Date

9-19-2024

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Chair

Curtis Fitzgerald

Keywords

wisdom, city, genre, political, polity, political theology, Proverbs, canonical reading

Disciplines

Religion

Abstract

The contemporary conversation surrounding the wisdom genre shows a lack of consensus regarding the origin, nature, and biblical use of wisdom. This situation can be improved through reading the biblical wisdom genre politically, revealing the principles that create and sustain a God-fearing society. The hermeneutical key to accomplish this task begins with the claim that the book of Proverbs presents itself as a ‘city in a book.’ The outline of Proverbs, especially via the first nine chapters, introduces coherence between the concept of wisdom and an archetypal city. Second, the book provides a transformative engine, which can be found in the interplay between Proverbs chapters 1-9 (the prologue) and chapters 10-31 (the wisdom collection). Proverbs chapters 10-31, through its transformative and performative rhetoric, seeks to manifest the city ideal found in chapters 1-9. This mechanism creates a hermeneutical model by providing strategies and patterns for reading wisdom throughout the rest of Scripture. A popular academic slogan observes that the biblical narrative begins with a garden yet concludes with the establishment of a city. This intriguing observation invites the reader into the complexity of the text from beginning to end. But it also posits a significant question: What transforms the garden into the city? This dissertation will answer that question with one word: wisdom.

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