Jutta Krispenz, ed. Scribes as Sages and Prophets: Scribal Traditions in Biblical Wisdom Literature and in the Book of the Twelve

Abstract

The contributions in the present volume reopen the fascinating question of the relationship between the biblical “wisdom” and “prophetic literature,”1 and here the Book of the Twelve. Most of the chapters are influenced by the paradigm change wrought in the works of David Carr and Karel van der Toorn, a fact that grants the volume a fresh perspective and involves several changes at once. First and fundamentally, Carr and van der Toorn have reconstrued the nature of ancient Israel’s scribal culture. Previous scholarship had frequently placed a kind of division, if not antagonism, between Israel’s sages and prophets and read that antagonism into the associated literature; however, according to Carr and van der Toorn, both genres need to be situated within scribal culture. Israel’s scribes constituted a kind of literati through whom the whole HB, with its variegated traditions, was cultivated and transmitted. Under this analysis, the picture of a strictly delineated “wisdom” and “prophetic tradition” with associated and socially buffered personnel is a deep distortion of the historical reality.This shift makes its presence felt throughout the volume and forms its distinctive edge. Rainer Kessler examines conceptions of social justice within wisdom and in Amos (p. 68) and argues for a shared understanding such that both can be seen within and against the same social dynamics. Thus too, Jutta Krispenz attends to ways that Hosea bears scribal markings of prophecy (Hos 1:1) and wisdom (Hos 14:10) and points to intertextual links to understood them within scribal culture (p. 94). And Bernd Schipper explores the relationship between torah and wisdom within Proverbs and within key prophetic texts, showing how each carries forward a similar dialogue between wisdom and torah, witnessing to their shared scribal context (p. 191). Finally, Aaron Schart presents a helpful harmonizing voice. Placing Proverbs and Malachi in conversation, he attends to similarity and difference in a disciplined way (p. 119), suggestive of the fact that the unified cultural field of the scribes does not destroy the continued usefulness of the distinct categories, “wisdom” and “prophecy.”Second, most of the authors eschew the fraught language “wisdom influence.” Such language is misleading since it assumes a separation, whereas in the proposed historical picture a knowledge of sapiential and prophetic material is simply the expected product of a robust scribal education. Mark Sneed’s chapter on the use of massaʾ in Prov 31 illustrates the shift well. Instead of “influence,” Sneed wants to describe the “confluence” of sapiential and prophetic material (p. 17). He asks probing questions, “What limits or constrains the content of any oracle?” Particularly, “Can there not be oracles with sapiential content?” (p. 21). Thus, he seeks to describe revealed wisdom as a significant feature in Proverbs and as no outlier within ancient scribal culture. Other writers make like contributions. Tova Forti describes the “deed-consequence nexus” as it relates to the seemingly contradictory notion of divine retribution. Examining Amos, Jeremiah, Qohelet, and Proverbs, she finds conceptions of deed-and- consequence and of retribution which, in each case, form an “integrated outlook” (p. 142). Annete Schellenberg explores conceptions of revelation and epistemology and helpfully challenges the over-simple association of empirical epistemology with wisdom and of supernatural revelation with the prophets showing that both genres employ both types of epistemology (pp. 161–66).A third shift appears in Helmut Utzschneider’s work chronicling the ways that orality and writing have been construed relative to the prophets. Whereas much previous scholarship has seen oral speech and writing as separable phases in a historical sequence, Utzschneider builds on the work of the “new orality school” to picture scribal work arising from, embedded within, and performed for a broader oral culture. To illustrate, he offers up a study of Joel 1–2 in which he highlights the dramatic and performative intention of the text.Finally, with the restrictive frame of “wisdom influence” set aside, fresh questions open up regarding prophecy in the late wisdom literature of Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon, and 4QInstruction. Frank Ueberschaer shows how Ben Sira sets the prophets within a wisdom frame, employing them to augment his own authority. Martina Kepper explores prophetic allusions within Wisdom, describing how Isaiah’s theology aids the late writer in remodeling the tradition. Finally, Stefan Beyerle tests the thesis that apocalypticism is an outgrowth of wisdom and finds a confluence of shared traditions in 4QInstruction and Enochic apocalypticism.The above four paradigm shifts appear throughout the volume as an undercurrent, not in the schematic way of my own summary. Still, together they represent what I think to be the important contributions of this volume. The construal of scribal culture found here will continue to be adjudicated, even as Sneed admits, “the final verdict is not out yet” (p. 16). But the present volume has successfully displayed some key implications for the literature.One criticism can be mentioned. It is striking how predictably the matter of wisdom in the prophets continues to prompt a discussion of Sitz im Leben, here recalibrated to fit current theories. However commendable the sociological revisions might be, there continues to be a neglect of the literary question. Namely, what effect do these wisdom features, such as they are, have on our reading of the final form of the books? Utzschneider has approached the question with the performative dynamics of prophetic literature, but he does not ask about the literary purposes of wisdom specifically. Thomas Krüger’s work (not yet mentioned) offers another helpful exception, since he asks how the genres of prophecy and wisdom and lament bear upon the theodicy question in Habakkuk, highlighting their function for author and reader (p. 100). But the question remains in need of fuller treatment, especially considering the conceptual shifts described in this volume.