Literature Attributed to Solomon

Proverbs

Social setting

• Royal court, scribal schools
• International visits

Advice and insights more than religious

Theodicy

Is God just

If God is all good and all powerful how does evil exist?

Why do the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper?

Many answers in the Hebrew Bible

• Deuteronomic: similar but more communal, focused on national catastrophe
• Job and Ecclesiastes: humans cannot expect to understand God’s justice
• Apocalyptic: evil forces target the righteous until final judgment
• Others still to come

Theodicy in Proverbs

There is no injustice

Goodness pays in the long run (within one’s lifetime)

Main concern is individual prosperity and honor

Examples: 10:4; 11:21; 11:31; 12:24

Implications and critiques

Wisdom personified as a woman in Proverbs 8 and interpretations

Manner in which God created (3:19)

Accompaniment or instrument of creation (8:27, 30)

God’s first begotten (8:22-23)

Words which God spoke in Genesis

Words of Torah

Incarnate Word, Jesus

Trinity