| Proverbs' Prologue (1:1-7) & Meta-wisdom | | Date Created: Jul 27, 2006, 09:13 AM |
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The first 9 chapters of Proverbs and especially the first 6 or 7 verses of chapter 1 are not relating wisdom teaching as much as they're relating wisdom about how and why to teach wisdom. It is this meta-wisdom quality about them as much as anything else that inclines me to see them as belonging to the later strata rather than the earlier. I think it's a later writer who (correctly) sees himself in line with Solomon's teaching and therefore in a good position to introduce it.
[Aside about strata and dates: According to the text of Scripture itself, there are at least 2 strata to the material in Proverbs: some of the material that is Solomonic (c950 BC) as 1:1 and 10:1 state, and some of the stuff that was gathered from Solomonic and other sources during the time of Hezekiah (see 25:1; over 2 centuries after Solomon c700 BC; Hezekiah is as far from Solomon as we are from Ben Franklin) including stuff from Agur and Lemuel (30:1; 31:1) about whom we know virtually nothing except for their names.]
The opening 7 verses form a statement about the main contents of the book, what it will do to you, who the target audiences are and, in verse 7, a statement of its overall theme. |
Prologue: Purpose and Theme
1 THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON the son of David, king of Israel:
2 • For attaining wisdom and discipline;
For understanding words of insight;
3 • For acquiring a disciplined and prudent life,
doing what is right and just and fair;
4 • For giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young —
5 • Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance —
6 • For understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. |
| [Aside re verse 7: Psalm 111:10 and Proverbs 9:10 say instead that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, rather than of knowledge. It amounts to the same thing, not because knowledge and wisdom are the same thing, but because in some ways knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. If knowledge is part A of Wisdom, then the beginning of part A is also the beginning of the whole.] |
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