Books of Wisdom Literature

The principles are for continual growth and elevation for Christians. The instructions in The Bible are not only for guidance is a comforting and strengthening agent. Given this statistic, this could be an additional reason why God created mankind in His image to take part in on other wonderful helpful contributions. Highlighting the difference between a secular worldview and a biblical worldview, the incorporation of belief and doctrine, theories of vocation and efforts for living righteously is proven to be an influential lifesaving

Wisdom is the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement; the quality of being wise. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, there is one character who shows a tremendous amount of wisdom. Atticus shows his wisdom throughout the story by teaching Scout how to be young wise girl and teaching her how to read and write. Shows Jem how to be wise and knowledgeable , and shows it in the defending of Tom Robinson.

First let us look at what the Old Testament has to say about wisdom. The book of Job says that wisdom can not be found on land or in the sea. It can

"You must make good out of the situation and lifestyle that you are in by following God's Instructions, Commandments, and Suggestions, along with His Word and Spirit, so that your good light of love shines to help others and know God." ~ Jon Barnes

Proverbs simply compiles numerous short instructions for living an effective life on earth. The writers of the Book of Proverbs recognised the varied circumstances of a person’s life and provided principles to apply in a variety of situations rather than instructions to follow in only a few specific instances. The Book of Proverbs consists of like short quotes that are like values for Jewish people. The main purpose of Proverb is to define what it means to be fully devoted to God’s will. This leads a ‘holy life’ because Proverbs promotes Gods law as something that is part of life and is a duty to all human beings. “If I am not for me, who is for me; and if I am (only) for myself, what am I. And if not now, when?” – Hillel, Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14. This basically means that people were created for a specific purpose and that purpose is to follow Gods commands and to live a Holy life by following the sacred

A proverb (Hebrew marshal) is a short poetic sentence conveying wisdom in a concise and memorable form. (p.259) Solomon the writer of proverbs, was told by God” he could ask for anything he wanted and God would give it to him. Solomon asked for wisdom to lead the people, so they would know the difference between right and wrong.”(1Kings 3:5-9 paraphrased) According to Hindson and Yates “Hebrew wisdom literature taught people not only how to make good choice s in life but how to make godly choices.” (p.259) Proverbs shows many parallels and contrasts, usually in a two sentence form. In this essay we will look at the teachings of Hebrew wisdom on diligence and laziness, and how it corresponds with the contrast between wisdom and folly.

Live in your unique abilities to learn, love, grow and share God's grace and mercy with others to complete your God given assignments. Do not give up on doing all the good you are to accomplish in your work and charity. Your life's story should paint that picture of your face, not my face.

Proverbs 2:6-8, "It is the Lord who gives wisdom; from him come knowledge and understanding. He provides help and protection for righteous, honest men. He protects those who treat others fairly, and guards those who are devoted to him."

Ben Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanack" offers many clever aphorisms. The best advice it offers, however, is, “God helps them that help themselves”. This advice may have been unexpected in a largely Puritan and Christian society but really applies itself to the Age of Reason. With earlier Puritans, the general trend was to place one's trust into God and expect him to handle affairs; if anything went wrong, it was the Puritan’s fault for being a bad person. However, being a more modern thinker, Franklin takes this mentality of the Puritans and encourages people to take more responsibility for their actions and the impacts they have on their future.

In Ecclesiastes: we have Solomon's (generally agreed upon to be the author) analysis of life. It seems cynical, but overall the message of the book is hope in God. In Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 we get Solomon's basic lesson to those who are seeking a full and abundant life “ Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing,Whether good or evil.”

Live life; “Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live”. (pg 53) This is such a powerful thought because the one limiting factor in our lives is fear. We have fear every day, fear of disappointing others, fear of

Ecclesiastes means “the preacher”, “the teacher”, or “assembler.” While the author is not identified by name he does identify himself as “the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem”(1:1); “I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.”(1:12) It is a widely held belief that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes as well as other wisdom literature in the bible. Scholars assume it was written during the reign of King Solomon a little before Solomons death from 970-935 BC.

The last chapter in Ecclesiastes 12 concludes, “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Similarly Proverbs 1 begins with this admonition “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Italicized mine) These two certainties are bookends or sorts, serving as a contrast between each of the books perspectives on how life actually happens under the sun. Ecclesiastes can serve as a rebuttal to the elements of retribution theology presented in Proverbs and also exploits the acquisition of wisdom as penultimate and fearing Yahweh,

Ecclesiastes is derived from the Greek word ekklesia meaning assembly. The author is someone called “Qoheleth” which means one who gathers, and is referenced five times throughout the book (Eccl. 1:1, 2, 12; 7:27; 12:8). It is not known if this is the author’s name or a title but the English translation of the word is “teacher” or “preacher”. The first verse of chapter one states: “The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king of Jerusalem” (Ecclesiastes 1:1), which would obviously indicate that the author is David’s son Solomon, king of the united monarchy. However there is some doubt of authorship raised due to various evidence, such as the language used in Ecclesiastes as compared to Solomon’s other writing, that support an unknown author,

Wisdom Tradition is a term applied to the Old Testament books of Proverbs, Job, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. Wisdom Tradition books all share characteristics and points of view that are somewhat different than other biblical books. Wisdom tradition has very prominent characteristics from other books in the Old Testament such as a search for the goal of life, how to master it and questioning the problems of life, showing interest to human experiences that affect all people, joy of creativity and creation, and very little interest in the great acts of divine salvation. These qualities appear in a few books in the Old Testament. All of them show wisdom, but only some show both wisdom and tradition. Books such as Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes values the beauty of creation and the confidence of human life and nature. This was a new concept to Israel. They learned about wisdom tradition through other nations. They were influenced from Mesopotamian literature and took their ideas of meditations of sufferings and God’s justice into their Old Testament Books. Suffering can be seen in Job, but in the next essay and upcoming classes, we will be relating this to women suffering. The wisdom perspectives did not replace the other two major strands of thought in Ancient Israel, that of prophets and priests. It was simply a different focus that was complementary with the other perspectives presented in the Bible.