Endnote 9 – Wisdom Literature Makes A Comeback
Some interesting contextual parallels to the kind of family wisdom I have been describing have recently come to light from the totally unrelated culture of Africa. Friedemann W. Golka has written a fascinating book, The Leopard’s Spots (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993), in which he makes a case for a clan or family context for many proverbs. He draws parallels, for example, with the proverbs about the king, and shows how, in quite primitive cultures, concern is expressed for the king or chief and the societal order is seen to depend on his well-being. The instinct to compose proverbs and to muse about the meaning of life is known to be a basic human trait; we find proverbs in all folk cultures from around the world. Therefore, it may be that we have more work to do in finding parallels from, say, Chinese folk wisdom that could shed important light on our biblical texts.