Long before there was an app for everything, we had a word of wisdom for every situation we found ourselves in. In this age of search engines and AI, never has it been clearer that we need wisdom. Hopefully, we will get some today.

Hi, my name is Terence, and I’m your host for Reading and Readers, a podcast where I review Christian books for you. Today I review “Proverbs: Old Testament Guide” by James D. Martin. 106 pages, published by Sheffield Academic Press, in March 1995. Available on Amazon for USD 14.29 and in Logos for USD 16.09. But I got it for free via a Logos Free Book of the Month deal.

James D. Martin is a mystery man. Amazon doesn’t have his biodata. Google refuses to divulge his secrets. I am not even sure whether he is dead or alive. But Logos tells me that he was a senior lecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament at the University of St. Andrews.

Book sellers might have confused two authors with the same name. Because James D. Martin is also listed as the author of a book titled “British Foreign Policy”. If they are the same person, what a curious blend of expertise! Perhaps Martin’s interest in British Foreign Policy explains the international aspects of his commentary on Proverbs. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Today’s book is 106 pages, packed in six chapters. And just to give an early sense of who this book is for, before Martin goes into the first chapter, he gives us an annotated list of selected commentaries. Much like a wine list delights a wine connoisseur, we have French and German commentaries for the discerning reader.

Chapter 1 is “Wisdom Literature in Ancient Israel”. We read the necessary discussion on what wisdom literature is and how Proverbs compares with other wisdom literature. Then, Martin reveals an international heist. Someone call Interpol.

As we all know, the ancient Egyptians had their wisdom literature. Now, one of them is titled “The Instruction of Amenemope”. And shockingly, we find Amenemope in Proverbs 22:17-24:22. How could this be? Who stole or copied from whom?

Some scholars suggest that “The Instruction of Amenemope” is the training manual for Egyptian bureaucrats, and perhaps it crossed over to Israel for that same purpose.

Martin shoots down this idea. He writes:

The kind of education provided in the book of Proverbs—and the same is true of both Ecclesiastes and Ben Sira—is not, however, education for life at court or for a post in the ancient Israelite civil service but for life in general. Its aim is to tell the young men whom it addresses how best to make a success of their life, especially in terms of their moral integrity, their standing in the community, their achievement of wealth and happiness.

But this does not explain how an Egyptian text got into the Hebrew Bible.

What if we knew the level of sophistication of Israel’s royal court? Perhaps that could give us a clue to what role a book like Proverbs could have.

Martin then brings out a socio-archaeological study. The author of that study, Jamieson-Drake, concludes:

There is little evidence that Judah began to function as a state at all prior to the tremendous increases in population, building, production, centralization and specialization which began to appear in the 8th century … The levels of production and population were just too small in 10th century Judah to support the presence of a full-scale state; they seem more appropriate to a chiefdom … Judah was a small state in the 8th–7th centuries, but not before.

This suggests it would be a mistake to import our understanding of Egyptian wisdom and royal court into Israel’s circumstances. Then how did Amenemope appear in Proverbs? Martin looks at other angles before settling on what I think is the most promising. Let us look at the oldest text in Proverbs.

Martin writes:

The earliest material in Proverbs is most probably the individual ‘sentences’ which we have in 10:1–22:16 and in chs. 25–29, the two major ‘Solomonic’ collections in the book (see below Chapter 3). The view of their ‘earliness’ is not based on the older theories that the smallest units are oldest and the longer discourses of chs. 1–9 really amalgamations of smaller units, but simply on the fact that in these individual ‘proverbs’ we have the distillation of life’s experience, the expression in succinct and pithy form of people’s reflection on the problems and challenges which they have experienced in life and with which they have learned to cope. What they have thus learned finds its expression in ‘proverbs’; and these experiences thus expressed were handed down to the next generation (‘my son’) and so on down the generations.

The way I see it, it doesn’t have to be a one-way street; asking who copied from whom could be the wrong question. Perhaps it is a two-way street, as the people in both regions exchange words of wisdom. And why limit it to two? It’s also possible that the different tribes and peoples in the wider area have contributed and distributed these words of wisdom, passing them down from father to son, from farmer to merchant, from kings to peasants.

That is just the introduction chapter.

One of the biggest contributions this commentary makes is giving us a structure that makes sense.

In the past, scholars have made some convoluted attempts to derive a structure from Proverbs. Martin tells us of a scholar Skehan, who sees in Proverbs the architectural structure of the Temple. There is some merit to this layout for certain parts of Proverbs, but we won’t delve into that.

On the other hand, some scholars give up and see better use of their time by grouping the scattered sentences into topical themes. That was how I was told to study Proverbs before.

What Martin gives us is an easy and obvious outline, but after reading all the other scholars’ attempts, I think easy and obvious is good enough for me.

Sentences

When I say Proverbs, you immediately think of those one or two sentences packed full of wisdom. A sentence complete on its own, you don’t need the context, or the history, or the geography, or the theology, to understand what it says.

“A perverse person spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends”, Proverbs 16:28.

Or:

“A wise child makes a glad father, but a foolish child is a mother’s grief”, Proverbs 10:1.

Anyone can understand what the sentence says; that is what makes Proverbs so timeless, so able to bridge across race and culture, so Instagrammable.

Martin sees the bulk of the book of Proverbs to consist of sentences, and he groups those sentences into two major collections. The ‘Solomonic’ collection in 10:1-22:16 and 25:1-29:27.

Instruction

But before the ‘Solomonic’ collection of sentences, we have Proverbs 1 to 9. And any reader will see this is different from the rest of Proverbs. It is a long discourse. From a father to a son. Instructions. And that is how Martin labels it: ‘Instruction’.

Martin gives us a guided reading of Proverbs 1-9, chapter by chapter, occasionally zooming in on a verse or idea. Standard fare for commentaries. But he then spends an inordinate amount of time on the structure of Proverbs 1-9 and its relationship to ancient Egypt instruction literature.

I am always fascinated by how Bible scholars are able to study the Bible and recreate a story or scenario that, to my plain reading of the text, seems more like fantasy than reality.

One of the leading scholars quoted in this book is McKane. Martin writes:

McKane finds in the Old Testament a conflict between the ‘counsel’ of the wise man and the ‘word’ of the prophet. The ‘wise man’ has an essentially political role and functions in a context of statesmanship. In that world—the world of what scholars have referred to as ‘old wisdom’—there is no place for Yahwistic piety, and, in McKane’s view, it is only at a later stage that the great prophets took over the wisdom vocabulary and reinterpreted it in Yahwistic terms.

What I appreciate from Martin is that he is able to succinctly introduce these scholars and ideas. He then evaluates their ideas, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses, before moving on to his conclusion. You would think this is to be expected, but if you listened to my previous book review, you know we should not take good critical analysis as a given.

Appendices

In Martin’s book, chapter 2 is on the Instructions of Proverbs 1-9, chapter 3 is on the ‘Sentences’ of the two Solomonic collections. The third and last division is what Martin calls the appendices to the Solomonic collections. What we see in 22:17-24:34 and Proverbs 30 and 31.

Let me just extract the bits that intrigued me.

I never noticed this before Martin brought it to my attention, but Proverbs 30:1 in the ESV starts as follows:

The words of Agur son of Jakeh. The oracle.

It would come as no surprise that we don’t know who Agur or Jakeh is. But Martin brings to my attention the word oracle. Apparently, in Hebrew, oracle can also be translated as “the man of Massa”. Massa is a North Arabian tribe whose ancestor was Ishmael. And as Martin points out, if correct, then this wisdom material came from a non-Israelite, it came from the descendants of Ishmael.

Let that sink in as we turn to Proverbs 31. Here it starts with:

The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him.

Again, we don’t know who King Lemuel is. And we should because the Old Testament keeps a detailed record of the kings from Saul, David, Solomon, and after the split, it records the kings of the two kingdoms. We would know if there was a King Lemuel who was wise enough to have his words included in Proverbs.

Unless, as Martin suggests, King Lemuel is not an Israelite king. Meaning we have foreign wisdom imported into Proverbs.

I guess this is as good a time as any to share my thoughts on the international or foreign wisdom import in the Word of God. The Instruction of Amenemope. Agur son of Jakeh. King Lemuel.

Is there a problem? Is it a deal-breaker, or should I say, faith-breaker, if it has been determined, without a shred of doubt, that parts of Proverbs indeed came from foreign sources? What’s wrong with the world? American planes made from Malaysian parts, British cars made from Chinese parts, and European coffee made from African beans. And now the book of Proverbs has foreign parts as well. The horror!

Before we let the xenophobics organise a protest, I would point you to Numbers 23-24. Here we have the recorded prophecies of Balam, a non-Israelite prophet. I would also point out that the family line of David and thus, Jesus, is also made out of foreign parts, specifically the Moabite Ruth. So the Bible does not give any race, including the Israelites, grounds for racial supremacy.

There is no cause for concern if Proverbs was found to have foreign wisdom literature, if we already recognise God as the source of all wisdom, in Israel and outside of Israel. Some, seeing my lack of panic for the Bible’s integrity, may accuse me of a pre-commitment to God, the Bible and Christianity. What can I say? Pre-commitment God, the Bible and Christianity is a great place to be in.

Coming back to Martin’s book, we have already reached chapter 4, and he has already covered the structure of the whole book of Proverbs. He could stop here. That would make a short book even shorter. But he doesn’t. Martin gives us two more chapters.

Chapter 5 is titled, “The Feminine in the Book of Proverbs”, and Chapter 6, “Wisdom and Theology”.

As an enlightened male, I am happy that we have a dedicated chapter on the feminine in Proverbs. We meet more than a few women in Proverbs: the mother, the adulteress (Proverbs 6), the excellent wife (Proverbs 31), but the woman Martin finds most striking is Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 1-9.

And why wouldn’t he? Let me read Proverbs 8:22-31:

“The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.

Martin asks where she came from.

Again, some scholars look to Egypt, to Maat, the goddess of justice and truth. Why must everything come from Egypt?

Others say that Wisdom in Proverbs 8 reveals a hypostasis, an aspect of the Godhead. I know one cult that would love this to be true, since they worship a Mother-God, which they say is Biblical.

Still other scholars say Lady Wisdom was an ancient Hebrew goddess redefined for Proverbs. Some form of syncretism from Israel’s pagan past.

Towards the end of the chapter, Martin introduces us to the Wisdom of Solomon and its author, Ben Sira. In that book, there is a hymn in praise of wisdom, and Martin tells us there are two things that are significant.

He writes:

The first is that wisdom, so often thought to be of foreign origin and certainly an international phenomenon in the ancient Near East, is here firmly indigenized in Israel.

Thank you, Ben Sira.

The second thing is these words found in the Wisdom of Solomon:

All this is the book of the covenant of God Most High,
the law laid on us by Moses,
a possession for the assemblies of Jacob.

Martin writes:

Not only has wisdom been firmly located in Israel, but she is here unequivocally identified with Torah (‘the book of the covenant … the law …’). Often wisdom is thought of as marginal in relation to Torah, to the saving history, to the phenomenon of prophecy (a point to which I shall return), but for Ben Sira this is not the case. Wisdom is as fundamental for him as is the covenant between God and his people, the covenant of which Torah is the binding agent.

My biggest concern with the book and the writer is found in the conclusion to this chapter. Let’s see whether you can tell where my problem lies. Martin writes:

It may well be, too, that in this gradual transformation of the personified wisdom of Prov. 1:20–33 and 8:1–36 into the almost divine figure of the Wisdom of Solomon — via Ben Sira 24:8 with its reference to the dwelling (lit. ‘tenting’) of wisdom in Jacob/Israel and the imagery of 1 En. 42:1–2 where wisdom fails to find a dwelling among the sons of men — we see something of the origins of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, where the Logos (‘word’) becomes flesh and dwells (lit. ‘tents’) among humankind (Jn 1:14), by whom he is ultimately rejected, among whom he finds no home (Jn 1:11).

If Martin sees the origins of the incarnation in the gradual transformation of the personified wisdom of Proverbs into the almost divine figure of the Wisdom of Solomon, if he sees the origins of the incarnation here, then he may be a Bible scholar, but he is not a believer.

In case you don’t know, there is a theory that religions evolve. From more barbaric forms, which may include animal or human sacrifices, to more enlightened forms, more acceptable to civilised senses. So religion progresses forward as people develop it further.

This is antithetical to the Christian faith. We believe the origins of the incarnation to be heavenly and, as Scripture tells us, reveals to us, before the foundation of the world. While there is much we can learn from James Martin, unfortunately, if he is a non-believer, we must always keep in mind that he is pre-committed to a worldview hostile to Christian’s.

Wisdom and Theology

I will end this book review with a reflection on the last chapter.

Chapter 6 is the shortest chapter in the book. This is how Martin starts the chapter:

One of the characteristics of the wisdom literature is its almost total lack of reference to or apparent interest in either the historical contexts in which ancient Israel found herself or the cult of the Jerusalem temple which was so much the focal point of Israel’s religious practices. These ahistorical and acultic aspects of the wisdom literature not only make the wisdom books themselves almost impossible to date with any degree of accuracy, but they have also led to their marginalization in terms of Old Testament theology. Because of their lack of interest in Israel’s salvation history or the cult of the temple, they have been felt to have little or nothing to contribute to the general theological perspectives of the Old Testament.

Martin is right. I can’t remember the last time I looked up a commentary on Proverbs. I just never found a need. Since I seldom read books on Proverbs, it also means I have little to compare this book with. What it has in its favour is that it’s only 106 pages long, and it covers the structure of Proverbs well.

Ordinarily, I would recommend this book as a starter before you preach or teach a series on Proverbs, but reading Martin’s views on the origins of the Incarnation has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Ironically, we would do well to pay attention to how Martin ends his book. He tells us there is a disconnect between wisdom and theology. Wisdom is often neglected. It doesn’t have to be.

One of the scholars Martin references, Roland E. Murphy, “made some suggestions for the theological role of wisdom in the context of Old Testament and biblical theology”. Martin lists five; I will just mention one here.

The concept of “the fear of the Lord”, which is pervasive in Proverbs, is “the fundamental principle of all life”. Many bad decisions and bad theology could be avoided if we all remembered that.

And what better way to end today’s review than with a proverb? Proverbs 9:10:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

This is a Reading and Readers review of Proverbs by James D. Martin. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye.