Volurne 70-2 April 2006
Table of Contents
Office of the Holy IHinistry
Joel P. Okamoto .......................................................................... 97
The Office of the Holy Minktry Accmdbg to the Gaspels and the
Angshrg Confession
David P. h e r ........................................................................... 113
Augshrg Confession MV:
Does It Answer Camant Questions on the Holy IMixsktry?
................................................................... Xaomichi ?&saki. -123
FeIlmship Issues and Mifsions
Klaus Mev Shulz ................................................................. 161
Book Review , . - . . - - - - . - . - - . - . - . - . . 1 8 7
The Book of P r d s : Chapters 1 - 2.5.
Bv Bruce K Waltke ...................................... Andrew S t e m
Book Review
7he Bod of Prmmbs: Chapters 1-15. By Bruce K Waltke. The New I n t e ~ ~
Commentary on the Old Tti tment Gand Rapids, MI: W m B. Eerdmas
Pub-g Co, 2002. xxxv+492 pages. S O 0 .
More than any other book of Saipture, Proverbs is popularly understood to
be a book of prxtkd advice. Yet, many of its sayings are often *
or misappiied by I a m n s reading the much&nooth English of the widely-
available mlat ions. The Hebrew- of Proverbs is not easy, making good
c m r m m w on it rraluable to the parish pastor who is not a spdalkt in
either the Hebrr~r language or Wisdom literature. Moreover, the growing
number of artides and studies on Proverbs or on \ W o r n literature in gemdl
pmsab a number of us&& secondary sources for the study of the book, but
most of tkse remain mkmwn and largely inaccessible for those who do not
have privileges at an academic library. This commentary by Waltke, a
respec& evangelid scholar probably best known for his con~tiolzs to
Introductron to Bibluai Hebrew S_yntnr ~ b m , 1990) and m d
W- @the OW Testament (Moody, 1981), is the latest in tfie NICOT series
that published its first volumes in 1976. This volume, origidly pbnmd to be
a sin& volume on & entire book onlv the introduction and
commentary on the first fourken chapters of ~rov&. A second volume on
the balance of the book (Proverbs 1631) is due to be published in 2005.
Waltke's c o ~ t a q demonstrates throughout that he is conversant with
most contemporary scholarship on Proverbs- The introduction takes pains to
explore late twenti¢ury comenkies, articles, and essays pe&&&tg to
Proverbs and its place among h r i o m literature in the Amkit Near East At
the same time, hTaltke d-nstrittes that he stands within ik stream of
c-ative evangelical thought as he defends a traditional view of the
authorship of Prov&. He defends Proverbs 10-24 as t s t i a l l y composed by
Solomon (with the 22-17-2434 being other wrisdom sayings adapted by
Solomon), 252.9 as Solomn's proverbs edit& by H e w s suik, Proverbs
30 in its entirety as coming from Agur's pen and all of Proverbs 31 as coming
£mm King Lanuel, essentially m agreement with the various notices given in
Proverbs itself. Moreover, he makes a good argument (based on his previous
publications) that Proverbs 1-9 is also Solomon's work ccmhaq- to ttte
widespread opinion of critical scholars (and some evangelicals) who tend to
date these chapters late. The only place where Waltke is open to ddmge is
his insiskxe that the aaostic poem about a Good (31:10-31) is h m
Lemuel and not from the book's final (anon~'1110us) editor. His argument here
is not well-developed and his reasoning is suspect. But this is a minor point,
since Lenruel could be the author of this poem Waltke's introduction also
compcm~v explains other issues in Pro\-&, Including the ancient text and
versions, the book's structure, poetr)-, poetia, and wisdom genres m Proverbs.
The commenGu)- itseLf is c o m w t , and wt& some of Waltke's philologid
a s m r t i m s are open to challenge and will no doubt prove to be controvasi&
the work clearly is weII-reeadd and d-tes Waltke's years of work
on Wisdom literahme. There are m y exeg&d Mets to be found in the
pages of this commentq* Moreover, Wdtke slrillfdy demonstrates the
organization of Proverbs. This is relatively easy to do for chapters 1-9, but
much more difficult for 10-15, which is often seen as simply a random
collection of sayings. Yet Waltke builds on the resear& of others ably
dernomtrating that these sarings are organized by various s c h m s , including
a times theme, wordplay and catchword. While some of his assertions are less
than convindng (e-g., the supposed &astic outhe of Proverb 1-9, p. IZ), most
of his work on this score is welcome, since it will aid readers in understamding
contextual dues that can be used to help interpret othenwk baffhg sayings.
As helpful as all of this is, the Lutheran pastor will probably ask something
more of a commentary on Proverbs: Whme is is? Where is the gospel?
Indeed, the editor's preface could be read as suggesting that this will be a
prime focus, sinre this series arises out d American evangelicalism with "the
conviction that the Bible is God's inspired Word, written by gifted human
writers, through which God called humanitv to enjoy a loving v n a l
relationship with its Geator and Savior" @. xx): Cerbkdy, Waltke has much to
comment on as it dates to God as Creator, a theme that is prominent in
Proverbs (3:l-20; 8:l-31, and scattered sayings from Prov 10 onward). This is
relatively easy. The h a r k part is findkg and explicating Chist and his gospel
in Proverbs. Unfmhmately, Wakke almost denies that there is my r e f e m to
Christ at all in the book H e claims that Lady Wisdom who is featured
prominently in Proverbs 3 and 8 is a reference to Solomon's wisdom and only
a type of Christ (though he never explairrs his un- of the word fype).
How Solomon's wisdom, not C h i s t , was present at creation and was that
through which God created the world (313-20) and who rejoiced m God's
creation (83-31) is not explained, although one might presume that Waltke
believes that Solomon's wisdom derived from God himself. m d , M7altke
seems to be attempting to argue to the g d y accepted view of critical
scholars but to rescue it for evangelicals by giving it a patina of Christian
application to Car&. Thus, he has a concluding d o n in the introduction that
discusses Christ. Here he claims that Lady Wisdom cannot be Quist, yet
somehow this all relates to Qwkt because Jesus is superior to Solomon's
wisdom (a position that reads as if it is f o r d upon him by the New
Testament). Strangely, he presents several propositions that are supposed to
prove that Lady Wisdom cannot be C h i s t @. 131). The most puzzling is the
Last one: "Wisdom was begotten by God, but Christ is God." Smly, Christ as
God's Son strongly implies not only that he is God, but that he was begotten of
the Father, a tcrpic explored in the New Testament itself (Acts 1333; Heb 15;
55; all dating to Psalm 27).
Book Review 189
Moreover, W a l k is somewhat defensive a b u t his denial that Lad>-
Wisdom is not a h~'postasis of Ch%t, since Proverbs 8 was the origin of the
Arb con&overy, and both sides admitted that this chapter depicts Cfrrist.
Instead, li\-altke argues that the premise of the controsFersv (Lady Wisdom is
Ckckt) wmng from the start. Thus, neither the & nor the Orthodox
were correct in seeing Wisdom as Christ. The)- were, in essence, arguing the
right question on the basis of the u-rong text. While this denial of any real
intent of the author of Proverbs 8 to depict Christ as Wisdom is common
among critical scholars and has been follow-ed b* some evangelicals, it is
simply wrong. A comparison of Paul's dixussion of M-idom in Ephesians 38-
10 with Proverbs 8 is enough to demonstrate that Paul knew Cmht as "the
wisdom of God" (I Cor 1:24), especialIv in Proverbs 8 (6. Pro\- 810-11; 17-18;
Eph 38; Pro\- 822-31; Eph 39-10; Pro;- 815-16; Eph 310). Our Lord himself
chimed to be God's wisdom, as a quick comparison of Luke 11:49 and
-Matthew- 23% demonstrates. Mtesaltke s ems em- by the traditional
~~ identification of Lady Wisdom as Christ, which leads him to claim
that the Church Fathers urn wrong about Proverbs 8 without truly exploring
KeW Testament texts that may have given them good reasons for this
identification Instead, the Fathers are simplv characterized as k ing
ideologically motivated without having an>- sound exegetical basis for their
-on. \ W e the Fathers often do not discus in detail how they reached
their exegbcal conclusions, it is gratuitous and naive to believe that they were
simply ideologues who asserted daims about a text without any sound
exegetical principles. I believe that a sensitive reading of discussions of
wisdom in the New Testament demomtrate that from the venr m g of
our Lord's own teaching he claimed to be \yisdom-a claim that was at least
in part based on his understmding of f io~~erbs 3 and 8.
Thus, \