The Tree of Life

The wisdom books of the Old Testament have suffered from a certain "benign neglect." In The Tree of Life distinguished Bible scholar Roland E. Murphy describes the search for wisdom and its development throughout Israel's tumultuous history. Murphy interprets each wisdom book individually - Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus, and Wisdom of Solomon - and includes a discussion of wisdom from other parts of the Old Testament. His exploration exposes the various guises that wisdom adopts - the "fear of the Lord," moral formation, the universality of human experience, the mysteries of creation, and others. Particularly noteworthy are the chapters on the personification of Woman Wisdom and on the relation of biblical wisdom to theology. The appendix will be a valuable help to those who wish to make comparisons between Israelite wisdom and that of the ancient Near East (Mesopotamia and Egypt). This second edition also includes a special supplement that surveys the latest developments in wisdom research and coordinates them with the basic text of the book.