Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 52:1 (NA 2001)
Article: The Strands Of Wisdom Tradition In Intertestamental Judaism: Origins, Developments And Characteristics
Author: Cornelis Bennema

TynBul 52:1 (2001) p. 61

The Strands Of Wisdom Tradition In Intertestamental Judaism:
Origins, Developments And Characteristics

Cornelis Bennema

Summary

The Jewish wisdom corpus tends to receive a different treatment from OT and NT scholars. Whereas OT scholars tend to shy away from any schematisation due to the complexity of the wisdom tradition, NT scholars do not always perceive sufficiently the distinctions within the wisdom material. This article will attempt to create a balance between these two positions. We will elucidate the intertestamental Jewish sapiential tradition, and identify four strands—the Torah-centred, the Spirit-centred, the Apocalyptic and the Qumranian wisdom tradition—which are rooted in the OT. Moreover, this article will show the origins, developments and main characteristics of these four strands of Jewish wisdom tradition.

I. Introduction

The objective of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the Jewish wisdom tradition in the intertestamental period (ITP) by introducing an elementary classification. Most OT scholars tend to shy away from any categorisation or developmental models of the vast array of Jewish wisdom literature. They often focus on the wisdom features in individual writings, and frequently assume a linear development of one single Jewish wisdom tradition.1 This kind of thinking may have led some other (NT) scholars to treat the collection

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of Jewish wisdom material too generally, without doing justice to or recognising sufficiently the various distinctions within it.2 Scott, for example, comments that ‘The Wisdom literature of Israel has always posed problems for biblical scholars, because of its consistent defiance of attempts at schematization or simple categorization.’3 Moreover, there seems to be no consensus amongst scholars on the number of wisdom traditions. On the one hand, for example, Van Imschoot argues that there were two strands of wisdom tradition—rational/practical wisdom and popular/prophetic wisdom—which merged after the exile with the result that Wisdom became identified with the Torah and the Spirit.4 On the other hand, Breck argues that in the ITP a bifurcation took place within the sapiential tradition: one tradition identified Wisdom with Torah, and another identified Wisdom and Spirit.5 Hence, our agenda is formulated by two groups of questions. First, is there only one Jewish wisdom tradition or are there more? Second, if ...