Wisdom literature, Israel 

Excessive preoccupation with the 'historicity' of the Old Testament has for long distracted attention from the theological importance of 'wisdom', that movement of thought which reached Israel from the ancient Near East and found written expression in books like Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiasticus. Now the importance of wisdom is being increasingly recognized, but comparatively few full-length studies have been devoted to it. 'What we need,' Professor von Rad writes, 'is a work which tries to think itself into the world of wisdom, its ideas and values.'

In his last book, Professor von Rad has risen magnificently to the task and has produced a work of theological understanding that stands alongside his classic commentary on Genesis. He is not so much concerned with questions of date and authorship as with what wisdom is saying and its relationship to the rest of Israelite faith. His conclusions are significantly not only for Old Testament theology, but for any branch of Christian thinking which uses biblical thought or human experience as its source material.

Gerhard von Rad, for many years Professor of Old Testament in Heidelberg, died in the autumn of 1971. Translated by James D Martin.

Taken from the front inside flap.