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The Book of Proverbs ( Hebrew : מִשְלֵי , Mišlê ; Greek : Παροιμίαι ; Latin : Liber Proverbiorum , "Proverbs (of Solomon)") is a book in the third section (called Ketuvim ) of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament traditionally ascribed to King Solomon and his students. When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different forms: in the Greek Septuagint (LXX), it became Παροιμίαι ( Paroimiai , "Proverbs"); in the Latin Vulgate , the title was Proverbia —from which the English name is derived.

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77-558: Proverbs is not merely an anthology but a "collection of collections" relating to a pattern of life that lasted for more than a millennium. It is an example of Biblical wisdom literature and raises questions about values, moral behavior, the meaning of human life, and right conduct, and its theological foundation is that "the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom." Wisdom is personified and praised for her role in creation; God acquired her before all else and gave order to chaos through her. As humans have life and prosperity by conforming to

154-493: A "redeemer" who Job hopes can save him from God) as a prophecy of Christ, the predominant Jewish view became "Job the blasphemer", with some rabbis even saying that he was rightly punished by God because he had stood by while Pharaoh massacred the innocent Jewish infants. Augustine of Hippo recorded that Job had prophesied the coming of Christ, and Pope Gregory I offered him as a model of right living worthy of respect. The medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides declared his story

231-578: A certain dilution) when it achieved widespread recognition. In this model, which derives from Chinese tradition, the object of compiling an anthology was to preserve the best of a form, and cull the rest. In Malaysia , an anthology (or antologi in Malay ) is a collection of syair , sajak (or modern prose), proses , drama scripts, and pantuns . Notable anthologies that are used in secondary schools include Sehijau Warna Daun , Seuntai Kata Untuk Dirasa , Anak Bumi Tercinta , Anak Laut and Kerusi . In

308-429: A more flexible medium than the collection of a single poet's work, and indeed rang innumerable changes on the idea as a way of marketing poetry, publication in an anthology (in the right company) became at times a sought-after form of recognition for poets. The self-definition of movements, dating back at least to Ezra Pound 's efforts on behalf of Imagism , could be linked on one front to the production of an anthology of

385-584: A parable, and the medieval Christian Thomas Aquinas wrote a detailed commentary declaring it true history. In the Protestant Reformation , Martin Luther explained how Job's confession of sinfulness and worthlessness underlay his saintliness, and John Calvin 's interpretation of Job demonstrated the doctrine of the resurrection and the ultimate certainty of divine justice. The contemporary movement known as creation theology, an ecological theology valuing

462-427: A poem (the "hymn to wisdom") on the inaccessibility of wisdom: "Where is wisdom to be found?" it asks; it concludes that it has been hidden from humankind in chapter 28) Job contrasts his previous fortune with his present plight as an outcast, mocked and in pain. He protests his innocence, lists the principles he has lived by, and demands that God answer him. A character not previously mentioned, Elihu , intrudes into

539-473: A prose prologue and epilogue narrative framing poetic dialogues and monologues. It is common to view the narrative frame as the original core of the book, enlarged later by the poetic dialogues and discourses, and sections of the book such as the Elihu speeches and the wisdom poem of chapter 28 as late insertions, but recent trends have tended to concentrate on the book's underlying editorial unity. In chapter 1 ,

616-484: A student or child, dramatic personifications of both Wisdom and Folly, and the "words of the wise" sayings, which are longer than the Solomonic "sayings" but shorter and more diverse than the "instructions." The first section ( chapters 1–9 ) comprises an initial invitation to young men to take up the course of wisdom, ten "instructions", and five poems on personified Woman Wisdom. Verses 1:1-7 constitute an introduction to

693-485: A transmissible human craft, until with 30:1–14, the "words of Agur," we return once more to the idea that God alone possesses wisdom. "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10 – the phrase implies submission to God's will). Wisdom is praised for her role in creation ("God by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding, he established the heavens" – Proverbs 3:19). God acquired her before all else, and through her, he gave order to chaos ("When [God] established

770-441: A way of thinking and a body of knowledge gained through such thinking, as well as the ability to apply it to life. In its Biblical application in wisdom literature, it is seen as attainable in part through human effort and in part as a gift from God, but never in its entirety – except by God. The three books of wisdom literature share attitudes and assumptions but differ in their conclusions: Proverbs makes confident statements about

847-498: A wife of noble character. It is impossible to offer precise dates for the sayings in Proverbs, a "collection of collections" relating to a pattern of life which lasted for more than a millennium. The phrase conventionally used for the title is taken from chapter 1:1, mishley shelomoh , Proverbs of Solomon (the phrase is repeated at 10:1 and 25:1), and is likely more concerned with labeling the material than ascribing authorship. The book

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924-502: Is an anthology made up of six discrete units. The Proverbs of Solomon section, chapters 1–9, was probably the last to be composed, in the Persian or Hellenistic periods. This section has parallels to prior cuneiform writings. The second, chapters 10–22:16, carries the superscription "the proverbs of Solomon", which may have encouraged its inclusion in the Hebrew canon. The third unit, 22:17–24:22,

1001-617: Is as close as biblical literature comes to Greek philosophy, of which it was a contemporary; it shares with the Greeks an inquiry into values and reflections on the human condition, although there is no discussion of ontology , epistemology , metaphysics , and the other abstract issues raised by the Greeks. The rabbinic college almost excluded the Book of Proverbs from the Bible in the late first century. They did this because of its contradictions (the result of

1078-458: Is headed "bend your ear and hear the words of the wise". A large part of this section is a recasting of a second-millennium BCE Egyptian work, the Instruction of Amenemope , and may have reached the Hebrew author(s) through an Aramaic translation. Chapter 24:23 begins a new section and source with the declaration, "these too are from the wise". The next section at chapter 25:1 has a superscription to

1155-451: Is merely silly or playful (though see the words of Agur for a "fool" who has wisdom and could be seen as playful). For the most part, Proverbs offers a simplistic view of life with few grey areas: a life lived according to the rules brings reward, and life in violation of them is certain to bring disaster. In contrast, Job and Ecclesiastes appear to be direct contradictions of the simplicities of Proverbs, each in its own way all but dismissing

1232-545: The Greek Anthology . Florilegium , a Latin derivative for a collection of flowers, was used in medieval Europe for an anthology of Latin proverbs and textual excerpts. Shortly before anthology had entered the language, English had begun using florilegium as a word for such a collection. The Palatine Anthology , discovered in the Palatine Library , Heidelberg in 1606, is a collection of Greek poems and epigrams that

1309-513: The Tisha B'Av fast (a day of mourning over the destruction of the First and Second Temples and other tragedies). The cantillation signs for the large poetic section in the middle of the Book of Job differ from those of most of the biblical books, using a system shared with it only by Psalms and Proverbs . The Eastern Orthodox Church reads from Job and Exodus during Holy Week . Exodus prepares for

1386-572: The ashes of his former estate, his wife prompts him to "curse God, and die" , but Job answers: In chapter 3 , "instead of cursing God", Job laments the night of his conception and the day of his birth; he longs for death, "but it does not come" . His three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite , Bildad the Shuhite , and Zophar the Naamathite , visit him, accuse him of sinning, and tell him that his suffering

1463-399: The 3rd episode of the 15th season of ER , the lines of Job 3:23 are quoted by doctor Abby Lockhart shortly before she and her husband (Dr. Luka Covac) leave the series forever. In season two of Good Omens , the tale of Job and his struggles with good and evil are demonstrated and debated as the demon Crowley is sent to plague Job and his family by destroying his property and children, and

1540-487: The Bible. Many later scholars down to the 20th century looked for an Aramaic , Arabic , or Edomite original, but a close analysis suggests that the foreign words and foreign-looking forms are literary affectations designed to lend authenticity to the book's distant setting and give it a foreign flavor. Job exists in a number of forms: the Hebrew Masoretic Text , which underlies many modern Bible translations;

1617-450: The Book of Proverbs Anthology In book publishing , an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and genre-based anthologies. Complete collections of works are often called " complete works " or " opera omnia " ( Latin equivalent). The word entered

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1694-568: The Colossians calls Jesus "...image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation...", while the Gospel of John identifies him with the creative word ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"). In the 4th century, when Christianity was caught up in heresies and still developing the creeds which would define its beliefs, Proverbs 8:22 was used both to support and refute

1771-572: The English language in the 17th century, from the Greek word, ἀνθολογία ( anthologic , literally "a collection of blossoms", from ἄνθος , ánthos , flower), a reference to one of the earliest known anthologies, the Garland ( Στέφανος , stéphanos ), the introduction to which compares each of its anthologized poets to a flower. That Garland by Meléagros of Gadara formed the kernel for what has become known as

1848-956: The Greek Septuagint made in Egypt in the last centuries BCE; and Aramaic and Hebrew manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls . In the Latin Vulgate , the New Revised Standard Version and in Protestant Bibles , it is placed after the Book of Esther as the first of the poetic books. In the Hebrew Bible it is located within the Ketuvim. John Hartley notes that in Sephardic manuscripts

1925-683: The Greek Septuagint translation ( c.  200 BCE ) and was furthered in the apocryphal Testament of Job (1st century BCE–1st century CE), which makes him the hero of patience. This reading pays little attention to the Job of the dialogue sections of the book, but it was the tradition taken up by the Epistle of James in the New Testament , which presents Job as one whose patience and endurance should be emulated by believers ( James 5 :7–11). When Christians began interpreting Job 19:23–29 (verses concerning

2002-516: The Lord!"), wisdom appeals to human reason and observation. The pre-Exilic (i.e. pre-586 BC) Old Testament allowed no equals to YHWH in heaven, despite the continued existence of an assembly of subordinate servant-deities . The post-Exilic writers of the Wisdom tradition developed the idea that Wisdom existed before creation and was used by God to create the universe: "Present from the beginning, Wisdom assumes

2079-562: The World's Greatest Diarists , published in 2000, anthologises four centuries of diary entries into 365 'days'. [REDACTED] Media related to Anthologies at Wikimedia Commons Book of Job The Book of Job ( / dʒ oʊ b / ; Biblical Hebrew : אִיּוֹב , romanized:  ʾĪyyōḇ ), or simply Job , is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible and

2156-403: The adversary ' ') for his opinion of Job's piety. When Satan states that Job would turn away from God if he were rendered penniless, without his family, and materially uncomfortable, God allows him to do so. The rest of the book deals with Job successfully defending himself against his unsympathetic friends, whom God admonishes, and God's sovereignty over nature. The Book of Job consists of

2233-463: The arguments of both parties: That is, suffering can make those afflicted more amenable to revelation – literally, "open their ears" (Job 36:15). Chapter 28, the Poem (or Hymn) to Wisdom, introduces another theme: Divine wisdom. The hymn does not place any emphasis on retributive justice, stressing instead the inaccessibility of wisdom. Wisdom cannot be invented or purchased, it says; God alone knows

2310-563: The assumptions of the "wise". Noteworthy also is the fact that the "mighty acts of God" ( the Exodus , the giving of the Torah at Sinai, the Covenant between God and Israel, etc.) which make up Israel's history are completely or almost completely absent from Proverbs and the other Wisdom books: in contrast to the other books of the Hebrew Bible, which appeal to divine revelation for their authority ("Thus says

2387-459: The book . It was adapted for Australian radio in 1939 . Writers Job has inspired or influenced include John Milton ( Samson Agonistes ); Dostoevsky ( The Brothers Karamazov ) ; Alfred Döblin ( Berlin Alexanderplatz ); Franz Kafka ( The Trial ); Carl Jung ( Answer to Job ); Joseph Roth ( Job ); Bernard Malamud; and Elizabeth Brewster , whose book Footnotes to the Book of Job

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2464-622: The book include Ralph Vaughan Williams 's Job: A Masque for Dancing ; French composer Darius Milhaud 's Cantata From Job ; and Joseph Stein's Broadway interpretation Fiddler on the Roof , based on the Tevye the Dairyman stories by Sholem Aleichem . Neil Simon wrote God's Favorite , which is a modern retelling of the Book of Job. Breughel and Georges de La Tour depicted Job visited by his wife. William Blake produced an entire cycle of illustrations for

2541-447: The book's origins as not just an anthology but an anthology of anthologies). The reader is told, for example, both to "not answer a fool according to his folly," according to 26:4, and to "answer a fool according to his folly", as 26:5 advises. More pervasively, the recurring theme of the initial unit (chapters 1–9) is that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but the following units are much less theological, presenting wisdom as

2618-668: The claims of the Arians . The Arians, assuming that Christ could be equated with the "Wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24), argued that the Son, like Wisdom, was "created", and therefore subordinate to the Creator; their opponents, who argued that the relevant Hebrew word should be translated as "begot", won the debate, and the Nicene Creed declared that the Son was "begotten, not made", meaning that God and Christ were consubstantial . Online translations of

2695-412: The collections as follows: "Proverb" is a translation of the Hebrew word mashal , but "mashal" has a wider range of meanings than the short, catchy saying implied by the English word. Thus, roughly half the book is made up of "sayings" of this type, while the other half consists of longer poetic units of various types. These include "instructions" formulated as advice from a teacher or parent addressed to

2772-494: The concluding part of the frame narrative God restores and increases Job's prosperity, indicating that the divine policy on retributive justice remains unchanged. In the Second Temple period (500 BCE–70 CE), the character of Job began to be transformed into something more patient and steadfast, with his suffering a test of virtue and a vindication of righteousness for the glory of God. The process of "sanctifying" Job began with

2849-732: The courtroom of confrontation that Job has demanded, or respond to his oath of innocence of which the narrative prologue shows God is well aware. Instead, God changes the subject to human frailty and contrasts Job's weakness with divine wisdom and omnipotence : "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Job responds briefly, but God's monologue resumes, never addressing Job directly. In Job 42 :1–6, Job makes his final response, confessing God's power and his own lack of knowledge "of things beyond me which I did not know" . Previously, he has only heard God, but now his eyes have seen God, and therefore, he declares, "I retract and repent in dust and ashes" . God tells Eliphaz that he and

2926-402: The effect that the following proverbs were transcribed "by the men of Hezekiah", indicating at face value that they were collected in the reign of Hezekiah in the late 8th century BCE. Chapters 30 and 31 (the "words of Agur," the "words of Lemuel," and the description of the ideal woman) are a set of appendices, quite different in style and emphasis from the previous chapters. The "wisdom" genre

3003-411: The existence of inexplicable suffering. The Book of Job is an investigation of the problem of divine justice. This problem, known in theology as the problem of evil or theodicy , can be rephrased as a question: "Why do the righteous suffer?" The conventional answer in ancient Israel was that God rewards virtue and punishes sin (the principle known as " retributive justice "). According to this view

3080-480: The first edition of Arthur Quiller Couch 's Oxford Book of English Verse (1900). In East Asian tradition, an anthology was a recognized form of compilation of a given poetic form . It was assumed that there was a cyclic development: any particular form, say the tanka in Japan , would be introduced at one point in history, be explored by masters during a subsequent time, and finally be subject to popularisation (and

3157-603: The first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible . Scholars generally agree that it was written between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE. It addresses the problem of evil , providing a theodicy through the experiences of the eponymous protagonist. Job is a wealthy and God-fearing man with a comfortable life and a large family. God asks Satan ( הַשָּׂטָן , haśśāṭān , ' lit.   '

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3234-399: The formidable ' behemoth ' and ' leviathan '. Job's reply to God's final speech is longer than his first and more complicated. The usual view is that he admits to being wrong to challenge God and now repents "in dust and ashes" (Job 42:6), but the Hebrew is difficult: An alternative reading is that Job says he was wrong to repent and mourn, and does not retract any of his arguments. In

3311-411: The fourth generation. The character Job appears in the 6th-century BCE Book of Ezekiel as an exemplary righteous man of antiquity, and the author of the Book of Job has apparently chosen this legendary hero for his parable . Scholars generally agree that it was written between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE, with the 6th century BCE as the most likely period for various reasons. The anonymous author

3388-509: The heavens… when he drew a circle on the face of the Deeps … when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him" – Proverbs 8:27–31). Since humans have life and prosperity by conforming to the order of creation, seeking wisdom is the essence and goal of the religious life. Wisdom, or the wise person, is compared and contrasted with foolishness or the fool, meaning one who is lacking in wisdom and uninterested in instruction, not one who

3465-579: The human view of Job's suffering "without any reason" (2:3). In the poetic dialogues Job's friends see his suffering and assume he must be guilty, since God is just. Job, knowing he is innocent, concludes that God must be unjust. He retains his piety throughout the story (contradicting the Adversary's suspicion that his righteousness is due to the expectation of reward), but makes clear from his first speech that he agrees with his friends that God should and does reward righteousness. The intruder, Elihu, rejects

3542-417: The like-minded. Also, whilst not connected with poetry, publishers have produced collective works of fiction and non-fiction from a number of authors and used the term anthology to describe the collective nature of the text. These have been in a number of subjects, including Erotica , edited by Mitzi Szereto , and American Gothic Tales edited by Joyce Carol Oates . The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of

3619-417: The meaning of the world, and he grants it only to those who live in reverence before him. God possesses wisdom because he grasps the complexities of the world (Job 28:24–26) – a theme which anticipates God's speech in chapters 38–41, with its repeated refrain "Where were you when ...?" When God finally speaks he neither explains the reason for Job's suffering (known to the reader to be unjust, from

3696-579: The modern Roman Rite , the Book of Job is read during: The Book of Job has been deeply influential in Western culture, to such an extent that no list could be more than representative. Musical settings from Job include Orlande de Lassus 's 1565 cycle of motets, the Sacrae Lectiones Novem ex Propheta Iob , and George Frideric Handel 's use of Job 19:25 ("I know that my redeemer liveth") as an aria in his 1741 oratorio Messiah . Modern works based on

3773-455: The moral status of human choices and actions is consequential, but experience demonstrates that suffering is experienced by those who are good. The biblical concept of righteousness was rooted in the covenant -making God who had ordered creation for communal well-being, and the righteous were those who invested in the community, showing special concern for the poor and needy (see Job's description of his life in chapter 31). Their antithesis were

3850-549: The needs of all creation, interprets God's speeches in Job 38–41 to imply that his interests and actions are not exclusively focused on humankind. Jewish liturgy does not use readings from the Book of Job in the manner of the Pentateuch , Prophets , or Five Megillot , although it is quoted at funerals and times of mourning. However, there are some Jews, particularly the Spanish and Portuguese Jews , who do hold public readings of Job on

3927-460: The order of creation, seeking wisdom is the essence and goal of life. The book of Proverbs is divided into sections: the initial invitation to acquire wisdom, another section focused mainly on contrasting the wise and the fool, and the third being moral discourses on various topics. Chapters 25–29 discuss justice, the wicked, and the rich and poor; chapter 30 introduces the " sayings of Agur " on creation and divine power. The superscriptions divide

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4004-430: The other examples of the biblical wisdom tradition – Job and Ecclesiastes and some other writings – Proverbs raises questions of values, moral behavior, the meaning of human life, and righteous conduct. The three retain an ongoing relevance for both religious and secular readers, Job and Ecclesiastes through the boldness of their dissent from received tradition, Proverbs in its worldliness and satiric shrewdness. Wisdom

4081-496: The pious attitude shown in the prologue and begins to berate God for the disproportionate wrath against him. He sees God as, among others, Job then shifts his focus from the injustice that he himself suffers to God's governance of the world. He suggests that God does nothing to punish the wicked, who have taken advantage of the needy and the helpless, who, in turn, have been left to suffer the significant hardships inflicted on them. The dialogues of Job and his friends are followed by

4158-751: The prologue on Earth introduces Job as a righteous man, blessed with wealth, sons, and daughters, who lives in the land of Uz . The scene then shifts to Heaven, where God asks Satan ( Biblical Hebrew : הַשָּׂטָן , romanized:  haśśāṭān , lit.   'the adversary') for his opinion of Job's piety. Satan accuses Job of being pious only because he believes God is responsible for his happiness; if God were to take away everything that Job has, then he would surely curse God. God gives Satan permission to strip Job of his wealth and kill his children and servants, but Job nonetheless praises God: In chapter 2 , God further allows Satan to afflict Job's body with disfiguring and painful boils . As Job sits in

4235-434: The prologue set in heaven) nor defends his justice. The first speech focuses on his role in maintaining order in the universe: The list of things that God does and Job cannot do demonstrates divine wisdom because order is the heart of wisdom. Job then confesses his lack of wisdom, meaning his lack of understanding of the workings of the cosmos and of the ability to maintain it. The second speech concerns God's role in controlling

4312-423: The reader an omniscient "God's eye perspective" which introduces Job as a man of exemplary faith and piety, "blameless and upright", who "fears God" and "shuns evil". The contrast between the frame and the poetic dialogues and monologues, in which Job never learns of the opening scenes in heaven or of the reason for his suffering, creates a sense of dramatic irony between the divine view of the Adversary's wager, and

4389-399: The role of master builder while God establishes the heavens, restricts the chaotic waters, and shapes the mountains and fields." Borrowing ideas from Greek philosophers who held that reason bound the universe together, the Wisdom tradition taught that God's Wisdom, Word and Spirit were the ground of cosmic unity. Christianity in turn adopted these ideas and applied them to Jesus: the Epistle to

4466-400: The story and occupies chapters 32–37. The narrative describes him as stepping out of a crowd of bystanders irate. He intervenes to state that wisdom comes from God, who reveals it through dreams and visions to those who will then declare their knowledge. From chapter  38 , God speaks from a whirlwind . God's speeches do not explain Job's suffering, defend divine justice, enter into

4543-419: The story of a man who is losing everything in his life. "The Sire of Sorrow (Job's Sad Song)" is the final track on Joni Mitchell's 15th studio album, Turbulent Indigo . In 2015 two Ukrainian composers Roman Grygoriv and Illia Razumeiko created the opera-requiem IYOV . The premiere of the opera was held on 21 September 2015 on the main stage of the international multidisciplinary festival Gogolfest . In

4620-605: The texts are ordered as Psalms , Job, Proverbs but in Ashkenazic texts the order is Psalms, Proverbs, and then Job. In the Catholic Jerusalem Bible it is described as the first of the "wisdom books" and follows the two books of the Maccabees . Job, Ecclesiastes , and the Book of Proverbs belong to the genre of wisdom literature, sharing a perspective that they themselves call the "way of wisdom". Wisdom means both

4697-504: The twentieth century, anthologies became an important part of poetry publishing for a number of reasons. For English poetry , the Georgian poetry series was trend-setting; it showed the potential success of publishing an identifiable group of younger poets marked out as a 'generation'. It was followed by numerous collections from the 'stable' of some literary editor, or collated from a given publication, or labelled in some fashion as 'poems of

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4774-412: The two other friends The three are told to make a burnt offering with Job as their intercessor, "for only to him will I show favour" . Elihu, the critic of Job and his friends, is notably omitted from this part of the narrative. The epilogue describes Job's health being restored, his riches and family being remade, and Job living to see the new children born into his family produce grandchildren up to

4851-727: The understanding of Christ's exodus to his Father, of his fulfillment of the whole history of salvation; Job, the sufferer, is the Old Testament icon of Christ. The Roman Catholic Church reads from Job during Matins in the first two weeks of September and in the Office of the Dead, and in the revised Liturgy of the Hours Job is read during the Fifth, Twelfth, and Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time . In

4928-408: The whole of this section. Proverbs 10:1–22:16, with 375 sayings, consists of two parts, the first part (10–14) contrasting the wise man and the fool (or the righteous and the wicked), the second (15–22:16) addressing wise and foolish speech. Verse 22:17 opens ‘the words of the wise’, until verse 24:22, with short moral discourses on various subjects. An additional section of sayings which "also belong to

5005-458: The wicked, who were selfish and greedy. The Satan (or the Adversary) raises the question of whether there is such a thing as disinterested righteousness: if God rewards righteousness with prosperity, will men not act righteously from selfish motives? He asks God to test this by removing the prosperity of Job, the most righteous of all God's servants. The book begins with the frame narrative, giving

5082-401: The wise" follows in verses 24:23-34. Chapters 25–29, attributed to the editorial activity of "the men of Hezekiah ", contrast the just and the wicked and broach the topic of rich and poor. Chapter 30:1-4, the "sayings of Agur", introduces creation, divine power, and human ignorance. Chapter 31, "the sayings of King Lemuel — an inspired utterance his mother taught him", describes a virtuous woman,

5159-431: The world and its workings that are flatly contradicted by Job and Ecclesiastes. Wisdom literature from Sumeria and Babylonia can be dated to the third millennium BCE. Several texts from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt offer parallels to Job, and while it is impossible to tell whether the author of Job was influenced by any of them, their existence suggests that the author was the recipient of a long tradition of reflection on

5236-481: The year'. Academic publishing also followed suit, with the continuing success of the Quiller-Couch Oxford Book of English Verse encouraging other collections not limited to modern poetry. Not everyone approved. Robert Graves and Laura Riding published their Pamphlet Against Anthologies in 1928, arguing that they were based on commercial rather than artistic interests. The concept of 'modern verse'

5313-580: Was a finalist for the 1996 Governor General's Award for poetry in Canada. Archibald MacLeish's drama JB , one of the most prominent uses of the Book of Job in modern literature, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1959. Verses from the Book of Job 3:14 figure prominently in the plot of the film Mission: Impossible (1996). Job's influence can also be seen in the Coen brothers ' 2009 film, A Serious Man , which

5390-664: Was almost certainly an Israelite, although the story is set outside Israel, in southern Edom or northern Arabia, and makes allusion to places as far apart as Mesopotamia and Egypt. Despite the Israelite origins, it appears that the Book of Job was composed in a time where wisdom literature was common, but not acceptable to Judean sensibilities (i.e. during the Babylonian exile and shortly after). The language of Job stands out for its conservative spelling and for its exceptionally large number of words, and word-forms not found elsewhere in

5467-462: Was based on the lost 10th Century Byzantine collection of Constantinus Cephalas, which in turn was based on older anthologies. In The Middle Ages, European collections of florilegia became popular, bringing together extracts from various Christian and pagan philosophical texts. These evolved into commonplace books and miscellanies , including proverbs, quotes, letters, poems and prayers. Songes and Sonettes , usually called Tottel's Miscellany ,

5544-414: Was deserved. Job responds with scorn: His visitors are "miserable comforters" . Job asserts that since a just God would not treat him so harshly, patience in suffering is impossible, and the Creator should not take his creatures so lightly, to come against them with such force. Job's responses represent one of the most radical restatements of Israelite theology in the Hebrew Bible. He moves away from

5621-470: Was fostered by the appearance of the phrase in titles such as the Faber & Faber anthology by Michael Roberts in 1936, and the very different William Butler Yeats Oxford Book of Modern Verse of the same year. In the 1960s The Mersey Sound anthology of Liverpool poets became a bestseller, plugging into the countercultural attitudes of teenagers. Since publishers generally found anthology publication

5698-505: Was nominated for two Academy Awards . Terrence Malick 's 2011 film The Tree of Life , which won the Palme d'Or , is heavily influenced by the themes of the Book of Job, with the film starting with a quote from the beginning of God's speech to Job. The Russian film Leviathan also draws themes from the Book of Job. The 2014 Indian Malayalam -language film Iyobinte Pusthakam ( lit.   ' Book of Job ' ) by Amal Neerad tells

5775-478: Was the first of the great ballad collections, responsible for the ballad revival in English poetry that became a significant part of the Romantic movement. William Enfield 's The Speaker; Or, Miscellaneous Pieces was published in 1774 and was a mainstay of 18th Century schoolrooms. Important nineteenth century anthologies included Palgrave's Golden Treasury (1861), Edward Arber 's Shakespeare Anthology (1899) and

5852-544: Was the first printed anthology of English poetry. It was published by Richard Tottel in 1557 in London and ran to many editions in the sixteenth century. A widely read series of political anthologies, Poems on Affairs of State , began its publishing run in 1689, finishing in 1707. In Britain, one of the earliest national poetry anthologies to appear was The British Muse (1738), compiled by William Oldys . Thomas Percy 's influential Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765),

5929-427: Was widespread throughout the ancient Near East , and reading Proverbs alongside the examples recovered from Egypt and Mesopotamia reveals the common ground shared by international wisdom. The wisdom literature of Israel may have been developed in the family, the royal court, and houses of learning and instruction; nevertheless, the overwhelming impression is of instruction within the family in small villages. Along with

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