would like to focus this post on it. I had studied about the satan (adversary) before and it was apparent to me that our view of “Satan” today tends to influence our understanding of the way the satan figure is used in the OT. For one thing, it is not clear that the same being is in view every time the satan is mentioned. Quite intriguing is the role of the satan in the prologue of Job. It raises several questions to which I think most Christians tend to give simplistic answers. Roland says “from a perverse point of view, one might even say that Satan is concerned about God’s true glory and that God not be deceived by these humans whom Satan knows so well!” (36) This assertion sounds pretty awful (and I think that’s why he starts with “from a perverse point of view”), but when you consider that the role of the satan seems to be that of a prosecutor, the statement makes sense. Of course some people would react to the apparent idea that the satan knows human beings better than God, but I think this would miss the point. God is sovereign and knows all things, but the prologue wants to depict this fact in the form of a conversation between God and the satan from the point of view of the prosecution. When all is said and done, God is orchestrating the whole thing. As far as the Israelites were concerned, “there was a dark side, or underside, to God that was simply accepted” (36), see Deut. 32:39 and Isa. 45:7. And later on “[Job] stands by the biblical view that God is the cause of all things, evil as well as good” (37), see Amos 3:6 and Lam 3:38. The implications of God’s being the cause of all things really interests me and it is an area I want to do more thinking on.

The Wisdom of Words

Maer — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:26:18 +0000

In chapter 2 “Proverbs – The Wisdom of Words,” Roland talks about the nature of the book of Proverbs and that “the true subtlety of the book is seldom recognized in its popular usage. A moral code undergirds it, but the real intent is to train a person, to form character, to show what life is really like and how best to cope with it” (15). One of the main things that Proverbs tries to do is persuade the reader. He looks at the first division, chapters 1-9, and considers verses 1:1-6 its hermeneutical key. Verse 1:7 is the motto of the book (with parallels in 9:10 and 31:30) and he quotes von Rad who said that this verse “contains in a nutshell the whole Israelite theory of knowledge” (16). I thought this was a very insightful way of understanding verse 7. I heard N. T. Wright once talk about being intrigued by the idea of love as a way of knowing. Here von Rad says that the fear of Yahweh is Israel’s epistemological center. I wonder how far we can take that idea.

The Tree of Life: Biblical Wisdom Literature

Maer — Sun, 18 May 2008 12:51:45 +0000

The Tree of Life: An Examination of Biblical Wisdom Literature was written by Roland Murphy and seems to be highly recommended (with your usual caveats) as an introduction to wisdom literature. Part of the reason I wanted to read this book was because Murphy also covers Ben Sira and Wisdom of Solomon, and I wanted to sink my teeth into these books (I plan to read them when I get to chapters 5 and 6).

People have said that Murphy’s take on Wisdom was very much influenced by von Rad and that it might be a good idea to read him first (I don’t know if this is really accurate). Well, I am not going to do that because I plan to read von Rad’s two volumes of his Old Testament theology (which I already own) and interact with him in the near future. Right now, I would like to see what Murphy has to say about wisdom literature and try to summarize his thoughts. I will probably concentrate on things that caught my attention and helped me think a little more clearly about this subject. This is not going to be a thorough review or a summary, but it might contain a little of both. I might comment on his arguments where necessary or read a separate article in his bibliography to supplement my reading. I will probably cover a couple of chapters at a time, but it will depend on the depth of the chapters in view. Here I will cover his first chapter.