Abstract
Brown’s book draws out a sense of ‘wonder’ in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament that is an interesting new lens on the material. The book is ostensibly a ‘rewrite’ of his former book Character in Crisis, but it goes further to explore emotional and spiritual aspects of ‘character’. Brown is interested in the place of emotions and desire in moral formation and in our relationship to the created world. He justifies his juxtaposition of character and creation thus: ‘Attention to creation provides a generative context for sapiential insight, whereas character formation captures much of the rhetorical aim of the wisdom corpus.’ (p. 5). Of course, the order found in creation is, in the wisdom literature, closely linked to the moral and social order. His question is ‘Where is the eros in the inquiring?’ (p. 19).
The fullest ‘character sketch’ of wisdom is found, for Brown, in Proverbs 8 in the figure of Wisdom’s self-praise and wonderment at the creative world. Virtues are part of Wisdom’s cosmic play. He writes that, in Proverbs 1-9, ‘wisdom becomes Wisdom’ (p. 57). He calls Proverbs a ‘manual of desires’ (p. 66), and looks at the way that, through the use of metaphor, wonder is conveyed in many Proverbs. In Proverbs 31, Wisdom is incarnated in the character of the industrious woman.
Brown characterizes Job’s path as one from wound to wonder. Job threatens the ‘moral coherence’ of the friends/sages in the dialogue and is the purveyor of chaos. Brown draws out the theme of Job’s fear that then slowly transforms as Job has ‘found strength in his character far surpassing the passive patience featured by the Job of the Prologue’. (p. 102). Brown sees the fourth friend, Elihu, as ‘wonder’s herald’ who arrives at a more prophetic understanding of wisdom, whose source is unmediated revelation. In the God speeches, wonder has ‘gone wild’ and we are given a cosmic tour from a God who embodies alien otherness. Brown writes, ‘The God of the final answer surpasses once and for all the Deity of the prologue’ (p. 120). Like Behemoth and Leviathan, Job remains undefeated and untamed. In the Epilogue, Job’s fear has been transformed into new possibilities.
Finally, Brown treats Ecclesiastes and sees the ‘speaker’ donning the ‘mask’ of Solomon like ‘a phantom of the royal opera’ (p. 137). The speaker, Qoheleth’s, character is revealed by his self-designation as King in contravention of the ‘royal annals’ genre. This speaker is estranged from the world, and cannot master the ‘wonder’ that is the beginning of wisdom. He is imparting advice on character, i.e., a reformulation of character in the light of a view that steps back and sees human life and the cosmos as an estranged whole. He advocates a simple life. This is not an ecstatic kind of wonder but one that ‘questions, deconstructs and ultimately surrenders to the Unknown’ (p. 181).
This fresh emphasis on ‘wonder’ is refreshing and enlightening – ‘without wonder wisdom withers’, he concludes (p. 194). Who can disagree? And yet, as with all ‘keys’ that unlock aspects of the material, it feels a little forced in some cases. It works better for Proverbs and Job, in my view, than for Eccleisastes – I question whether one can so readily equate ‘the fear of the Lord’ with ‘wonder’ of the Deity. Also the link with character ethics seems a little strained at times – the author might have been advised to have started with a fresh book rather than adapted an older one. This book has the merit of being fairly introductory, providing a helpful introduction for students, and yet having a strong, clear thesis of it own. Brown’s beautifully written book is an enjoyable and engaging read and itself conveys his sense of wonder at the hidden heights and depths of the wisdom literature.