50 MODERN BIDLICAL STUDIES
Rahner's speculation invites the exegete to examine the prob­
Sapiential and Covenant Themes
in Genesis 2-3*
LUIS ALONSO-SCHOKEL, S.J.
Father Alonso-SchOkel, professor of Biblical Theology at
the Pontific�Biblical
Institute, has specialized in the application of modem theories
of literacy criticism
to biblical texts. Here is an example of the technique of
literary analysis and
the study of literary form. He has also applied his expertise in
in his book, The Inspired \Vord, the standard study of the
this area brilliantly
tl1eological import
of t11e word.
In an article of Lexikon fiir Theologie und Kirche, Karl Rahner
offers a theory concerning the origin of the knowledge of origi­
nal sin. Presupposing the dogmatic fact of original sin, 11e specu­
lates on the mental process and the literary datum of Gn 2-3.
With terminology all his own he distinguishes etiological nar­
ratives of fiction and etiological narratives of fact. Etiology
explains an actual human state through a return to an original
cause. This cause can be either an event that really occurred,
or a creation of the imagination on the basis of a reality which
is not historical but may be profoundly psychological and onto­
logical. This path of asi:;ending explanation is readily accepted
in other cases - e.g., the unity of the human race, or the
equality of the sexes - and could be admitted in the case of
original sin. When a sacred writer follows this path, (a) the
general light of revelation and the specific inspiration can
guarantee the discovery of the fact; (b) the narrative does not
reflect the appearance of the original phenomenon, but rather
the literary or historical world of the author's experience; and
(c) the narrative reflects the actual situation of man.
• "Motivos sapienciales y de alianza en Gn 2-3," Bibiica 43 (1962) 295-315.
468
lem by way of literary analysis. In the exegetical field Rabner
was anticipated by A.-M. Dubarle's Sages of Israel. Its first
chapter is devoted to the Genesis creation-narratives, whose
author is virtually thus equated with the sapientials. Dubarle
shows that the ingrained pattern of tracing a tribe back to its
antecedents leads ultimately back to antecedents of the whole
human race. In another volume, on original sin, Dubarle shows
how Genesis must first trace "the human condition" as the
framework in which the fall has its setting. Something of a
sage himself, Dubarle retraces the path from the universal fact
to the original fact. Compared with the minimalizing of some
exeaetes
b 1 the method of Dubarle offers solid and rich results.
Faithful to the mentality which he is explaining, he shows more
concern for the downward movement of that which is trans­
mitted from father to son, than for the upward movement of
how to retrace it by inference from effect to cause.
The narratives are expressed largely in mythic terms, but
these are incidental rather than a cause of the author's ideas.
Nor will Dubarle allow that the narratives are due to a faith­
fully transmitted primal revelation. Rather, by a process simila�
to that by which other peoples have created myths, Israel has
creatively recaptured history. The original fact has been recon­
structed by reasoning and imagination, guided by faith. in Yah­
weh. Thus Dubarle as exegete got to the same explanation of
the thought-procedures of the author of Gn 2-3 which would
be later attained by Rahner from the dogmatic theology
approach.
Almost simultaneous with Dubarle's work are the insights of
H. Renckens, using a more strictly exegetical process and not
focusing precisely on the theme of original sin. Israel's historical
experience of Yahweh have given her definite convictions. The
sacred writer offers us a synthesis of the Yahwist conception,
though h.e also uses literary motifs from a wide tradition. He
arrives at the original fact, not by copying a primal tradition
transmitted intact, nor by receiving a new and explicit revela­
tion, but by a reflection illumined by faith in various ways.
469
 SAPIENTIAL AND COVENANT TIIE�ms JN GENESIS 2-3 51 52 MODERN BIIlLICAL STUDIES

Thus far the most significant parallel is Ezek 28: 12-19, an

Renckens notes the broad mental context of the author of Gn
elegy for the prince of Tyre involving such myth{cal motifs
2-3 as parallel with the sapiential and especially with the
as the garden of God, rich garments, divine mountain, sons of
prophetic literature.
God, sin and expulsion. John McKenzie considers this parallel
vVhile acknowledging in these three authors a richness which
as a variant form of the story of the first man. It is more
I have only touched upon here, I hope to advance a step
mythical in character, though both are original pieces of He­
upon Rahner excgctically and upon Dubarle and Renckens
brew tradition. Motif gives greater assurance than mere struc­
epistemologically. Hurnani Gen eris proposed two points: that
ture in literary analysis. The text, whether of Genesis or of
Gn 2-3 is true history in the Sense that it narrates facts that
Ezekiel, is not a myth and does not elaborate one or other
�
really happene , and that exegetes must find out more fully
. previous myths; rather it incorporates in its history mythical
�
w at type of hist?rr it
.
. 1s.
.
We must for clarity's sake keep in
motifs.
mmd the basic distmchon between revelation and inspiration.
In contrast with other biblical settings, such as the historical
Wh �t we kn?w from Gn 2-3 or anywhere else in Scripture is
traditions of the monarchy, the exploits of the Judges, or the
God s revelation to us; but the charisma of inspiration by which
epic of the conquest, Gn 2-3 carries us to a marvelous world
God convey� his message to us need not have been accompanied
in a primordial time and a fairyland space, with magic trees, a
by a revelation to the inspired writer.
tal}dng serpent, and a God who forms clay and breathes into it,
To deter?1ine further the specific type of history with which
then extracts a woman from a slumbering mate. This poetic
we are dealing, we must use literary analysis. This is not merely
tonality raises the question: If we had discovered the story
�
statistics of voc�bulary, ut embraces structures and mentality
in the literature of Babylonia, Egypt, or Canaan, would we not
as :"'ell We will examine the alleged mythic material, the
: just call it "myth" without further ado? Really we are dealing
s�p1enb�l me�tality, the experience of salvation-history. That
with a series of questions regarding "origins," concretely con­
history itself is structured proximately by the covenant, but
cerning the major themes of earth, life, fertility, and death.
��re
. . amply by the sequence: covenant-sin-punishment-recon­ Alongside them are ranged subordinate queries such as c1othes
c1habon. As a final contribution, we will characterize the
and work. To cope with these inquiries, there seems. to have
mental pattern of getting back to origins as an "ascent by
been fashioned a narrative that takes place outside of normal
triangulation."
time and place, with God as one of the cast - all of which
The effort to explain Gn 2-3 as myth is not dead as an
might indicate that the story is a myth. However, such a con­
y
article of J. Dus most recently shows. Vocabulary, st le, and
clusion would be based on false initial reasoning. It would be
themes are pressed to confinn the probability of mythical in­
reading the text out of context, and in a mentai context not
fluen�es from Canaanite mythology. The text, moreover, reveals
only distinct from but opposite to its view of history.
a senes of breaks which are better explained if the text is an
Any explanation of Gn 2-3 as a mere recasting of a previous
elaboration of previous matter rather than an original creation.
myth or two, is a postulate rather than an explanation. The
Dus bases much of his interpretation upon the precarious
. undeniable presence of mythical motifs and the quasi-mythical
process of con1ectural reconstruction. The literary text is ex­
. tonality partially account for some intriguing incidentals while
plamed by comparison with a model, which in turn had been
leaving many essentials unexplained.
extracted conject �rally fro� the text. Since there is no really
In the beginning his array of the sages of Israel with the
parallel text outside the Bible, we end up with nothing more
than a circular proof of what we had constructed.
471

470
 2-3
SAPIENTIAL AND COVENANT 11-IEM:ES IN GENESIS 53
author of Gn 2-3, Dubarle declares that this author is not a
prophet appealing to a revelation for the content of his oracle·
nor is he � historian with access to court archives. He is a sage:
who exammes the good and evil of men and employs human
. not call Adam a sage, the tradition attested by Ezek 28 and Job
reflecbo� as the ins�rument of his intellectual progress. Coppens
. .
�n?s this sap1enbahsm as explained by Dubarle exaggerated, but
it is supported and even strengthened by statistical studies of
Humbert and Renckens.
"K�owledge of good and evil" is a sapiential motif. Jesus
ben S1rach described the sage as one "knowing the good and
evil of men" (Sir 39:4). This discernment is not lacking in
. slyness traps only the woman; but the wise Adam, like Solomon,
other professions; .the priests could well distinguish between
"good and evil" offerings (Lv 27). Moses proposes to the
people "the life and the good, the death and the evil" (Dt
30:15) - good and evil as specified terms of the covenant. This
agrees with Israel's specific definition of "wisdom and under­
standing," which is living with God and the precepts of the
covenant (Dt 4:6-8). But this sapiential quest is for knowl­
edge of good and evil taken in their generic meaning. This
search can lead to the extreme experience of good exemplified
by Qoheleth, but also to the extreme experience of evil as suf­
fered by Job. In Gn 2-3, it is true, the characteristic word ·for
wisdom (hokmah) is not present, and thus Adam's knowledge
before the sin �eems to be t�e knowledge of good only, though
. open before him and is alluding to it, not altogether in agree­
after the sm his knowledge is of good and evil. Another inter­
pretation is possible: The author assumes a tone of challenge
as if to say, "Your knowledge consists in living with God and
observing his command" (Dt 4:6-8), or "If they do not value
the word of Yahweh, where is their wisdom?" (Jer 8:9). At
any rate one of the central points of Gn 2-3 - the knowledge
of good and evil - is of sapiential origin.
A second motif: The serpent was "shrewd." The editor of
Proverb� explai �s in his prologue the diverse qualities and
. tually ignored by the prophets - has been .pondered and com­
virtues mto wluch I10kmab is divided, and the typic;al literary
�en:es. The snake possesses "slyness," a sapicntial quality which
is either perverse shrewdness or tactful cleverness. The context
472
54 MODERN BIBLICAL STIJDIES
could mean that the serpent was shrewd; the rest of the animals
were not. In fact it appears as different from them, as a mind
reader and siren.
Third motif (perhaps): the sage. Though the narrative does
15:6-7 would suggest this interpretation. Adam is presented as
an authentic sage, because he was the first to make up lists or
classifications of reality, such as were prized in Egypt and
Babylon and in Solomon's case ( l Kg 5). The sage's art of
coining maxims or proverbs is not far from the dexterity Adam
showed. in naming his wife (isM from 1sh Gn 2: 23). Snaky
can be felled by love.
A fourth sapiential motif: the detailed discussion of the four
rivers. In general, the transcending of the closed horizon of the
people to meditate on the whole of humanity has much of the
sapiential attitude, and partially coincides with the illuminism
noted in the time of Solomon and his Near East neighbors.
Along with the world-view is the attention given to the ordinary
world of the family, clothing, food and work. Preoccupation
with the simple life of the domestic hearth is one of the favorite
sapiential themes, as many refrains of proverbs and many chap­
ters of Sirach show. The alphabetic poem at the end of the book
of Proverbs leads one to suspect that the author has Gn 2-3
ment. Eve really behaves as naively as those who "believe
anybody" (Pr 14:15) do not know how to defend themselves
from danger (22: 3) and end up in real trouble ( l : 32).
The stylistic dexterity of Gn 2-3, its play upon words,
psychological penetration, and reserve are characteristic of al­
most all biblical authors. But only in the wisdom-corpus do we
find explicit commendation of the literary knack (Pr 1, Ee
12, 1 Kg 5, Sir 39). Finalty, note how often Gn 2-3- vir·
mented on by the wisdom authors. They found a congenial
theme in the enigma of evil and of universal sin.
It would be wrong to imagine either that all wisdom themes
473
 SAPIENTIAL AND COVENANT THEMES IN GENESIS 2-3 55
are present in Gn 2-3, or that the ones which are explain all its
problems. After all, the creation account is a narrative, not a
collection of maxims. The insight of Adam and Eve is �ot called
wisdom, and is more of a snare than a blessing. Nevertheless we
find in the wisdom motifs a guidepost to further inquiry.
In bare skeleton the narrative of the two chapters is: God
creates Adam, brings him to a g<1rden, presents him with an­
imals, a wife, and some trees; then lays upon him a command
under sanction. Adam and his wife rebel. After a brief trial,
God condemns them, but does not break with them totally.
More concisely: God gives benefits and imposes a precept; man
rebels; God punishes, then reconciles. What is the source of
this narrative pattern? Derivation from myths has failed. The
narrative of Gn 2-3 is simply the classical outline of salvation
history. There is a minor pattern, that of the covenant. The
benefits of God appear in historical prologue; then come the
requirements in the apodictic form of blessings and curses.
This minor pattern turns out to serve as the first of three or
four acts in a drama: covenant, sin, punishment, reconciliation.
In Gn 2-3 we have a perfect example of that larger pattern; the
covenant sub-pattern is present only partially.
The divine initiative first confers benefits. Man is created in
a neutral terrain; then God plants a garden and brings man in.
"He picked him up and put him" reflects the twofold move­
ment with which the Israelite expressed redemption. He took
them from Egypt and brought them to the promised land.
Moreover, Palestine as the land of God is a kind of paradise.
The tasks imposed upon Adam in the second half of Gn 2:15,
nowhere earlier identified, are to cultivate and keep the land.
These tasks seem out of place in this divine garden, but are
understandable as terms of the covenant and sacred history.
These verbs are technical terms used frequently for the service
of God and observance of the commandments. They express
responsibility, the burden of man faced with the divine initia­
tive. The vocabulary of this verse is thus of great theological
weight. God's gifts and his demand reflect the minor or coven­
ant pattern.
474
56 l\!ODERN DIIlUCAL STUDIES
TI1e next verse makes the covenant theme more explicit by
giving an apodietic precept with a threat, after the gift of the
garden and all the trees. In later verses the animals are created
and brought to Adam; then God takes a rib from Adam and
fashions woman and brings her to Adam. The result is that
man abandons his parents an<l clings to his wife. Here the gift
is not followed by a command. The description of future love
(two verses removed from the appearance of the serpent), ap­
plied to Adam who had no parents to leave, has a resonance
of premonition which is nonetheless familiar from the parenetic
terminology of Dt - a weak resonance, but a key to what fol­
lows. For with the appearance of the third force, the gifts of
companionship and love become a mortal danger - symbolic of
the temptations of the promised land.
The serpent makes a subtle attack upon the divine command.
You shall eat of all the trees (gift) - you shall not eat of the
tree of knowledge (apodictic command) - you will die (threat
or curse). By suppressing mention of the gift, the serpent
makes the command appear arbitrary. Eve correcfs the insinua­
tion and softens the command from apodictic to parenetic.
Then the serpent, by denying the threat outright, reduces the
command to an invidious monopoly. To this attack Eve does
not know how to respond. .She doubts and begins to look at
the tree in another light. This watering down of an apodictic
command of God recurs throughout the history of the people.
But there is not a perfect parallel with other instances: Gn 2-3
does not merely describe a psychological process, but introduces
a third force exterior to man. Before the first sin there was
no inclination to evil; it is the enemy who introduces the
suggestion.
. .
Man's fall is rapid, without resistance, debate, or recnm1-
nation. The terrible experience of Baal Peor at the threshold of
nationhood, then of Solomon near the origins of the dynasty,
and of Ahab with Jezebel, and the insistent preaching of the
Deuteronomist all echo the phrase, "She held it out to the
man, and he took a bite."
The divine inquiry is paralleled by Moses' questioning Aaron
475
 2-3
SAPJENTIAL AND COVENANT TIIEMES IN GENESIS 57
after the sin of Sinai, by Joshua's questioning Achan, by Na­
than's qu�stioning J??vid. The verbs, heard and feared, belong
. explained by returning to an initial deed: "I have been con­
to the religious trad1t10n of Israel and especially to the language
of Dt. Dubarle explained the theological meaning of this new
human attitude toward God. I merely wish to emphasize its
relevance to the vocabulary used for faithfulness to the cov­
enant. The divine verdict too employs the style of the covenant
but all is not finished with punishment and curse. Punishment
remains along with hope. Punishment is mitigated, and the
blessings continue in a minor key. Thus it happened at Sinai
and in the si� of David. The struggle with the serpent brings
the hope of victory; Adam and Eve do not die then and there
but are blessed with fertility, clothing, the fruitfulness of th;
earth fecundated now by their own labor.
If I take a straight, horizontal line and raise from the
extremities two converging lines, I form a triangle which is
suspended from a single point. By an analogous process I can
explain an actual human situation by returning in ascent to the
�in�l� origina� fact which effected it. For example, a group of
md1v1duals with the same surname is reducible to a common
ancestor. Modern historians do not proceed by the simplicity
. only to enter into the promised land that the Lord had de­
of the triangular argumentation characteristic of the Hebrews,
who often argued from a common horizon to a common point
of origin. Dubarle has shown that according to the Israelite
mental�ty sin has consequences for posterity- a descending
dynamism, the tlling wllich is transmitted. For the human
ascertaining of this transmission, mounting upward in the re­
verse direction, Scripture gives only hints, such as tracing the
Calebites to Caleb and the Semites to Sem. I am going to
complete his exposition by setting forth the cognitive remount­
ing to the fact of original sin.
Hosea is a specialist in the mentality of triangular ascent. In
chiding the people he returns "as in the days of Gibeah" (9:9)
and then summarizes the origins of Israel. If the horizon is
Samaria, the sin is the "calf of Bethaven" (10:5); the sins of
Israel date from the time of Gibeah (10:9). If the horizon is
the whole of the chosen people, the prophet returns to Jacob
476
58 MODERN BIBLICAL STUDIES
who supplanted his brother from the womb (12:3).
Psalm 51 has an individual as horizon; his life of sin is
ceived in sin" (cf. Ps 58:4). Psalm 106 is a public confession of
sins: in the introduction the penitents return to the "original"
sin of the people: "vVe have sinned as our fathers" (v. 6);
then there follows an enumeration of the great sins of their
history.
The horizon of Dan 9:11 is the universal sin of Israel which
goes back to the fathers by a stylized history (9:6, 8). The
confession in Ezra 9:7 runs: "From the days of our fathers
up to today we have sinned." The sin of Jeroboam weighs
down the whole history of Israel (1 Kg 12:30, 13:24, 14:16,
15:26 ff; 2 Kg 10:29-31, 17:21 ff).
The ascent to a sin, original in respect to the concrete
horizon, is an Israelite habit. Similarly in the structuring of the.
historical narratives we discover a conscious concern to under­
line a deadly sin at the initial moment. Thus the first action of.
the people of God after the Sinaitic covenant - which made
them a people - was a sin against the most "positive" of the
comm<indments. At the beginning of Dt the Israelites have
livered to them; at this moment a sin is committed against a
positive commandment (1:26, 32). The kingship of Saul begins
with a sin and the northern kingdom with a sin. David scarcely
receives the kingdom for himself and his dynasty when he sins.
Let us now suppose a thinker who extends tl1e horizon to all
of humanity and repeats to himself the words: "For there is no
man who does not sin" (1 Kg 8:46). In pondering this situation
and in searching for an explanation, the natural thing is to
apply the triangular ascent to the origin of all humanity. In
this mental process he does not project a subsequent event back
into the past, nor does ne project back in allegory the experi­
ence of all men. He really returns to the original event. If
history describes the narration of an event that really occurred,
then the narrator is writing history, even though in his method
of investigation and in his exposition he may not be writing
477
 SAPIENTIAL AND COVENANT THEMES IN GENESIS. 2-3 59
the tcclmical history of the nineteenth find twentieth centuries
He arrives by reflection illumined by the historical revelation of
Israel at a fact - not in aU its details or even in its precise
pa�ter�. 1:'o analyze and explain the original fact, the sacred
wnter is aided by his experience of the history of God's mercies
and the sins of his people. He sees the original sin as a rebellion
. in sacred traditions, oral or written, cultic or non-cultic. This
agamst a command of God who had taken the initiative in
giving. And history does not end with total punishment. He
knows by experience that the mercy of God is without end. In
the narrative development the hagiographer gives us the true
meaning of the original event, guaranteed by his inspiration.
Thus the pursuit of Dubarle's exegetical method confirms
his position. But does the literary analysis confirm the theory
of Rabner? We answer point by point: (a) Literary analysis
confin� s that the writer arrived at the discovery of the fact by
reflection upon the actual situation and upon salvation history.
(_b) The exactn�ss of the fact asserted is guaranteed by inspira­
tion. Though literary analysis cannot, of course' arrive at in-
. .
sp1rat10n as an operative element, it can take over the dogmatic
fact and apply it to a literary cadre, in accord with St. Thomas
and r�cent encyclicals. The biblical writer's preliminary inquiries
are direct�d ?Y faith and by the particular gifts of the author;
. narrative. For geography the author uses the basic theme of a
the basic ms1ght occurs "under the liaht of divine truth"·' the
. b
entire subsequent � iterary process is elevated by inspiration.
. sapiental motifs. Along with all this he exploits his own literary
( c) Literary analysis confirms that the point of departure for
reflec�ion is not the abstract nature of man, but the concrete
exper:ence of man in salvation history. ( d) The theory can
�xplam why the paradise narrative appears in terms correspond­
mg to the epoch in which it was written; literary analysis
confirms and renders more precise this observation by revealing
the traces of salvation history in the general pattern of the
. less easily traceable. Perhaps we find a hint in the words akin
narrative. (e) The sapiential tonality ("nothing human is alien
to me") of universal man explains why "the man of all time"
is what we encounter in the story.
However venturesome it may be to try to enter into the mind
of a writer, especially of a writer who lived thirty centuries ago,
I propose to reconstruct hypothetically the creative process of
478
60 MODERN DIDLICAL STUDmS
the author. Since he has left no other clues, literary analysis is
our only path.
An author familiar with the sapiential milieu asks himself:
Where does evil come from? He answers: from sin. And where
does everybody's sin come from? To answer this, he .reflects
upon the religious experience of the chosen people, as it appears
religious world drives him with an ascending force back toward
the origin; and he answers: the sin of all men comes from the
sin at their origin, from the original pair. That inspired answer
he then translates into narrative. For this he employs the
classical pattern of salvation-history, with its profound explana­
tion of sin. The sequence is: God's initiative in giving, categor­
ical precept, rebellion, punishment, mercy, and then the
continuation of history. The author chose this pattern under
the light of inspiration. He cannot content himself with just
another history of his own people in the background of its
familiar neighbors. He transfers the pattern to an elemental
and universally human world of food and dress, of family and
labor - a world that is also transformed into the marvelous by
the. removal of all evil and by the use of mystic motifs. The
verb, to eat, and the theme of food runs through the whole
fenced-in area belonging to God, again with mythical and
genius; and from the first intuition to the full realization, the
author works under the chnrism of inspiration.
Where does he find out that the woman played so prominent
a role in the original sin? Israelite tradition offers sufficient data
in Dt 7: 1-4 and Pr 2 and 5 and ·1. But where does the author
get what he tells about the third force, the serpent? That is
to "listen" and "serpent" in the prohibition of divination (Dt
18:10). But perhaps we arc rather to conclude that it was
simply his own reflection which led the author to realize that
there must have been such a third force in the drama: with
only the human. protagonists, he could not account for what
479
 SAPIENTIAL AND COVENANT THEMES IN CENESIS 2-3 61
METHOD IN DETERMINING WISDOM INFLUENCE
took place. We cannot exclude what he UPON "HISTORICAL" LITERATURE
may have known about
demons and evil spirits (2 Sam 16:14
, 25; 18:10; 19:9) and
�
seducers ( Kg 22: 0-23), though the Gene
� sis concept is much
J. L. CRENSHAW
more precise and difficult to situate with MERCER UNIVERSITY
in the Old Testament
demonological data.
'!- .general difficulty is the dating. According to the common HE influence of wisdom upon nonhagiographic literature is increas­
opm1on, Gn 2-3 is the wo k of the
� ninth-century Yahwist. I
T ingly emphasized. Such kinship is claimed for Gen 1-11, 37, 39-50,
.
propose that the litera Exod 34 s r., Deut, I I Sam 9-20, I Kings 1-2, Amos, Habakkuk, Isaiah,
ry emgma and silence of other books
is
better ex�lained by �ccepting a later comp and Jonah.' Impetus for the new tendency was furnished by von Rad's
osition. provocative study of the Joseph narrative, an article that has been almost
Followmg Rabner s suggestion and
the studies of Dubarle directly responsible for similar claims of wisdom influence upon Esther
and �enckens .1 have attempted to
� deter mine the intellectual and the "succession document."• But the publication of new wisdom
and literary milieu by means of literary
analysis. The theological texts from Mesopotamia and Ugarit and fresh comparison with Egyptian
c?nseque ces ar clear. For th narra
� � � tor the history of flie first wisdom have spurred the trend to unprecedented heights.J The excite­
sm �ertams stnctly to the history of ment of new directions in scholarship has led to exaggerated claims
salvation. Man by his
creation pertains to the earth; by the supported by dubious arguments and assumptions, so that a study of
divine initiative he is
translated to a sacred land. Sin is the methodology in determining wisdom influence is imperative at this
rebellion against a positive
�
command; t e com and is founded on
� the person of God and •For Gen 1-11, R. H. Pfeiffer, "Wisdom and Vision in the Old Testament," ZA W,
rest� upon his previous benefits. Sin
brings on the threatened 52 (1934), pp. 93-101, particularly 97 f.; and J. L. McKenzie, "Reflections on Wisdom,"
pu�1shment, but in the punishment JBL, 86 (1967), pp. 1-9; L. Alonso-Schokel, "Motivos sapienciales y de alianza en
the mercy of God is not
� .
�
enbre y br?ken off. Af er the sin there
begins the long path of
Gen. 2-3," Bib, 43 (1962), pp. 295-316. For Gen 37, 39-50, G. von Rad, "The Joseph
Narrative and Ancient Wisdom," The Problem of the Hexateuch and other Essays, 1966,
salvat10n-h1sto . Sm 1s social; the wom
z:y . an brings sin to her pp. 292-300, originally published in SVT, 1, 1953. For Exod 34 6 r., R. C. Dentan,
husband. In sm a thud force intervene "The Literary Affinities of Exod. XXXIV 6 f.," VT, 1 3 (1963), pp. 34-51. For Deut,
.
s, a satan opposed to
� od who actuall� sets in motion the conc
rete plan of God, the
M. Weinfeld, "The Origin of Humanism in Deuteronomy," JBL, 80 (1961), pp. 241-47,
and "Deuteronomy -The Present State of Inquiry," JBL, 86 (1967), pp. 249-62,
h1story of revelation, as we know it; this
. original sin explains J. Malfroy, "Sagesse et Loi dans le Deuteronome," VT,)5 (1965), pp. 49-65; J. R.
the smful condition of all humanity. Boston, "The Wisdom Influence upon the Song of Moses," JBL, 88 (1968), pp. 196-202.
For II Sam 9-20 and I Kings 1-2, R. N. Whybray, The Succession Narrative (SBT,
2nd ser., 9), 1968. For Amos, S. Terrien, "Amos and Wisdom," Israel's Prophetic Heritage,
ed. by B. W. Anderson and W. Harrelson, 1962, pp. 108-15; H. W. Wolff, Amos' geistige
Heimat, 1964, and Dodekapropheton, Amos, 1967-, and for a critique of the position,
J. L. Crenshaw, '')"he Influence of the Wise upon Amos," ZA W, 79 (1967), pp. 42-52.
For Hab, D. E. Gowan, "Habakkuk and Wisdom," paper read at the 103rd meeting of
SBL, 1967. For Isa, J. Fichtner, "Jesaja unter den Weisen," ThLZ, 74, (1949), pp.
76-80, and R. J. Anderson, "Was Isaiah a Scribe?" JBL, 79 (1960), pp. 57 f. For
prophecy in general, J. Lindblom, "Wisdom in the Old Testament Prophets," SVT,
3 (1960), pp. 192-204, and W. McKane, Prophets and Wise Men (SBT, 44), 1965.
For Jonah, P. L. Trible, Studies in the Book of Jonah, Diss. Columbia, 1964, and R. Auge,
Profetes Menors, 1957.
• S. Talmon, "'Wisdom' in the Book of Esther," VT, 13 (1963), pp. 419-55, and
Whybray, The Succession Narrative.
i Besides J. B. Pritchard, ed. ANET, 1955, and Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient

Near East, ed. by M. Noth and D. Winton Thomas, 1960, the following may be men­
tioned: J. Van Dijk, La sagesse sumero accadienne, 1953; W. G. Lambert, Babylonian
Wisdom Literature, 1 960; E. I. Gordon, Sumerian Proverbs, 1959, and "A New Look at
480
© 1969, by the Society of Biblical Literature
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