In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

146 SHOFAR Spring 1997 Vol. 15, No.3 date. Greenberg attempts to remedy this situation to some degree by adding notes to the end ofseveral pieces which refer to more recent studies. Some ofthese notes are fascinating in and of themselves, as they spell out what Greenberg considers some of the lasting achievements ofhis work. For instance, he adds to a 1956 article on the biblical text in the light of the then recent manuscript discoveries in the Judean desert a note that states, in part: "What remains ofvalue in the article is its presentation of 'pre-Qumran' sources, and its integration ofthe new textual data into the body of earlier knowledge. The article also sets out a classification ofthe data that can still serve as a primary orientation" (p. 208). While there are some essays that could be read with profit by a non-specialist, Greenberg has intentionally excluded from the book "educational and topical articles" (p. xv). Thus, the best audience is specialist readers, who can handle the book's various technical concepts and untranslated words and texts. Such readers will find the book a welcome one. David S. Williams Department ofReligion University of Georgia Early Israelite Wisdom, by Stuart Weeks. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1.994. 212 pp. $39.95. How can you know history? You can only imagine it. Anchored though you ~y be in fact and document, to write a history is to write a novel with checkpoints, for you must subject the real and absolute truth, too wide and varied for any but God to comprehend, to the idiosyncratic constraints ofyour own understanding. Mark Helprin, Memoirsfrom AntproofCase For many years certain assertions regarding the wisdom literature of the Bible (particularly the books ofProverbs, Job, Qoheleth [Ecclesiastes]) have been assumed as assured results ofscholarship. Weeks's volume seeks to undermine virtually all of them. In this enterprise the. author is part of a relatively new trend in biblical scholarship which might be called "minimalism," which affirms nothing that cannot be decisively verified by an overwhelming body of historical and textual evidence. Regarding most of these "assured results," Weeks' does not say that they cannot be true; merely that there is insufficient evidence to assume that they are. The following are the elements of the reconstructed wisdom tradition that have been foundational for most wisdom scholarship in the previous five decades: 1) The existence ofa sage class-that ancient Israel identified certain individuals as "the wise." They oversaw the education ofthe elite, the "princes" in the royal court. Book Reviews 147 They constituted the palace bureaucracy, overseeing the day-to-day operations ofthe government, both in domestic and foreign policy. They wrote the so-called wisdom books. 2) A "secular" approach characterized the wisdom angle ofvision. "Secular" does notmean non-religious or non-theistic, but rather an orientation towards what might be anachronistically called "natural theology." Wisdom comes not from revelation, but rather from careful observation ofnature and human society, and critical attention to the traditions of the previous sages. Wisdom literature lacks any concern for the traditions ofthe Exodus, the prophets, the Davidic dynasty, or the temple. 3) The wisdom ethos developed from a more secular to a less secular perspective; that is, earl~ wisdom (identified, for instance, with the short sayings in the book of Proverbs) primarily concerned itselfwith the events ofdaily life and courtly behavior, while late wisdom (the book of Job, for instance) dealt with the deeper meanings of human existence. 4) Wisdom, to a degree unique among'the writings ofthe Bible, depends upon non-Israelite sources, particularly the sapiential writings ofancient Egypt. 5) Wisdom bleeds into non-sapiential Israelite texts. So-called "wisdom influence" pervades the Joseph stories of Genesis, the book of Deuteronomy, the prophet Hosea, and many other biblical texts. Most of these assertions have been disputed previous to the writings of Stuart Weeks (see particularly the work of James Crenshaw), but few scholars have assembled, in a single collection, coherent arguments against virtually all ofthem, nor argued so strenuously. Where others find similarities (between the wisdom texts and other biblical texts; between Israelite wisdom texts and non-Israelite wisdom texts), Weeks sees the differences as more significant and ultimately...

pdf