Proverbs with Solomon: A critical revision of the pre-critical commentary tradition in the light of a biblical intertextual study
The historical criticism of the Book of Proverbs has substituted the pre-Enlightenment view that Solomon was the real author with the finding that Israel’s post-exilic sages added the name and prestige of the wisest of kings to their work. However the pre-Enlightenment commentators of Proverbs recog...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2002
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| In: |
Heythrop journal
Year: 2002, Volume: 43, Issue: 2, Pages: 199-211 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | The historical criticism of the Book of Proverbs has substituted the pre-Enlightenment view that Solomon was the real author with the finding that Israel’s post-exilic sages added the name and prestige of the wisest of kings to their work. However the pre-Enlightenment commentators of Proverbs recognised that the name Solomon is integral to the text of Proverbs. This article recognises this textual datum and reads Prov 1–9 from an unusual angle today, namely as if Solomon were the author and principal speaker. In such a reading of Prov 1–9 the portrait of Solomon emerging from within the text is sharpened by a comparison with the depiction of Solomon in 1 Kgs 1–11. The article seeks to make the point that the character of Solomon so construed in a textual comparison of Prov 1–9 and 1 Kgs 1–11 is but one of a number of diverse portraits made of Solomon in Proverbs throughout the centuries of commentary. In the first part of the article we study three early commentaries, those of Bede, of Hugo Grotius, and of Augustin Calmet. We show that the portrait of Solomon discovered in our own reading of Prov 1–9 in the second part of the article takes its place alongside numerous others. However we today are able to be more faithful to the biblical text than the early commentators because we need not harmonise Proverbs with 1 Kings, as the early commentators felt obliged to do. A contemporary intertextual study of Prov 1–9 can recoup a valid aspect of the ancient literary tradition, that of making Solomon integral to Proverbs. The Solomon we have discovered in Prov 1–9 is the one that spoke through Proverbs at its first publication. In Prov 1–9 the royal attribute is set aside. Solomon is represented as an Israelite teaching parent. |
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| ISSN: | 1468-2265 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Heythrop journal
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/1468-2265.00192 |