Wisdom in Israel

Top Highlights

“Rather, there is, in his case, a lack of ability or readiness to accommodate himself to the orders, the knowledge of which the wise men taught. The fool is the undisciplined man, who does not control his passions (Prov. 29:11), the presumptuous man. Folly is a lack of order in a man’s innermost being, a lack which defies all instruction; often, indeed, folly is regarded as something which cannot be corrected (e.g. Prov. 27:22).” (Pages 64–65)

“We hold fast to the fact that in the case of the wise men’s search for knowledge, even when they expressed their results in a completely secular form, there was never any question of what we would call absolute knowledge functioning independently of their faith in Yahweh. This is inconceivable for the very reason that the teachers were completely unaware of any reality not controlled by Yahweh.” (Page 64)

“The thesis that all human knowledge comes back to the question about commitment to God is a statement of penetrating perspicacity.” (Page 67)

“The teachers vacillated between two possibilities of expression: one adhered quite objectively to the causality of events, while the other was credal and spoke of Yahweh’s direct dealings with men. These two types of expressions ran parallel to one another, so to speak.” (Page 105)

“The question is therefore justified whether the attractive code-name ‘wisdom’ is nowadays not more of a hindrance than a help, in so far as it disguises what stands behind it rather than depicts it properly.” (Page 8)