Biblical Wisdom and the Hermeneutics of Nostalgia

Abstract

Biblical Wisdom and the Hermeneutics of Nostalgia explores the literary features and function of wisdom sayings both as individual proverbs and in their context in discourse and anthology. Wisdom is an expression of traditional culture, meaning it relies on an appropriation of the past to form communal identity. The book develops comparative analogies drawn from nineteenth- and twentieth-century European culture to demonstrate how these constructions of the past can shape identity. Proverbs are reimagined, not as factual claims about a well-ordered world but as potential narratives that draw on conventional paradigms to make the world meaningful. So too, the ethical simplicity of wisdom is understood in light of the ideology of idealism embedded in the practice of making miniatures, which transforms the reader through the development of the moral imagination. Biblical wisdom sayings are usually preserved without a performative context, and this literary style is read through the lens of the aesthetics of fragmentation, where wisdom is reconstructed through possible meanings, applications, and interpretations as a means of generating a traditional worldview. Fragmentary sayings are preserved in anthologies, and while scholars have argued over the presence of complex structures, here anthologies are interpreted in light of the function of the collection as a means of preserving the past and enculturating the reader. These approaches to wisdom are drawn together through the unifying theme, where past tradition is read in a nostalgic mode, using memory, idealism, and repetition to construct in the reader a sense of shared identity and belonging.