Studien zum Menschenbild der alteren Weisheit (Spr. 10ff).

• Author: Murphy, Roland E.

This is a lightly revised and shortened Habilitationsschrift from the Augustana-Hochschule Neuendettelsau. The contents are concerned with the human condition as found in "older wisdom," which is, by general agreement, the primarily pre-exilic material found in Proverbs 10-31. The author does not attempt to speculate on the channels of transmission. Presumably these were oral at first (in the family?) and eventually written down (for teaching in a school? See Prov. 25:1, which does not appear in the index of this book). This is a literary analysis of the meaning of the discrete and disparate sayings (as opposed to the wisdom poems in chapters 1-9). Hausmann is not interested in the literary contextual analysis that has been advocated by some recent scholars (is the meaning of a given saying affected by the other proverbs that surround it?).

Hausmann succeeds very well in presenting a full and even lively coverage of the proverbs. The work has five parts that are further subdivided: (1) groups of persons as types (wise-foolish; just-wicked; diligent-lazy; rich-poor); (2) groups with specific functions (father-mother-son; friend-neighbor; king; woman); (3) contexts that influence life (education; the heart; speech; sorrow; evil; the individual and the community; future and hope; the relation of human beings to God; (4) the ideals of the wise (wisdom and sedaqa; self-control; life as opposed to death; joy, well-being); and (5) conclusions (a clear summary and a contextualization of older wisdom within the Hebrew Bible). This is a remarkable synthesis of the teaching of Proverbs 10-31.

Hausmann's treatment of the topic "woman" is accurate and frank (p. 161). She points out that the wisdom sayings are products of a patriarchal world. They derive from males and are for males, as was also the case for wisdom literature in the rest of the ancient Near East. But she recognizes that they are relevant to both male and female (p. 178), because the perspective is that of human nature, and because of the openness of the sayings to ever varying situations. Women are not addressed, they are spoken about (and infrequently), especially as marriage partners. Most prejudiced are the warnings against the female as sexually seductive, while the responsibility of the male is glossed over.

Certain assumptions particularly favored in German scholarship appear. There is the emphasis on the wisdom enterprise as a search for order. Although the order is not explicitly...