FORM CRITICISM AND WISDOM LITERATURE*

I wish to speak to you concerning the Interpreter's Handbook of Old

Testament Form Criticism—a topic which was already announced in the
CBQ 30 (1968) 599. There you learn of the publisher (Abingdon), the
nine scholars involved, and the centering of this project in the Institute for
Antiquity and Christianity at Claremont Graduate School. I will present
some of the plans and problems, and discuss with you some aspects of form
criticism as applied to OT wisdom literature.

1. Plans and Problems

It is hoped that the Handbook—the choice of this term is still under dis-
cussion—will appear in two volumes in 1975 or 1976. The co-editors, Pro-
fessors Rolf Knierim and Gene Tucker, are to have all the material in
hand by the end of 1973 and proceed with coordination and cross-referenc-
ing of the typescripts. Prospects look good for an almost simultaneous
German edition. Should this happen, it is doubtless an event which the
German fathers of form criticism never foresaw. The entire Hebrew Bible
has been divided up among the nine men, and each has an allotted amount
of words within which to manoeuvre. About twice a year the group has
been meeting for several days to discuss common problems, such as termi-
nology, and to criticize each other's work. It is obvious that such meetings
are as stimulating as they are also even heated.
It was decided that the explanation is to be based upon the Masoretic
text. Departures from it, in the form of textual emendation, will enter in
only in so far as form-critical concerns are affected. The same criterion,
pertinence to form criticism, governs the discussion of extra-biblical par-
allels. The format for each book to be discussed is identical: a specific
introduction, and the treatment of consecutive blocks of material according
to 1) structural analysis, 2) genre, 3) setting, 4) intention of the text. In
addition, there will be general introductions to special kinds of literature,
e.g., historical narratives, legal codes, wisdom, etc. It is obvious that the
heart of the work lies in the discussion of structure, genre, setting, and
intention, where the problems of both form criticism and tradition history
lie.
From the outset, genre terminology has been a difficult problem. Because

* Presidential Address, given at the thirty-second general meeting of the Catholic

Biblical Association, at St. John Vianney Seminary, East Aurora, New York, on
August 25, 1969.
475
476 T H E CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY [Vol. 31

German scholarship is largely responsible for the development of form

criticism, the terminology is German: Gerichtsrede, Botenrede, Streitge-
spräch, etc. The issue is far greater than merely establishing a precise
English equivalent. At times one will also doubt if the term itself does
justice to the literary reality it is intended to describe. And the evolution
of the meanings of the terms must also be kept in mind (e.g., legend). One
of the first stages of the operation is to assemble a kind of dictionary of
German and English equivalents. The suggestion has been made that this
should be published as a glossary within the work. Such a glossary could
be misleading. Any abstract definition of a genre is slightly unreal because
it does not deal with a specific text. And in fact, no definition can cover
all the nuances associated with a given genre. But on the other hand, both
the authors and the readers must have some common basis of understand-
ing from which to work. It seems to me that a short description of, for
example, the genre of lament, or self-presentation speech, is a basic need.
The glossary can then be further enriched by references to specific texts
and to detailed discussions of given genres. This kind of reference would
allow for the fluidity of a specific genre.
It is the common experience of an exegete to discover many different
structural analyses of the same material. Several differing principles can be
at work in structure: content, progress of thought, literary cues (e.g.,
inclasio), metrical considerations, and so forth. Ideally, in our project the
structural analysis should be predicated upon the form-critical data, and
should use technical terminology. In this way the structure is articulated
according to its formal elements, such as oracle, saying, hymn, etc. How-
ever, this procedure runs the danger of a certain sterility if it is not tied
in with some indications of content. And it is often not possible to carry
out a structural analysis in so formal a fashion, especially when simple
progress of thought is the only index to structure (e.g., Jb 1-2).
Finally, we may notice here the challenge laid down by James Muilen-
burg in his 1968 presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature.
He urged that one must go beyond form criticism to what he called rhetori-
cal criticism, i.e., an analysis of structure and stylistics : inclusions, acrostic
usages and variations, etc. "A responsible and proper articulation of the
words in their linguistic patterns and in their precise formulations will
reveal to us the texture and fabric of the writer's thought, not only what it
is that he thinks, but as he thinks it." 1

ι "Form Criticism and Beyond," JBL 88 (1969) 1-18, esp. p. 7.

1969] FORM CRITICISM AND WISDOM LITERATURE 477

2. Form Criticism and Wisdom Literature

The application of form criticism to the OT wisdom books has a very

spotty history. As long ago as 1913, O. Eissfeldt studied the mäsäl in the
OT, and in 1914 W. Baumgartner analyzed the literary types in Ben
Sira.2 C. Westermann's studies on the lament led him into the Book of
Job, which he viewed as a dramatization of the lament.3 Recently A.
Wright has pushed forward our understanding of Ecclesiastes and the
Wisdom of Solomon.4 Studies of the particular forms of proverbial sayings
have been made by E. Gerstenberger, W. Richter, and H.-J. Hermisson. 5
There are several reasons why the 1964 primer on form criticism by Klaus
Koch 6 could dispense with any treatment of wisdom passages, but the most
practical is that so little work has been done in this area, especially as re-
gards the proverbial saying itself, and its pre-history.
The current introductions to OT literature (A. Bentzen, O. Eissfeldt,
G. Fohrer) more or less follow along the lines of Eissfeldt's study of the
mäsäl.7 By and large, there is an assumption that the saying was originally
2
O. Eissfeldt, Der Maschal im Alten Testament (BZAW; Giessen, 1913), W.
Baumgartner, "Die literarischen Gattungen in der Weisheit des Jesus Sirach," ZAW
34 (1914) 161-198.
3
C. Westermann, "Struktur und Geschichte der Klage im Alten Testament," ZAW
66 (1954) 44-80; Der Aufbau des Buches Hiob (Tübingen, 1956). On the other hand,
H. Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit in der alten Weisheit (Tübingen, 1958), argues that
Jb is modeled on the Klageerhòrungsparadigma, which he finds in the Babylonian
poem, "I shall praise the Lord of wisdom" (ANET, 434-437). At this point it is
worth noting the comment of H. Ringgren (apropos of his review of the English
translation of Dhorme's commentary on Job, TZ 24 [1968] 469) : "In bezug auf Hiob
hat die Formgeschichte wenig geleistet, da ja die literarische Form des Buches
eigentlich einzigartig ist."
4 A. Wright, "The Riddle of the Sphinx: The Structure of the Book of Qoheleth,"
CBQ 30 (1968) 313-334; "Wisdom," The Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J., 1968) I, 556-568. On Eccl, see also O. Loretz, Qohelet und der Alte
Orient (Freiburg, 1964).
5
E. Gerstenberger, Wesen und Herkunft des "apodiktischen Rechts" (Neukirchen,
1965) ; W. Richter, Recht und Ethos (München, 1966) ; H.-J. Hermisson, Studien sur
israelitischen Spruchweisheit (Neukirchen, 1968).
6
K. Koch, Was ist Formgeschichtef (Neukirchen, 1964), now available as The
Growth of the Biblical Tradition (New York, 1969).
7
A. Bentzen, Introduction to the Old Testament (Copenhagen, 1957) I, 157, 159;
G. Fohrer, Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville, 1965) 311, 313; and of
course, O. Eissfeldt, The Old Testament. An Introduction (New York, 1965) 82-84.
One should discard the time-honored distinction between the Volksspruch (folk
proverb, originating among the people), and the Kunstspruch (artistic saying, or
aphorism, cultivated by an educated class, such as the sages).
478 T H E CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY [Vol. 31

one line, which came to be expanded by means of parallelism. We should

note here that this assumption is completely unfounded. A pithy one line
saying could be just as easily a fragment, a kind of incipit, for an original
saying of perhaps several lines. Thus, "Is Saul among the prophets ?" may
very well have had an answer—and doubtless in some form of parallelism.
There is also a common acceptance of two types, the Volkssprichwort
and the Kunstspruch, the popular saying born of the practical wisdom of
the people, and the artistic saying or aphorism formed by an educated
literary class, such as the royal court. Eissfeldt claimed to find evidence of
a folk wisdom that was quite separate from the court. According to his
analysis, only four folk proverbs are explicitly termed mäsäl in the Bible :
1 Sm 10,12 (Saul among the prophets) ; 24,14 (out of the wicked, wicked-
ness) ; Ez 12,22 (the days drag on and no vision comes to anything) ; Ez
18,2 (cf. Jer 31,29, fathers have eaten green grapes, thus their children's
teeth are on edge). But he adduces many others that are to be considered as
mesalîm: nine sayings are introduced by "therefore it is said"; seventeen
sayings "sound" like folk proverbs (e.g., Jgs 8,21, "a man's strength is like
the man"). He then turns to the wisdom literature itself to point out folk
proverbs that came to be incorporated in the collections found in Prv (e.g.,
the wicked conceal violence, Prv 10,6; gold is tried in fire, Sir 2,5). But
he can offer no adequate criterion for his choice, as H.-J. Hermisson has
pointed out in a searching criticism of Eissfeldt's presentation.
Hermisson denies that any of the sayings put forth by Eissfeldt demand a
folk origin.8 There is simply no proof that the sayings originated among
the people, as opposed to an educated class. "The popular" character of a
saying more correctly refers to its use, not to its origins—the saying gains
currency among the people, and hence it is attributed a "folksy" character.
Even among the early collections in Prv (chs. 10-29) one cannot find
proverbs that necessarily have a folk origin.
This very brief summary may suffice as an historical introduction to
the present situation. Where do we now stand? What has form criticism
contributed to classifying and defining the typical biblical proverb? Two
principal types are recognized: the saying (Spruch) or sentence (Aus-
8
Op. cit., 38-52. In his critique of Hermisson ("Zur alttestamentlichen Weisheit,"
Verkündigung und Forschung 14 [1969] 28-44, esp. 40ff.), Gerstenberger attacks
Hermisson's notion of Volk, as though it referred only to nomads and excluded court
officials, poets, etc. But even in his own study, Gerstenberger gives no indication
(that I can find) that court officials are to be included as sources of tribal wisdom. At
present, the distinction between popular or folk wisdom and court wisdom (or at
least, Bildungsweisheit) is better referred primarily to the use, not the origins—which
must remain an open question—of wisdom sayings.
 1969] FORM CRITICISM AND WISDOM LITERATURE 479

sage), and the admonition (Mahnspruch). The saying is a statement—at

least two lines in parallelism. If it merely registers a conclusion which
grows out of experience, it is a proverb (Sprichwort) strictly speaking.
Following A. Jolies (Einfache Formen [Halle, 1956]), Hermisson defines
a proverb (Sprichwort) strictly as a conclusion that is drawn from ex-
perience; any didactic purpose in the proverb is secondary.9 The didactic
character is derived from the associations that the proverb has, e.g., its
place in the wisdom collection ; in itself, its primary thrust is to register a
fact. To the proverb attaches a certain style of expression: succinctness,
metaphor, etc. But it is not ipso facto a folk proverb (Volkssprichwort).
As we have seen, mere currency among the people is not enough to justify
this classification, which points to use, not origins. One has to allow for
the possibility of an educated class (let us call them sages), who would
have been among the originators and cultivators of the saying, particularly
since the saying reaches a certain quality of literary excellence, and is pre-
occupied with certain obligatory subjects (the kestl, the fasêl, etc.).
The distinction between the saying that merely registers an observation
and that which inculcates a certain course of action can be illustrated from
Prv:
The rich man's wealth is his strong city;
the ruination of the lowly is their poverty (Prv 10,15).
One man is lavish and yet grows richer ;
another is too sparing, yet is the poorer (Prv 11,24).
These are but two examples of many straight observations recorded in the
collections of Prv. They do not in themselves go beyond characterizing the
"way it is," the difference that money creates by its presence or absence.
However, the context of the proverb collection is important here. The fact
that these are included with overtly didactic sayings suggests that they
can be used for didactic purposes on a particular level—for reasons other
than that of merely registering an experiential fact.
If the saying goes beyond a mere statement, and characterizes a certain
act or attitude in such a way as to influence human conduct, it is a didactic
saying. The didactic element can be very explicit :
He who oppresses the poor blasphemes his Maker,
but he who is kind to the needy glorifies him (Prv 14,31 ;
cf. 19,17; 22,22-23).
This definition of an action in terms of relationship to God leaves no doubt
as to the course of action that is to be pursued. Such direction is obvious
also in sayings about wisdom and justice, e.g.,
• Op. cit., 18-36.
480 T H E CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY [Vol. 31

The fear of the Lord is training for wisdom,

and humility goes before honors (Prv 15,33).
The second type of biblical proverb is the admonition, both positive
and negative. In contrast to the proverbial saying, the admonition does not
leave it up to the reader to draw a conclusion ; rather, obedience is asked
for directly. Very often a motive clause is appended as a basis for heeding
the admonition.
The positive admonition or command is simple enough :
Entrust your works to the Lord,
and your plans will succeed (Prv 16,3).
At times the direct command makes explicit a point that is made only in-
directly in a saying. Thus Prv 16,3 can be compared with 16,20 :
He who plans a thing will be successful ;
happy is he who trusts in the Lord.
Similarly, one can compare 23,22 (positive and negative) with 10,1 and
22,22 (negative) with 14,31.
The negative admonition or prohibition has been the subject of studies
by E. Gerstenberger and W. Richter.10 Against the former, Richter has
insisted upon the importance of the negative particle (lo' or 'al) and he
claims that this distinction determines two different literary types: the
vetitive (the jussive, negated by 'al; a negation of the imperative), and the
prohibitive (the imperfect, negated by lo'; a negation of "das heischende
Präsens"—the insinuation of the vetitive is lacking : "er darf es keinesfalls
tun"). In Prv 22,24, both types are illustrated—the vetitive in 24a, "the
prohibitive in 24b (cf. also Ex 20,16 and 23,1b with Prv 24,28). Accord-
ing to Richter, the vetitive is usually joined with a motive clause; it is
scattered throughout the OT, but it is rare in the legal codes. The prohibi-
tive is found characteristically in the law codes, where it has a tendency to
be found in lists of commandments; its union with a motive clause is
usually secondary. The life-setting of these types is the Gruppenethos of
the people, as it was found in the schools of Israel (as opposed to the
Sippenethos proposed by Gerstenberger—the ethos of the clan or tribe
where the wisdom prohibitions originated). Richter thinks that these
schools were first directed to the formation of educated public officials, but
with the end of the monarchy they became more preoccupied with charac-
ter formation, as can be concluded from the wisdom teaching about the
wise and foolish, the just and wicked, etc.

io See note 5, and the discussion in CBQ 29 (1967) 102-104.

1969] FORM CRITICISM AND WISDOM LITERATURE 481

One may easily admit that there are nuances of meaning expressed by
the vetitive and the prohibitive, but it is difficult to see how a different
literary type (Gattung) is to be ascribed to each. Nuances in the measure
of command or obligation may correspond to various life settings, but they
do not seem to be distinctive enough to create a given literary type. Ger-
stenberger has pointed out that even in the priestly code (thus, in serious
"divine" laws), 'al is used without any sense of the obligation being less-
ened. It would seem better to allow for the unknown vicissitudes of the
growth of the language to account for the variation in the use of 'al and
lö', and to recognize in their usage one basic form : a negative admonition.
Whatever the difference in detail, both of these studies have opened up
a new vista, enabling us to delve behind the apodictic law which has been
treated as a kind of theological "given" in OT studies. The details remain
obscure—e.g., that the vetitive is later and derivative from the prohibitive
(Richter). But we must recognize that there is a pre-history to the legal
admonition : the every day intercourse of human activities.
According to such practitioners of form criticism as Hermann Gunkel,
there is a correspondence between the life setting and the form. A given
life setting (e.g., suffering) is echoed in a given form (e.g., a Psalm of
Lament). Further modalities are possible—the lament of one who is un-
justly accused corresponds to the life setting of one who suffers from
calumny, and certain motifs are characteristic of such sub-types. In the
case of the Psalms a certain clarity can be reached, even if at times some
forms are mixed.
But in the case of wisdom literature, the correspondence between form
and life setting is somehow less significant. What is the life setting of the
OT wisdom saying? It is a teaching situation, but this tells us little—that
of parents, clan elder, court instructor, or religious teacher? The form
need not vary from one person to another; "my son" can be used as a
title of address in all four instances. One is simply faced with a didactic
situation which calls for appropriate sayings and admonitions that range
over various aspects of human experience and conduct. Moreover, the
audience need not be in a particular situation that calls for a given proverb.
It can be that the proverb is proferred as pertinent to the human condition
in general.
Hence a given saying may have a long history; it may have traveled
from one given life setting to another without any real change. Its message
remains valid in any teaching situation. (I am not talking about instances
where a deeper meaning can be obtained, due to the presuppositions of
482 T H E CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY [Vol. 31

the reader, e.g., an eschatological understanding of "life" and "death"

which a modern reader may give to the sayings in Prv.) 1 1 Even the con-
tent (which cannot be separated from the question of form) reveals very
little about the speaker and life setting. Agricultural metaphors are not
to be restricted to folk wisdom, nor are "king" proverbs the interest of
the court alone. If anything, the wide circle of interests which appears in
Prv 10-29 suggests an educated literary circle of the court as a most likely
group with universal interests who would have cultivated such sayings.
Even clear-cut forms, such as the blessing or curse ('asre/'ärur), do
not tell us very much. No matter what the specific life setting conjured up
by the formula, or the concrete Sits im Leben in which the formula orig-
inated, its use in the wisdom literature is simply didactic. This is also true
of many other formulas, such as tô'ëbah or yës sayings. If tô'ëbah is to be
judged as particularly cultic, its use in Prv (11,1.20; 12,22; 15,8, etc.) is
not so specific. We may legitimately conclude, then, that the wisdom litera-
ture gives evidence of a certain indifference to the specific association be-
tween form and life setting. The two are only loosely associated.
How does one work out a life setting for an entire book, e.g., Prv?
On all sides it is admitted that the work is made up of several collections,
most probably introduced by chs. 1-9 as a kind of preface. The next infer-
ence is that the sayings in chs. 10-29 are largely pre-exilic, and supposedly
they derive from the Jerusalem court where the sages cultivated wisdom
after the manner of the Egyptians. These are all reasonable assumptions,
but it is important to note the shift in one very important feature. We
have replaced one life setting by another : the life setting of the court has
been replaced by that of the postexilic sages, men of the stamp of Qohe-
leth or Sirach, who are responsible for the preservation and eventual
canonization of the sayings. Further, as we have seen, we are not to as-
sume that such wisdom sayings originated only with the court; the wis-
dom movement was considerably furthered by the court, but no one would
wish to deny that there was wisdom before David and Solomon, and hence
a specific life setting, such as tribal or family wisdom. Finally, isn't the
book itself a life setting? By that, I mean the evidence provided by P.
W. Skehan that the author of chs. 1-9 is indeed the editor of the whole
book, and he has left evidence of his teaching technique.12 Thus, in the
Solomonic collection (10,1-22,16) he brought the number of proverbs
up to 375, the numerical equivalent of the name, Solomon. The sayings

n See "The Interpretation of Old Testament Wisdom Literature," Int 23 (1969)

289-301, esp. 298-299.
12 Cf. "Wisdom's House," CBQ 29 (1967) 468-486 (162-180).
1969] FORM CRITICISM AND WISDOM LITERATURE 483

"Words of the Wise" that are found in 22,17-30,33 (this excludes those
given other titles, such as Agur) add up to 118, the numerical equivalent
of hakämtm ("wise men"). The number of lines in the Hezekiah collec-
tions (chs. 25-29) is 140, the numerical equivalent of YHZQYH (Yehi-
zqiyäh). The total number of lines in the work is 930, and this is the
numerical equivalent of Solomon, David, and Israel, which occur in the
title of the book. And, is it a book or a house?—the House of Wisdom,
as Skehan has argued. The final life setting of the sayings in the Book
of Proverbs seems to be rather unique !
This discussion of Prv shows how complex and shifting is the question
of life setting. We are introduced to Traditionsgeschichte thereby—that
is, we are able to surmise something of the pre-history of a saying up
to the point that it was included in Prv. We can allow for its range of
pertinence within a people before it is as it were domesticated by the sage
and put forth that men "may receive training in wise conduct, in what
is right, just and honest" (Prv 1,3). But the fact remains that the recon-
struction of the pre-history of a biblical proverb, and hence of its varied
life settings, is highly conjectural. The broadest designation is "didactic"
—not a very stirring conclusion, but one which allows for the strictly
formal sayings that emerge from the school (Hermisson's emphasis) as
well as the insights offered across the board by the Israelite family and
tribe (Gerstenberger's emphasis).
There are several form-critical problems which remain to be discussed:
What is the relationship between the wisdom saying and the wisdom
poem (Lehrgedicht, e.g., Prv 7,6-23 ; ch. 8) ? What are the criteria for
characterizing a work as sapiential or assessing the so-called wisdom
elements (and hence influence) in a given work? 13 But in terms of form-
critical inquiry, there has been considerable progress since the pioneer
studies of O. Eissfeldt and W. Baumgartner.
ROLAND E. MURPHY, O. CARM.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, B.C.
13
See, e.g., J. L. Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence upon
'Historical' Literature," JBL 88 (1969) 129-142.
 ^ s
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