Reading Wisdom Literature

When I was a teenager (and possibly a young adult) Proverbs and Ecclesiastes were two books that I liked to read and kept coming back to. On the other hand, while I had read Job at least twice before studying theology, I don’t recall it having a significant impact on me.

Then, during the first semester of 2015, I did a unit on wisdom literature (e.g. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job). This time, I found Job to be the most impactful of the three, and for the first time I saw the three in relation to each other. I’d like to reflect on these experiences a bit more.

Job

First, when I read Job prior to studying theology, I don’t think I understood what was happening with the dialogue between Job and his friends. What were they going on about? And why did they have to say it at such length?

Once I was taught that they were debating the cause of Job’s suffering, it made a lot more sense to me! In contrast with his friends, Job insisted that he had done nothing wrong and he was suffering for no reason. The prologue seems to support this:

“The LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.’” (Job 2:3, NASB)

Job’s friends, on the other hand, were certain that suffering is the result of sin, so Job must have done something wrong — if he would just repent, then everything would be okay. In effect, Job’s friends believed that if someone was suffering, they deserved it, and on the flip-side, if someone was wealthy, they had earned it. Job raised objections like his observations of the wicked prospering and living long lives, and the plight of the poor who haven’t done anything wrong, but his friends wouldn’t relent.

In the end God comes along and says that Job was right and his friends were wrong. But while God vindicated Job against the accusations of his friends, He didn’t explain the reason for Job’s suffering (except for saying something to the effect of “I’m God, and you’re not”). Finally, God restored Job to his former wealth, and that was that. For me this was one of my first noteworthy encounters with the concept of theodicy — theological attempts to understand/explain (or in this case, deconstruct inaccurate explanations of) how God can be just/righteous in a world full of suffering.

So that’s Job. But how did Job impact how I engage with scripture? Well, it didn’t — at least not by itself. That’s where Proverbs and Ecclesiastes come in.

Proverbs and Ecclesiastes

In the unit I did on Wisdom Literature it became apparent that there is a tension between Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. They each have different takes on similar sets of questions. You see, Proverbs sounds a lot like Job’s friends. It says if you are wise and diligent and do what is right, you will be blessed and things will go well, but if you are foolish or lazy or sinful, things will go badly. There is a lot of good stuff in Proverbs, and what it says is generally true, but Job’s story shows that it is not always true. Job always did what was right, yet despite this, he suffered.

Ecclesiastes also seems to contradict Proverbs. It is full of observations about the fact that not everything is as it seems or as we would like it to be. For example:

“I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake them all.” (Eccl 9:11, NASB)

Proverbs says that things will be good for the wise and diligent, but Ecclesiastes says that sometimes ‘time and chance’ mean that this isn’t the case. While what Proverbs says is generally true, there are still plenty of exceptions.

Now I could get distracted here, and start delving into the questions that this interplay between Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes brings up (it’s very tempting), but right now I’m supposed to be considering how these things have influenced my engagement with scripture.

How I Engage With Scripture

While It’s hard to remember exactly where I was at with this eight years ago, today I still remember this unit as a significant moment in the story of how I view scripture. For me, the idea that different books of the Bible could critically interact with each other was quite new. I’d never thought about the fact that one book could say one thing, and another could critique it (even if part of Ecclesiastes’ and Job’s critiques might have been directed more at broader cultural attitudes of the time than at Proverbs). I feel like this added a dynamism of sorts to scripture for me. Scripture could now speak to scripture, and different books could be presenting competing or diverging views on questions that persist throughout, like how God can be just in a world full of suffering, or what conduct is right/ethical and what is not. Now, rather than expecting uniform answers to these questions throughout scripture, I can see them build over time, and I can explore the difference that Jesus’ story makes in the broader context of these long-standing questions.

I could say more here, but I think the additions I’m thinking of might be for other posts. Suffice to say that this idea — that there could be tension, or even conflict, between different parts of scripture — has had a significant impact on how I engage with scripture!