Approaching Proverbs: Modulating Power with Wisdom and Compassion

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Approaching Proverbs Modulating Power with
Wisdom and Compassion ??????
The Lords Blessing is upon the House of
the Righteous, and His Cursing is upon the House
of the Wicked (333)A huge Gap between the
Then and Now? ???? ???????????????????
Barbara Leung Lai SCBC Adult Sunday
School April 10, 2011
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I. Approaching Proverbs 7 key
Interpretive Orientations ?????? (A)
Outstanding Dialogue within the Wisdom
books The Serenity of Proverbs the
skepticism of Eccles. (Murphy) theocentric
(??) (Prov) Vs. Anthropocentric (??)(Job
Eccles.)dialectic (paradoxical- ? ? )of
anthropology and cosmology (Brown, Characters
in Crisis). (B) The Nature of the Book A
Collection of the Collections of wisdom
materials (i.e. the introduction/purp
ose of the collection and its
conclusion must be intentional (11-7
3010-31).



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(C) Appreciation of the transmission of the
Sayings? Proverbs (A thin slice of
reality) (D) Intentional contrast between
chs. 1-9 (long instructions/admonitions)
chs.10-30 (short proverbial
sayings)chs. 1-9 as a hermeneutical key for
chs. 10-30. (E) Role of personified wisdom
????? (chs.8 3110-31double emphatic
(Imperative piel jussive in the context of
acrostic Ps. ? ????) (F) Crossing
Boundaries Proverbs and the
Postmodern world (bridging contexts and
appropriation)Character Formation ? ? ? ? ? ??
as a current approach.
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Trajectories ?? ?? ???? ??? (1)
Formation deformation Reformation of
character ??????? (2) Orientation
disorientation reorientation of (e.g.,
Attitude towards life direction in life, etc.)
????? (G) Initial purpose of the Book ??????
(1) Designed initially for use by young men of
Israels society who were being groomed for
positions of leadership (Hubbard)
Vs (2)The real intent is to train a
person (male female young old), to shape
character, to show what life is like and how
best to cope with it (Murphy).
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• II. Interpretive Issues Guidelines
• Recognize the various forms of literature and
  their functions of which Proverbs is composed
  (e.g., long instructions chs. 1-9
• the purpose is to persuade, to tease the
  readers into a way of life rather than to
  command, short proverbial sayings chs. 10-30,
  are obscure, open-ended, brief but assertive, the
  point is to say the maximum of
• meaning/things in a minimum of words.
• The reader is left to qualify it by other
  contexts, by exceptions, by experiences that
• run contrary to it It provides insight, not
• only by what it is said, but by the process---

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The reader can be startled, and thus invited
to Go beyond the proverbs itself The
proverb often registers a reversal of ones
expectation And provokes surprise (Murphy).
(B) Interpret the Book in its own right and on
its own terms. Prov. has its own way of looking
at life. It sees experience as Gods means of
revelation creation as the basis of order.
Words like walk, way, stumble, fall has
their own connotations in wisdom literature as
patterns of life, deeply ingrained habits, and
our failure to follow
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Gods way the perspective of Prov. Is
life here and now (Parsons). (C) The
initial purpose of the book (11-7) is the
hermeneutical key for interpretation. (D)
Some Proverbs are unconditionally true
(162,12, 33). (E)The polar structure of
the book e.g. wise fool the way of the
righteous the way of the wicked wealth
poverty diligence laziness
righteous evil humility pride
(?????????????? ?????!) (F) Wisdom speeches
personification (120-33 81-36 91-6,
13-18) ???????? ??????
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• III. Appropriation Bridging the then
• and now (Any value for memorizing Prov.?)
• Seek to validate the appropriation through the
• whole context of the Bibledont dogmatize
• (everything is black white, no grey area)
• (B) Seek existential understanding of the
• perspective of Proverbs it sees experience as
• a means of Gods revelation. (??????????????)
• (C) Explore the creative use of proverbial
• characters (imagination, persuasion, sense of
• humour, graduated numerical formula,
• rhetorical questions, sample stories (i.e.
• modulation of charisma, kerygma, power).
• (??????????????)