Focused on perceptible gains and trends in biblical scholarship during the past two
decades as it engages the self-contained aphorisms that abound in Proverbs
10–29, this essay offers a critical discussion of diverse insights
advanced by three categories of scholars: those whose comprehensive studies in
Biblical Hebrew poetry target the free-standing proverb (Kugel, Berlin, Alter,
Watson, Alonso Schökel, Gillingham, and Fokkelman); those whose monographs
and articles center in more specific ways on the literary dimensions of the
sapiential couplet (Williams, Murphy,McCreesh, Perry, Storøy, Wehrle,
Salisbury, Martin, Forti, and Nel); and those who address issues that bear upon
traditional sayings and proverb performance (Fontaine, Westermann, and Golka).
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