John G. Gammie
& Leo G. Perdue
1990 Sage

Marco De Pietri – February 2021

John G. Gammie, Leo G. Perdue (eds) 1990 Sage

Gammie 1990 Sage
The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East,
Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns

ToC of Gammie 1990 Sage

Table of Contents

Preface

I. The Sage in Ancient Near Eastern Literature
     The Female "Sage" in Mesopotamian Literature (with an Appendix on Egypt), Rivkah Harris
     The Sage in Egyptian Literature, Ronald J. Williams
     The Sage in Sumerian Literature: A Composite Portrait, Samuel Noah Kramer
     The Sage in Akkadian Literature: A Philological Study, Ronald F.G. Sweet
     A Survey and Reading Guide to the Didactic Literature of Ugarit: Prolegomenon to a Study on the Sage, Loren R. Mack-Fisher
     The Sage in Ancient Iranian Literature, James R. Russell

II. The Social Locations and Functions of the Sage
     The Functions of the Sage in the Egyptian Royal Court, Ronald J. Williams
     The Sage in Mesopotamian Palaces and Royal Courts, Ronald F.G. Sweet
     The Scribe (and Sage) in the Royal Court at Ugarit, Loren R. Mack-Fisher
     The Social Significance of Solomon as a Patron of Wisdom, Walter A. Brueggemann
     The Sage in the Liraelite Royal Court, R.N. Whybray
     Sages and Scribes at the Courts of Ancient Iran, James R. Russell
     The Sage in Hellenistic Royal Courts, John G. Gammie
     The Sage in Family and Tribe, Carole R. Fontaine
     The Sage in School and Temple, André Lemaire

III. The Sage in the Wisdom Literature ot the Hebrew Bible
     The Female Sage in Ancient Israel and in the Biblical Wisdom Literature, Claudia V. Camp
     The Sage in Proverbs, James L. Crenshaw
     The Sage in the Psalms, Anthony R. Ceresko
     Job as a Sage, Samuel Terrien
     The Sage and Pious Wisdom in the Book of Job: The Friends' Perspective, Rainer Albertz
     The Sage in Ecclesiastes ancd Qohelet the Sage, Roland E. Murphy

IV. The Sage in Other Biblical Texts
     The Sage in the Pentateuch: Soundings, Tikva Frymer-Kensky
     The Sage in Deuteronomistic History, P. Kyle McCarter Jr.
     The Sage in the Prophetic Literature, Raymond C. Van Leeuwen
     The Sage, the Scribe, and Scribalism in the Chronicler's Work, Joseph Blenkinsopp

V. The Sage from Before the Close of the Hebrew Canon to Post-biblical Times
     The Sage in Hellenistic Philosophical Literature (399 B.C.E-199 C.E.), George B. Kerferd
     The Sage in Select Hellenistic and Roman Literary Genres (Philosophic Epistles, Political Discourses, History, Comedy,
          and Romances), Benjamin Fiore
     The Sage in the Apocalyptic and Pseudepigraphic Literature, John J. Collins
     The Sage in Sirach, John G. Gammie
     The Sage in the Literature of Qumran: The Functions of the Maśkīl, Carol A. Newsom
     The Sage as Mystic in the Wisdom of Solomon, David Winston
     Jesus as Sage: An Innovating Voice in Common Wisdom, Bernard Brandon Scott
     The Early Rabbinic Sage, Steven D. Fraade

VI. The Symbolic Universe of the Sage
     From Scribalism to Rabbinism: Perspectives on the Emergence of Classical Judaism, Michael Fishbane
     Cosmology and the Social Order in the Wisdom Tradition, Leo G. Perdue
     From Prudentialism to Apocalypticism: The Houses of the Sages amid the Varying Forms of Wisdom, John G. Gammie

General topic(s)
of the book

“This volume seeks to make a modest contribution to the intellectual and social history of Israel and the ancient Near East. As the title of the volume suggests, the focus is upon those wise men and women in ancient Israel who composed Israel's wisdom literature, counseled her kings, and consoled – and sought to guide – her people on the basis of Israel's sapiential tradition. The debate over the identity of the sages in Israel has largely centered on the question of whether they were primarily intelligent individuals who functioned in a variety of social roles and locations, or whether they were a professional class active mainly in the court, temple, and school and who shaped their own distinctive literary and philosophical tradition.
As is well known, the Israelite and Jewish composers in the sapiential tradition drew deeply upon literary and social models from the ancient Near East. To begin to formulate, therefore, conceptions of the Israelite sage and of the sage in emerging Judaism, it is requisite to take note of how the female and male sage elsewhere in the ancient Near East functioned and viewed the world. Accordingly, the first section of this volume is devoted to an examination of the sage as he or she appears in ancient Near Eastern literature, while the second section carries forward that examination to the social location to inquire how the sage functioned in royal court, family, tribe, and school. Sections three and four are devoted to an exploration of how the sage is portrayed in Israel's wisdom literature and in other biblical texts. The fifth section of the volume presses the inquiry concerning the portrait of the sagE' into Hellenistic- and to a limited extent, Roman-philosophy and literature, as well as into two deuterocanonical wisdom texts, select apocalyptic and pseudepigraphic texts, Qumran, the New Testament, and finally a noted rabbinical text” (from Preface, p. ix).

Extended summary of Gammie 1990 Sage

«“This volume seeks to make a modest contribution to the intellectual and social history of Israel and the ancient Near East. As the title of the volume suggests, the focus is upon those wise men and women in ancient Israel who composed Israel’s wisdom literature, counseled her kings, and consoled – and sought to guide – her people on the basis of Israel’s sapiential tradition” (from the Preface). With 37 contributions from an international pool of authors, each of whom is known for his/her contributions in the area assigned, the volume is intended to provide comprehensive coverage of the state of research and point to further direction for investigation» (from editor’s webpage).

This miscellanea collects many contributions describing how sages where defined and perceived in ancient Israel, and how they actually acted on a cultural, social and political level, presenting also a comparative approach on ancient Mesopotamia.

Excerpts from Gammie 1990 Sage

NOTE: The notes in square brackets and in smaller font are by the author of this excerpts page.

Sages in Mesopotamian court; the king

Topic	Page	Author	Excerpt
Sages in Mesopotamian court; the king	pp. 99, 101	Sweet	In my previous essay in this volume it was shown that *the king must be regarded as the sage – the "wise man" – par excellence* in Mesopotamian society, at least if the evidence of Akkadian literature is taken at face value. The normal center of the king's activities was the palace, which comprised both administrative and residential quarters. Thus the proposition that the sage in Mesopotamia was normally associated with the royal court, which is the thesis of the present essay, is, with regard to the chief exemplar of wisdom in Mesopotamian tradition, simpy a corollary of what was said about the king. The king necessarily had to depend upon subordinates for the execution of his wishes and thus became the great patron of science, technology, and the crafts. The palace must always has been the principal provider for the arts and sciences in the land, outstripping the other obvious candidates for this honor, the temples, because these themselves depended on the generosity of the king. The palace was thus a natural center for experts – the wise – of every kind**.

Akkadian sages

Topic	Page	Author	Excerpt
Akkadian sages	p. 45	Sweet	This essay has two purposes: first, to identify the Akkadian words that can be translated "wise man" (sage), "wise", and "wisdom" (what will be called the vocabulary of wisdom); and, second, to establish the classes of person to whom these terms were applied in Mesopotamian society as reflected in Akkadian literature. The question to be answered is: Who was called wise and who was said to possess wisdom?. Since the ultimate point of reference for the essays in this volume is the sage in ancient Israel, the Akkadian terms selected will be those that mean "wise" in the general sense of Hebrew ḥākām. For this word BDB [Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon] recognizes the following meanings: (1) skillful in technical work, (2) wise in the administration of affairs, (3) shrewd, crafty, cunning, (4) pl. class of learned and shrewd men, including astrologers, magicians, and the like, (5) prudent, (6) wise, ethically and religiously. The dominant concerns of the present volume tempt one to restrict attention to the possihle Akkadian correspondences of items (4) and (6) in this list of meanings, and in particular to the latter's sub-meaning b(2): "as a wise teacher, a sage." But this would allow a preconceived notion of what is meant by "wise man," and allow a notion taken from another culture, to determme the selection of the Akkadian evidence and would risk distorting the testimony of the Mesopotamian sources. Mesopotamian ideas as to who might be called wise may have differed from those of ancient Israel.

Sages in Israel

Topic	Page	Author	Excerpt
Sages in Israel	p. 133	Whybray	*The terms wise (ḥākām) and wisdom (ḥokmâ) in biblical Hebrew are not restricted to one class or group of persons, but refer to natural intelligence or to acquired skill*. So in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes the wise person is regrularly contrasted quite generally with the fool. Even in the animal world certain creatures are credited with wisdom (Prov 6:6-8, 30:24-28), while of one it is stated that its creator has mysteriously deprived it of wisdom (Job 39:13-17). In the sense or an acquired skill, wisdom may be applied to a variety of specialized occupations: seamanship (Ps 107:27), professional mourning (Jer 9:17 [MT 9:16]), snake charming (Ps 58:5 [MT 6]), house building (Prov 24:3), craftsmanship (Exod 31:3-4, 1 Kgs 7:14), magic and divination (Dan 1:20), and the interpretation of dreams (Gen 41:8). [Note that wisdom is sometimes personified ("Wisdom", חָכְמָה in Hebrew, speaking in the first-singular person) in the Tanakh (mostly, in the "Book of the Proverbs", as e.g. in Prov. 8) and in some texts (as in the composition known as "Ben Sira" [for which see Martone 1997 Ben Sira] and in Scroll 11QPs) found at Qumran and Masada]

Sumerian sages

Topic	Page	Author	Excerpt
Sumerian sages	p. 31	Kramer	*"Before the Flood" there were, according to a Sumero-Akkadian tradition of a much later day, sages known as abgals, such as Adapa, who brought culture and civilization to Sumer and humankind. But virtually nothing is known of these abgals*, and what little is known is vague, legendary, and obscure. The first true sages, one may surmise, were the temple priests and administrators in the city of Erech [i.e., Uruk] who, toward the end of the fourth millennium B.C.E., originated the semipictographic system of writing, together with an embryonic system of teaching related to these newly invented signs. Very real sages too were no doubt the later high temple functionaries in the various cities of Sumer who transformed these semipictographic signs of their predecessors into a phonetic system of syllabic and ideographic script, and developed the educational system that this transformation required. But nothing is known of these early sages except what can be surmised or inferred from the hundreds of administrative tablets that have been recovered from these early days.

Sages at Ugarit

Topic	Page	Author	Excerpt
Sages at Ugarit	pp. 67-68	Mack-Fisher	Students of Ugaritic literature know that Ugarit was a great center of learning; they know that Ugarit has yielded a rich treasure of didactic literature. For some strange reason this common knowledge has not penetrated the writings of most biblical scholars – not even the writings of those who specialize in wisdom literature. It was excusable but inaccurate in 1955 for W.F. Albright [see Albright 1960 Wisdom] to say that "we do not possess any didactic literature from Ugarit," but why has this statement been repeated so many times? I thought that after 1968, when the bulk of this material was published by Jean Nougayrol and Emmanuel Laroche in Ugaritica V [see Ugaritica V], the statement by Albright would no longer influence the thought and writings of modern scholars. But this was not the case. Instead the statement is often used with little modification except to introduce the confusion of the terms Canaanite and Ugaritic [...]. This statement requires correction and points to the need for a brief reading guide on the didactic literature of Ugarit. In the present guide I will include items that most scholars would include, but at a later time it may be important to subtract from or add to this list. Some of the texts that are listed in this guide will also be discussed.

Solomon as sage

Topic	Page	Author	Excerpt
Solomon as sage	pp. 117-118	Brueggemann	The relationship between Solomon and wisdom is much disputed in recent scholarly discussion. A part of the dispute concerns the categories in which to consider the redationship of Solomon to wisdom. It makes a great deal of difference if the question is treated in terms of literary, historical, or sociocultural categories. The literary evidence for Solomon as a patron of wisdom is not extensive, nor is it difficult to identify. First, the literary evidence concerns texts embedded in the "history of Solomon" as it is portrayed in the deuteronomistic account of 1 Kings 3-11. Four texts are important: (a) 1 Kgs 3:3-14, Solomon's inaugural dream and prayer in which he prays for wisdom to govern, (b) 1 Kgs 3:16-28, a narrative in which Solomon is reported to exercise wisdom in the execution of royal justice, (c) 1 Kgs 4:29-34 [MT 5:9-14], in which Solomon is credited with the production of encyclopedic proverbs, and (d) 1 Kgs 10:1-13, concerning the visit of the queen of Sheba in which Solomon's wisdom is closely related to his power and wealth. A literary analysis of these texts requires close attention to the question of genre. It is immediately clear that these narratives reflect common narrative tendencies and strategies, so that the events reported are to be regarded as stereotypical, marked by literary convention, with evidence of legendary or fictional development or both. Thus the first narrative belongs to the genre of inaugural dream, the second is a standard and recurring example of juridical cunning, and the fourth is filled with propagandistic comparisons betweencompeting royal figures. It may well be that none of these narratives will carry the weight expected of a factual historical report of a concrete event. In any case whatever happened historically is cast in a narrative form, which makes factuality precarious. R.B.Y. Scott (closely followed by James Crenshaw) has concluded that these texts provide no substantive basis for linking Solomon historically to the enterprise of wisdom. Moreover, each of these texts likely serves an interest other than the assertion of a sapiential function, that is, the legitimacy and success of the monarchy. In short, they are rendered imaginatively and function intentionally as propaganda.

Role of women

Topic	Page	Author	Excerpt
Role of women	p. 3	Harris	Mesopotamia was a traditional patriarchal culture whose traditions are chiefly known through male authors and male-oriented visual malerials. The evidence suggests that in Mesopotamia home, family, and domestic life were central and crucial to women. The arenas for male status and public prestige – palace, military, and priestly offices were largely, if not entirely, closed to women. Inasnmch as education was a significant avenue to power and status, lack of educational opportunities was then, as it always has been, a way of curtailing female influence and authority. Although neither Ancient Mesopotamian nor Egyptian women lived the sexually dimorphic or circumscribed lives such as those lived by women in classical Athens, "real women, like other muted groups, are not to be found so much in the explicit text of the historical record as in its gaps and silences."

Mesopotamian Religion

8. Excerpts

John G. Gammie& Leo G. Perdue1990 Sage