Proverbial poetry: its settings and syntax
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with useful bibliography. Vid. David B. Weisberg, Guild Structure and Political Allegiance in Early Achaemenid Mesopotamia, Yale Near Eastern Researches 1 (New Haven: Yale University, 1967); Mark Wischnitzer, "Notes to a History of Jewish Guilds," HUCA 23.2 (1950-51):245-63; I. Mendelsohn, "Guilds in Ancient Palestine," BASOR 80 (1940):17-21; and also his "Guilds in Babylonia and Assyria," JAOS 60 (1940):68-72. 1Nel, "The Concept 'Father' in the Wisdom Literature of the Ancient Near East," p. 66. 2Gordon, Sumerian Proverbs, p. 301; cf. also Nel, "The Concept 'Father' in the Wisdom Literature of the Ancient Near East," p. 57; and Khanjian, "Wisdom in Ugarit," p. 45. Egyptian wisdom.1 "The Instruction of Ani," also gives reference to a "mother" where the young man is tenderly encouraged to take care of his mother, besides being admonished not to supervise an efficient wife too closely or to pursue the woman from abroad.2 The importance of the mother of the king, while often genetic, is seen both in the Assyrian sources (Nakiya, Sennacherib's wife and Esarhaddon's mother, who received official correspondence from state officials concerning sacrifices and military operations) and in the Amarna letters, where a mother is addressed directly as a person of political authority and understanding.3 Biblical examples may be illustrated by Jezebel and Athaliah. Proverbs reflects the counseling role of the mother of the king (Prov 31:1). In Israel, De Boer has shown the midrashic technical use of the term "mother" in reference to the Law. Earlier traces of this technical use may be seen in the title given by the wise woman to the town of Abel as "a mother in Israel" (2 Sam 20:19). It is interesting to note that the title "mother" given to Deborah, may ____________________
and Pritchard, ANET, pp. 432-34. Note that boy's parents rejoice when he has mastered the scribal art. This again suggests a strong familial support of the school system. 2Pritchard, ANET, pp. 420-21; cf. Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom, p. 33. 3De Boer, "Counsellor," pp. 64-65. possibly have tituler overtones (Judg 5:7).1 Most recent writers on wisdom, while acknowledging the possibility of the technical use of "mother," suggest that the references in Proverbs are not merely stylistic but do, in fact, refer to a familial setting.2 Whybray observes that the use of "mother" as a teacher in Proverbs (1:8; 6:20; 31:1, 26) was "unique in ancient Near Eastern literature."3 The proverbial job description of the wife of noble character depicts her as an instructor whose mouth speaks wisdom (Prov 31:26). The inclusion of intimate family matters into wisdom (Cant; Prov 5:15-18), the encomium about the prudent wife (Prov 18:22; 19:14), and the baleful and repeated laments over the quarrelsome wife (Prov 21:9, 19; 27:15) stresses the familial matrix of Proverbs.4
"son," characteristic of wisdom addresses in Israel, Egypt ____________________
Kovacs, "Sociological-Structural Constraints," p. 250; and Murphy, Wisdom Literature, p. 7. 3Whybray, The Intellectual Tradition, p. 41. 4Gordis, "The Social Background of Wisdom Literature," pp. 111-12. and Mesopotamia, often denotes a "student."1 In Egypt, Williams notes that the advanced age of Ptahhotep and the story of Djedi's advice to Prince Hardjedef (where Djedi is said to be 110 years old) strongly suggest that they are addressing their students, rather than physical sons.2 The apprentice relationship is made explicit in "Papyrus Lansing: A Schoolbook."3 Others have taken the term "son" to refer to an adopted relationship between the student and teacher. It is clear both in Egyptian and Israelite wisdom sources that grown men are being addressed--often ones with the responsibility of ruling about to be placed upon their shoulders. While the technical use of "son" is inferred in numerous pieces of Egyptian wisdom, the familial use of the term is seen in the historical ____________________ 1Bullock, An Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic Books, p. 75. 2Williams, "Scribal Training in Ancient Egypt," p. 215. One wonders however, about the ages of the sons. Judging from the advice given, the sons would have reached manhood already. Moreover, the age of child bearing, as indicated in the ages of Abraham and Isaac, would suggest that age alone is not a conclusive argument. 3Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:168. Here the apprentice is told by the sage to "Love writing, and shun dancing; then you become a worthy official." The student later responds in thanks to his teacher's wise instruction: "You beat my back; your teaching entered my ear. . . . Sleep does not enter my heart by day; nor is it upon me at night. (For I say): I will serve my lord just as a slave serves his master" (p. 172). Cf. also Kovacs, "Sociological-Structural Constraints," pp. 250-51; and Hellmut Brunner, Altagyptische Erziehung (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1957), pp. 1-55.
Instruction of King Amen-em-het" is addressed to a son, warning him in an intimate fashion about the dangers of the palace. "The Instructions of Ani" advises his son on marriage, the proper care of his mother, and other familial topics.1 In Mesopotamia, the situation is quite the same, with the addition of the guild structure. Kitchen, surveying the use of "my son" in Mesopotamia, notes its use as a structural divider in the prologues of the Old-Sumerian Suruppak.2 In the Sumerian edubba, "son" was the title given to a student.3 Mendelsohn has shown the extensive use of "son" terminology in the guild setting, both in Mesopotamia and in Israel.4 MacRae finds traces ____________________
218-19. The historical setting of "The Instruction of 'Onchsheshonqy" has been discussed above. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian
Near East," p. 81. He gives a very handy survey of the ancient sources. Also see Alster, The Instructions of
al.); and Kramer, "Sumerian Wisdom Literature: A Preliminary Study," p. 30.
Terminology," p. 124; and Gadd, Teachers and Students in the Oldest Schools, p. 15. 4Mendelsohn, "Guilds in Babylonia and Assyria," p. 69; and "Guilds in Ancient Palestine," p. 18; cf. use of the term "sons of the prophets." Lambert notes this usage particularly in the Cassite period (Lambert, BWL, p. 13). of this phenomena in the personal names at Nuzi.1 The calling of students "sons" also occurs at Ugarit.2 These technical usages are found in Israel too (2 Kgs 2:3, 5, 15 ["sons" of the prophets]; Neh 3:8, 31; 1 Chr 4:14 [possibly guild sons].3 Several times the term "son of the King" does not refer to his actual, son, but is a type of cognomen for an official (1 Kgs 22:26-27 [2 Chr 18:25-26]; Jer 36:26; 38:6).4 Thus, it must be recognized that the familial vocabulary may reflect a school or technical sense; yet, such terminology, when accompanied by explicit familial statements, demonstrates that one should not neglect the family as a wisdom matrix. The tender admonitions of Proverbs 4:1-5 and the frequent reference to family members (wives, parents, brothers [Prov 17:2, 17; 18:9, 19; 19:7]) all indicate that, though such materials may be utilized in the school, their direction and reflective ____________________ 1I. Gelb, P. M. Purves and A. MacRae, Nuzi Personal Names, pp. 282-83. Here MacRae notes Akkadian fathers of non-Akkadian named "sons." Thus actual parentage is doubtful.
18; Halvorsen, "Scribes and Scribal Schools," pp. 54, 81, 144; cf. also Murphy, "Form Criticism and Wisdom Literature," p. 481.
4Humphrey, "The Motif of the Wise Courtier in the Old Testament," p. 94; and De Vaux, Ancient Israel, 1:119. nature draw on and point to their domestic orientation.1 Popular and Folk Wisdom A complementary original setting which has been suggested more recently has been to reckon the thematically royal proverbs to a court setting and to allow for the more domestic proverbs to have originated in a pre-monarchial clan setting. Morgan portrays "popular wisdom" as that "which reflects a popular ethos in some way detached from (or unaffected by) the monarchy and the more complex forms and more theological (religious?) concerns." Popular wisdom is usually detected by its form. As far back as Eissfeldt's work in 1913, one-line proverbs (Gen 10:9; 1 Sam 19:24; 2 Sam 5:8; 1 Kgs 20:11; Ezek 12:22; 16:44; 18:2; Hos 8:7; Amos 6:12; Isa 5:19), parables (2 Sam 12:1-4), riddles (Judg 14:14-18) and fables (2 Kgs 14:9; Judg 9:8-15) were identified as folk/popular/clan wisdom. Examples of popular wisdom are also found in Proverbs (Prov 10:6, 11, 15; 11:2, 22, 27; 13:3; 14:4, 23; 18:11, 14; 20:19). All of these forms were developed and utilized in pre-monarchial Israel and were originally viewed as being more simple in form than ____________________ 1Roland E. Murphy, "The Kerygma of the Book of Proverbs," Int 20 (January 1966):4; also his Introduction to the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament, p. 12; and Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom, p. 33. the later, more artistic, wisdom forms.1 Those who emphasize "popular wisdom" often see an evolution from a simple, one-line form to a more artistic wisdom sentence (Kunstsprichwort--artistic saying).2 Folk wisdom has been characterized as: (1) originating among the folk, often with a long history of transmission; (2) anonymous; (3) brief; (4) paradigmatic; (5) more "secular"; and (6) non-didactic (e.g., Ezek 18:2; Jer 31:29). Fontaine summarizes Eissfeldt's categorization into four types: (1) sayings called mashalim by the text (1 Sam 10:12; 24:13 [MT 24:14]; Ezek 12:22); (2) sayings preceded by "and therefore they say" (Gen 10:9; 2 Sam 5:8; 20:18; Ezek 9:9); (3) texts which have a proverbial ring to them (Gen 16:12; Judg 8:2, 21; 1 Sam 16:7); and (4) folk proverbs (Volkssprichwort; Prov 10:6, 9, 15; 11:2).3 Scott notes ____________________ 1Morgan, Wisdom in the Old Testament Traditions, pp. 31, 32-39; and Otto Eissfeldt, Der Maschal im Alten Testament, BZAW 24 (Giessen: Verlag von Alfred Topelmann, 1913). Also vid. Carole R. Fontaine's fine work: Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament: A Contextual Study. 2Ernst Sellin and Georg Fohrer, Introduction to the Old Testament, trans. David E. Green (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1968), p. 311. For a chart, vid. Eissfeldt, Der Maschal im Alten Testament, p. 43; or Fontaine, "The Use of the Traditional Saying in the Old Testament," p. 6. Priest correctly questions the neat distinction between popular and aristocratic wisdom (Priest, "Where is Wisdom to be Placed?" p. 282).
Saying in the Old Testament," p. 8) summary of Eissfeldt, the predominance of a moralizing element in folk proverbs, as compared with the more observational character of literary proverbs.1 E. Gerstenberger suggests a tribe, rather than a court, as the setting for wisdom. Richter traces the apodictic and wisdom sayings to a family or clan setting. These studies have pushed wisdom back prior to the court setting to a clan/tribal origin (Sippenethos).2 Crenshaw correctly summarizes the situation when he writes: "Israel's sapiential tradition seems to have arisen during the period of the clan, flourishing subsequently at the royal court and in houses of learning."3 Nel also traces ____________________
points out the contrast between Volksspruch (folk saying) and the Kunstspruch (artistic saying) (Roland E. Murphy, "The Interpretation of Old Testament Wisdom Literature," Int 23 [1969]:300). Morgan gives an extensive listing of popular proverbs in Wisdom in the Old Testament Traditions, pp. 34-35. 1R. B. Y. Scott, "Folk Proverbs of the Ancient Near East," in SAIW, p. 418. Scott collects the types of proverbs into seven, deep-structure, semantic categories. He gives excellent and numerous examples of each type (pp. 49-55). Cf. also Fontaine, "The Use of the Traditional Saying in the Old Testament," p. 317.
Context of the Wisdom Admonitions," p. 35; Khanjian, "Wisdom in Ugarit," p. 2; Emerton, "Wisdom," p. 223; Jensen, The Use of tora by Isaiah, p. 60; Kovacs, "Is There a Class-Ethic in Proverbs?" p. 173; and J. L. McKenzie, "Reflections on Wisdom," JBL (1967):8. 3Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom, pp. 57, 78; and the original setting back to the family educational system in the pre-Mosaic period.1 Ancient Near Eastern parallels are not lacking and Fontaine, using the traditional sayings in the Amarna Letters, suggests that popular sayings are indigenous to "pre-Conquest" Palestine.2 Lambert, noting the absence of popular proverbs in the Babylonian collections, explains that in the more academically-inclined Cassite period, the scribes did not wish to record or preserve traditional sayings, which were common among the uneducated, but drew their traditional proverbs from Sumerian originals.3 Thus, many writers distinguish between family/clan wisdom and royal court wisdom. The aim of the first is the mastering of life, while the goal of the second is the education of a select group in matters of the court.4 ____________________ "Wisdom," p. 227; cf. also Roland E. Murphy, "Wisdom--Theses and Hypotheses," in Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien, ed. J. G. Gammie et al. (New York: Union Theological Seminary, 1978), p. 37.
Context of the Wisdom Admonitions," p. 36. 2Fontaine, "The Use of the Traditional Saying in the Old Testament," p. 331. Her discussion of this whole area is most helpful (pp. 1-50), as is her perceptive and refreshing analysis of some traditional sayings in their historical settings. She skillfully employs the tools of modern paroemiology. 3Lambert, BWL, pp. 275-76. 4James L. Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence upon 'Historical' Literature," JBL 88 Though folk wisdom undoubtedly continued even after the development of court wisdom, many think that there was a development from the clan to the court and later to a more theologized scribal wisdom (Ben Sirach). Although a unilinear development is rejected, a general movement is detected by many scholars.1 This evolution seems compatible with the historical data.
by Eissfeldt and embraced by Schmidt, is the one-line to two-line evolution, by which simple one-line, popular sayings were transformed into two-line, didactic, artistic proverbs.2 Thompson accepts this position, as seen in the following statement: "But given a popular, one line prose proverb, one can easily imagine its becoming poetic ____________________ (1969):130. Crenshaw also adds a category of scribal wisdom, which had as its aim the education of all into a dogmatico-religious tradition via a dialogico-admonitory format ("Wisdom," p. 227). Scott, The Way of Wisdom, p. 137.
the Old Testament," p. 39; Scott, The Way of Wisdom, p. 18; Crenshaw, "Wisdom," p. 227; Morgan, Wisdom in the Old
p. 11.
2Crenshaw, "Wisdom," p. 232; Johannes Schmidt, Studien zur Stilistik Der Alttestamentlichen Spruchliteratur (Munster: Verlag der Aschendorffschen Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1936); Eissfeldt, Der Maschal im Alten Testament; Udo Skladny, Die altesten Spruchsammlungen in Israel pp. 5-6; cf. Gladson, "Retributive Paradoxes in Proverbs 10-29," p. 54; and McKane, Proverbs, pp. 2-3. through the addition of a parallel stich; and one may suspect that this often happened."1 An example of an accretive process may be seen in the Abu Salabikh and Classical versions of the Sumerian "Instructions of Suruppak."2 Gordon notes that 95 of 154 preserved Sumerian proverbs are one line in length and 44 are two lines.3 Thompson proposes a mechanism by which he thinks the one-line saying was extended into two lines--via a riddle game in which the first line was answered by its respective second. He cites similar practices in Chinese and African Kuanyama proverb usages as supportive of this thesis, which Gemser originally proposed.4 ____________________ 1Thompson, The Form and Function, p. 67. 2Alster, The Instructions of Suruppak, pp. 15, 35. Compare, for instance, the call to attention in the prologue of each version: My son, let me give you instructions, May you pay attention to them! (Abu Salabikh I.8-9) My son, let me give you instructions, May you take my instructions! Do not neglect my instructions! Do not transgress the word I speak! The instructions of an old man are precious, may you submit to them! (Classical Version, Lines 9-13)
James A. Kelso, 10:413, 415; and Edwin M. Loeb, "Kuanyama Ambo Folklore," Anthropological Records 13 (1951):332.
has been challenged and most recent scholars reject this evolutionary model as the explanation for the difference between the one-line and two-line proverbs.1 Both Crenshaw and Murphy cite the reverse possibility--that is, that the one-line saying is a fragment of an original two- line wisdom saying.2 Claiming that the one-line saying is necessarily earlier smacks of being a simplistic diachronic solution to a complex matter. The fable of Jotham and longer forms were often used in the pre-monarchial period. There simply is not enough data to support a historical, developmental theory, since the pre-history of these forms is vague, in terms of origin, development, and use.3 ____________________
Nel, The Structure and Ethos, p. 16; Patrick Skehan, "A Single Editor for the Whole book of Proverbs," in SAIW, p. 338 (24); von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, p. 27; Christa B. Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien 1-9, pp. 4-5; David Greenwood, "Rhetorical Criticism and Formgeschichte: Some Methodological Considerations," JBL 89 (1970):420; and Fontaine, "The Use of the Traditional Saying in the Old Testament," p. 33.
Criticism and Wisdom Literature," p. 478; and Fontaine, "The Use of the Traditional Saying in the Old Testament," p. 31.
3Murphy, "The Interpretation of Old Testament Wisdom Literature," p. 300; and Gladson, "Retributive The examination of the Egyptian literature, which provides a clear model of wisdom forms within a more clearly defined historical setting and over a longer period of time, has caused this one-line to two-line developmental theory to be rejected. Gemser, in his superb analysis of 'Onchsheshonqy, notes that 'Onchsheshonqy, although being one of the latest pieces of Egyptian instructions, reflects a less developed character in form and content than earlier works of Ptah-hotep or Yüklə 6,58 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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