Talk:Book of Proverbs

message: I just worked under the heading "setting". This is one of my first edits for the English Wikipedia (did lots in Dutch) and I am eager to get some feedback. Thank you very much.
Penelopeia 19:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Setting

message: The paragraph below, with it's tag, is just cut and paste from the article.  It will stay here unless someone want to source it and put it back. T Berg Drop a Line ޗ  pls</sub></span> 02:32, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tagged in Article for 14 months:  now here to discuss 

message: Let's get this ball rolling. I agree The Book of Proverbs page should be redone to look and read something like The Book of Romans page. Who would like to help with this?
--Wooddoor (talk) 20:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This article needs a revamp -- it reads clumsy. Thoughts and ideas are repeated over and over again and could be significantly cleaned up -- it need to be streamlined and organized more efficiently.  Also, more sources need to be found and cited in the article, not just placed in a long list at the end.  This is my indication that I will begin (or really, continue) to clean this article up.  Any suggestions, complaints, protests, can be given here and I will be willing to discuss.  Cheers, T Berg Drop a Line ޗ  pls</sub></span> 03:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I read in the article that the rabbinic college took out the book of Proverbs during the late first century. But if they would believe and know what the Bible is they would know that everything in it is true and that nothing should be taken or added to it. So why would they take it out, even if they thought it could be an anthology of anthologies? As it is written in Deuteronomy 4:2, "Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you."-2601:1C2:1000:3790:55E8:DE42:24F1:7F8A (talk) 05:35, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament as you know it did not exist yet. So: which Bible? There was no Bible, there was the Pentateuch and a bunch of other writings. You call it Bible, for them it was not Scripture. tgeorgescu (talk)  05:57, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Revamp 

message: The Authorship section needs to either have citations or it should be deleted entirely. There are a number of questionable and unverified claims in there, e.g. "The general assumption is that Solomon was a part of the authorship to some extent, but that the book was not solely his work."  Whose general assumption?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.188.5.65 (talk) 05:44, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is not about only one view. What you call "apologetic nonsense" differs from "critical scholars", but both views are promoted by published scholars. For Wikipedia, that is enough. Pete unseth (talk) 11:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Authorship Section 

message: I can't find anything in the article about the year of authorship. Has this been determined?
I ask because for the article Scientia potentia est, it would be great to know when the phrase was first used... --helohe (talk) 10:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  year of writing 

message: James L. Crenshaw is listed on this page within a majority of critical scholars as a reference within this page. A page was created for Crenshaw along with Michael V. Fox and Roland E. Murphy also listed within this majority of critical scholars. The James L. Crenshaw article has been tagged for deletion within 7 days of October 6th with the below information. If the page needs to remain rather than have a red letter James L. Crenshaw listed on the Book of Proverbs, the information is listed below.
*It is proposed that this article be deleted because of the following concern: 
Non-notable author. No evidence of coverage in independent reliable sources. All references are to his own work. 
If you can address this concern by improving, copyediting, sourcing, renaming or merging the page, please edit this page and do so. You may remove this message if you improve the article or otherwise object to deletion for any reason. Although not required, you are encouraged to explain why you object to the deletion, either in your edit summary or on the talk page. If this template is removed, do not replace it.
The article may be deleted if this message remains in place for seven days, i.e., after 03:09 on 13 October.
All Worlds (talk) 07:15, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  James L. Crenshaw as critical scholar within this page....... 

message: I think the idea of "contradictions" is too strong here. The two commands about how to answer a dolt/fool are not so much a contradiction but a way of showing that dealing with a dolt/fool is hopeless, no matter what you try. The material about whether wisdom is divine or taught does not seem to be a contradiction, but showing another facet. The two are not posed as contradicting each other. I am interested in changing the section on "contradiction", but want to listen to others first. Pete unseth (talk) 13:34, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It was simply what I found in the source I used. I don't think it really matters all that much, but I imagine it's inevitable that a collection of wise folk sayings is going to end up with a few contradictions ("birds of a feather flock together" vs "opposites attract", for example).PiCo (talk) 11:15, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: There are books which are anthologies of folk sayings (like "Eastern North Carolina Sayings," by Philip Beaman). Solomon was not gathering examples of sayings that people in his culture were saying, he had a specific purpose and theme to his writing. These were proverbs of Solomon, not proverbs compiled by Solomon. These "contridictions" come from a presuppositional understanding of this book as unorganized sayings. The constant use of "conradition" shows that this article has this bias.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fishepat000 (talk • contribs) 20:08, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed - poetic composition, not contradiction. "These seemingly contradictory verses are actually a common form of parallelism found in the Old Testament, where one idea builds upon another. Verse 26:4 warns against arguing with a fool on his own terms, lest we stoop to his level and become as foolish as he is. Verse 5, on the other hand, tells us that there are times when a fool has to be addressed so that his foolishness will not go unchallenged. Our answer in this case is to be one of reproof, showing him the truth so he might see the foolishness of his words in the light of reason." Ieraxis (talk) 16:50, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Contradictions

message: PiCo has inserted material on the personification of Wisdom that represents only one view, and not a widely held view. Did God "acquire" wisdom?  And what does the wife of chapter 31 have to do with the concept of "goddess" in the same paragraph. I got lost on these.
Wouldn't it be more useful to a broader audience to list what interpretations have been followed? For example, Christians have traditionally understood Wisdom in chapter 8 in a Trinitarian sense. How have traditional Jewish scholars viewed Wisdom in chapter 8.
What is the best way forward on this, a way of wisdom, not personal attacks or narrow agendas? Pete unseth (talk) 20:37, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry Pete, I didn't notice your comments here. Maybe I've taken that bit out again? I'm not sure which section of the article you mean, anyway - if you mean the way I slashed a lot of material from the last section, that was because I thought it was going on far too long about a single verse - I hope the para I kept gives the nub of why Proverbs 8 is important to the development of Christianity. PiCo (talk) 11:12, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

text: Just had a quick look at the interpretation of Lady Wisdom in Christianity as given by our article. It does say: "Christianity ... adopted these ideas and applied them to Jesus: the Epistle to the Colossians calls Jesus "...image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation...", while the Gospel of John identifies him with the creative word ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"). In other words, Lady Wisdom in later 2nd Temple Judaism became an intermediary between God and man, and also became identified with the creative Word, the Christ; the Holy Spirit comes from a different place, the Hebrew ruah or "spirit of God". But yes, it did indeed play a role in the development of the Trinitarian idea). PiCo (talk) 11:24, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

text: I agree with this assessment. It is true that Proverbs refers to wisdom as "her," or "she." It is confusing to readers of this article who are not familiar with this. Patrick Fisher 20:11, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personification of Wisdom 

message: In the introduction paragraph, between the second last and last sentence, there is a sudden switch from impersonal to personal use of the word "wisdom": "the beginning of wisdom" (impersonal) vs. "her role" etc. (personal). This made me "stumble" while reading. Georg Stillfried (talk) 09:56, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with this assessment. It is true that Proverbs refers to wisdom as "her," or "she." It is confusing to readers of this article who are not familiar with this. Patrick Fisher 20:11, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Introduction

message: The current article states, "Proverbs was almost excluded from the Bible." But it gives no citation. Some modern scholars may wonder how it was chosen, but I don't know of ancient disputes on this. Anybody have evidence that would allow this thought to be retained in the article? Pete unseth (talk) 18:16, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inclusion in the Biblical canon