Full Description
This volume examines biblical wisdom literature both in its historical context and as it relates to a host of contemporary themes, including overcoming social divisions, reading from a place of inclusion, healing from trauma, and challenging religious attitudes toward climate change and animals.
This volume delivers fresh insights on biblical wisdom texts, exploring ways in which wisdom literature speaks perennially to the human condition despite the differences in societies then and now. Employing both biblical studies and theological approaches, the diverse group of authors in this collection examine biblical wisdom literature from a variety of perspectives and methodologies to illuminate the relevance of wisdom for ancient audiences such as exiles, scribes, and leaders, as well as for contemporary audiences concerned with challenges such as climate change, social division, and healing from trauma. Its eleven chapters utilize an accessible style that brings erudite scholarship on biblical wisdom to a broader audience.
Biblical Wisdom, Then and Now will be an invaluable resource for undergraduates, graduates, and specialists in biblical studies, as well as the more general reader with an interest in biblical literature and its reception.
Contents
List of contributors; Abbreviations; Foreword by Alan J. Hauser; Preface by Frances Flannery; Introduction and Case Study, "Wisdom for Challenging Times: Ecclesiastes, Job, and a Vote for Compassionate Theology", Nicolae Roddy and Frances Flannery; PART ONE. The Wisdom Tradition Then; Chapter 1, Wisdom for the Exiled: An Intertextual Approach, Katharine J. Dell; Chapter 2, Wisdom for the Scribe: Ritual and the Life of the Scribe in Sirach, Rodney A. Werline; Chapter 3, Wisdom for the King: Wisdom for Rulers through History, Lowell K. Handy; PART TWO. The Wisdom Tradition Now; Chapter 4, Wisdom for Those in the Image of God: An Eco-Theological Reading of Human and Serpentine Knowledge in Genesis 1-3, Frances Flannery; Chapter 5, Wisdom for Evangelical Christians: Reading the Bible Wisely in Relation to Climate Change, Chris VanLandingham; Chapter 6, Wisdom for the Animals and the Cosmos: The Psalms and Anthropocentric Religion, Iain Provan; Chapter 7, Wisdom for the Silenced: Reading Psalm 32 as Cautionary Counsel in Response to 2 Samuel 13-19, Charles A. Packer; Chapter 8, Wisdom for All: Reading the Liberating "I" of the Psalms, Beth LaNeel Tanner; Chapter 9, Wisdom for the Imagination: Hammering Heaven in William Blake's Illuminated Books, Rachel Wagner; Chapter 10, Wisdom for Haters: Biblical Wisdom as an Antidote to Othering, Nicolae Roddy; Index
