wisdom literature Further reading: Chang, Kwang-chih The Archaeology of Ancient China 4th ed., rev New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986; Creel, Herrlee G The Birth of China, a Study of the Formative Period of Chinese Civilization New York: Frederich Ungar Pub., 1937; Hsu, Cho-yun, and Kathryn Linduff Western Chou Civilization New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988 Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur wisdom literature Historians of the ancient world have come to recognize that wisdom literature represents the expressions of cultures and civilizations that rely on human experience to cope with life’s mysteries and uncertainties The genre is pervasive over a wide spectrum of peoples in many ages and places Wisdom literature in the Bible is a genre that is somewhere between the prophetic and the apocalyptic writings in its content and style When the prophets of the Bible became fewer and less vocal after the Babylonian captivity, the teachers of wisdom began to promote their perspective as the representatives of biblical faith After them there arose, centuries later, the seers and mystics who were writers of apocalypticism In many ways the teachers of biblical wisdom coincided with the development of philosophy in the Greek intellectual world as it outgrew the mythical explanations of the creation and life crafted by Homer and Hesiod The time period for both biblical wisdom and Greek philosophy was the fifth–fourth centuries b.c.e and later, otherwise known as the Persian, or Attic, Period The Hebrew people drew upon three sources for their wisdom literature First, Israel had produced leaders and thinkers over the centuries whose achievements had been remembered, studied, and emulated In the course of its history, such figures as Solomon, Daniel, and Baruch had made an impression on later generations as teachers of wisdom Thus, traditions developed that were native to the Hebrew people and distinctive in comparison to neighboring ethnic groups By the same token, many other ancient kings and rulers had reputations for dispensing wisdom and sound advice, and stories circulated in their societies that would enhance public trust in their administration Second, the nature of government and civilization favored the emergence of educated classes who could organize peoples and run social institutions These people had to learn reading and writing, and they specialized in bringing stability to otherwise chaotic situations This source of wisdom 487 literature, therefore, relied on scribes and bureaucrats who had the leisure for reflection and writing They might have had the resources to travel, learn other languages, and consider moderate reforms Third, the surrounding nations of the Middle East also presented a rich matrix for biblical wisdom literature The Egyptians, the Sumerians, and the Babylonians were most famous for their wisdom teachings Their traditions emerged long before the Greeks and the Hebrews of the fifth–fourth centuries b.c.e Scribal schools probably sprang up in response to the demands of Middle Eastern governments for able administrators Masters who exercised great influence over their pupils led such schools This phenomenon also is similar to the education that was offered by the purveyors of sophism (and perhaps Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) in the Greek world Invariably, in most of these environments the scribal classes favored stability and order, and so wisdom literature was largely supportive of the status quo Ancient Egypt in particular was the center for learning for thousands of years As is often the case in wisdom literature, Egyptian materials come in the form of a father’s advice to his sons One very old collection of sayings, the Instruction of Vizier Ptah-hotep (2400 b.c.e.), shows parallels to the biblical book of Proverbs Schools set up for educating Egyptian civil servants about their roles in court life are the background for passages in the Instruction of Amenemope (1000–600 b.c.e.) and excerpted and adapted by the editor of Proverbs The civilization of Sumer has proverbs almost as old as Egypt’s Clearly it also had scribal schools set up by its government Sumerian editors organized their wisdom materials by topic and theme, while it is hard to find the organizational thread that unites much of biblical wisdom Sumerian observations on nature also not moralize as much as the Hebrew writings The city-states of Akkad and Babylon also gave a milieu for Hebrew biblical traditions One theme of wisdom literature has to with undeserved suffering, most famously expressed by the long-suffering hero Job in the Bible This theme is found in the Babylonian poem I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom, whose main character is often called the Babylonian Job, and in other works such as Dialogue about Human Misery and Dialogue of Pessimism There are a couple other possible influences on Hebrew wisdom literature First, there is a fragmentary book from the Aramaeans called Proverbs of Ahiqar that was well known in the ancient Middle Eastern world and translated into many languages The earliest written text, however, for Ahiqar comes from the Persian Period Then there is the Greek world, with its later emphasis on