Review of An Obituary for "Wisdom Literature" by Will Kynes
Judd, Andrew. ‘Review of An Obituary for “Wisdom Literature”: The Birth, Death, and Intertextual Reintegration of a Biblical Corpus, by Will Kynes’. JETS 63.4 (2020): 857–59.
In his Obituary for “Wisdom Literature,” Will Kynes makes a provocative and persuasive case for abandoning the concept of a distinct canonical corpus centered on Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. His title, dramatic though it sounds, is no clickbait. Using sound historical detective-work, modern genre theory, and a compelling intertextual reading of the standard Wisdom texts, Kynes gives good reasons for concluding that the modern genre designation of “Wisdom Literature” is limiting or even distorting our reading of the Bible. Finding wisdom themes throughout the canon is not the problem; it is the rigid categorization of certain texts as one thing — Wisdom Literature — that flattens texts, slices up the canon, and cordons off scholarly sub-specialties. While rigidly applied, the taxonomy is also ironically impossible to define, exacerbating the problem:
reliance on a vague, abstract, ill-defined, circularly justified, modernly developed, and extrinsically imposed definition of the category has enabled scholars to extend the boundaries of Wisdom Literature infinitely, leading to a pan-sapiential epidemic in biblical scholarship. (p. 1)
Wisdom Literature, it seems, has gone viral – and not in a good way. It is a poignant image for a book published on the eve of a global pandemic.
Part I provides a “patient history” for the deceased, tracing the development of the Wisdom Literature category from its conception in mid-nineteenth-century German post-Enlightenment philosophy to its dominance today. Chapter 1 surveys the current state of the Wisdom sub-specialty, showing how intrinsic definitional problems have created its virulent tendency. We can avoid calling everything Wisdom only by appealing to our own critical consensus. Chapter 2 seeks in vain to find any evidence of the category in ancient interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Chapter 3, then, is a historical whodunnit, ultimately naming Johann Bruch and his 1851 Weisheits-Lehre der Hebräer as the “Wellhausen of Wisdom” — patient zero of the pandemic. This late date for the emergence of the category, and the “suspicious correspondence … between the post-Enlightenment ideals of his time and the traits Bruch associates with Wisdom Literature” (p. 5), are both striking, and the case is methodical. The diagnosis of “sapiential appendicitis,” and the prognosis that Wisdom Literature has outlived its usefulness as a tool of modern scholarship, begins to sink in.
Yet how did this troublesome category become so successful, so quickly? Part II provides an answer in the form of a welcome exploration of modern Genre Theory, showing how widely held and inadequate conceptions of genre have plagued biblical studies since Gunkel, advancing the unstoppable careers of untenable taxonomies. Chapter 4 enlists modern Genre theory to free us from the tyranny of taxonomy, revealing how a single text can relate to multiple genres at once. Wisdom is a connection between texts, but seldom the only one.
What is unique to Kynes’ approach is the way he customizes his version of modern Genre Theory with other tools of the modern Theory trade — networks, emergence, and conceptual blending. The metaphor of a constellation of stars helps explain the selective, self-reflective, and subjective nature of genre identifications: the stars (texts) are really there, but different observers will connect the dots to form different and even overlapping constellations (genre identifications). This makes genres “inevitably selective, self-reflective, and subjective phenomena” (p. 12). Wisdom Literature, mourned as a dead taxonomic category, is resurrected as a genre — with all the flexibility and subjectivity that modern Genre Theory offers: “The death of Wisdom Literature will be new life for wisdom” (p. 18). This deals a fatal blow to much of Form Criticism’s project, particularly attempts to reconstruct with confidence the sagely schools behind the production of so-called Wisdom Literature.
Biblical Genre Theory is notoriously underdeveloped, so this chapter is one of the book’s most exciting and unique contributions. Naturally, then, it raises some unresolved questions. Does seeing genre as “the formalization of intertextual comparisons made by a group of readers” (p. 57) collapse genre into any intertextual link in the reader’s mind, or is genre more than mere intertextuality? Are genre groupings as subjective as the constellation metaphor might imply, or (with Ricoeur, Jauss, Fowler, and Gerhart) can we see genre as a relatively stable bridge between the intention and reception of a work?
Part III shows us a glimpse into Wisdom’s possible afterlife. So far, Kynes’ argument has assumed that pointing out the circularity of the Wisdom Literature category is itself a damning indictment (pp. 3, 26, 142, 151, 204, 253, etc.). However, we know from Gadamer (who supplies chapter 1’s epigraph) that circularity in hermeneutics is always unavoidable, and sometimes constructive. To ditch a hermeneutical category like Wisdom Literature we should be convinced that it is not only circular but also gets in the way of reading. This is why Part III is crucial to Kynes’ argument: it demonstrates beautifully the payoffs for reading the Wisdom texts in relation to a broader range of biblical texts than the traditional taxonomy allows. This continues Kynes’ work since at least 2012, which has consistently argued that the Wisdom Literature category obscures as much as it reveals
If wisdom is a possible conceptual relation between texts, rather than the taxonomy for a certain group of texts, then why not look for connections between Job and historical texts, or Ecclesiastes and legal texts, or Proverbs and Psalms? Chapters 5, 6, and 7 explore Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs respectively in relation to the new intertextual possibilities opened up by Kynes’ “network” approach. The result each time is a richer reading of the text, with greater integration into the canon. The depths of Job’s complex negotiations with legal, covenantal, prophetic, praise and lament traditions are sounded. Qoheleth’s carefully woven fabric is preserved, the generic and thematic strands un-frayed. Proverbs returns from international exile to resume its theological conversation with the canon’s broader theological conversation.
In contrast, the distorting effects of the conventional category are shown starkly: canonical resonances unheard, theological notes soft-pedalled, scholarly circles arbitrarily closed. A memorable example is in chapter 5, where Kynes examines how commentators from Chrysostom to Wilson have dealt with the parallel verses in Psalm 107:40 and Job 12:21, 24. Alarmingly, it turns out that since Gunkel the Psalms and Job sub-specialties have barely been talking to each other, despite the obvious commonality.
If Kynes is right, then there is a word of wisdom here for all biblical scholars — not just Wisdom Literature specialists. How is it that supposedly “critical” scholarship could have rested so un-critically, for so long, on the unexamined presuppositions of a forgotten German? Critical thinking surely begins by being self-critical, and so Kynes has done the field of Biblical Studies an enormous service by raising these questions.
It remains to be seen whether Wisdom program units and seminary courses will dutifully dissolve themselves on reading their Obituary. I note that Kynes himself, practicing what he preaches, has renamed his “Wisdom Literature” course at Samford to “Wisdom in the Bible and Beyond”. Whether others follow suit, or not, it will be hard to write or teach on Wisdom Literature now without engaging with Kynes’ forceful argument.
Andrew Judd
Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia
