Short Sentences Long Remembered (eBook)

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General Traits of a Proverb

The primary (but not only) literary form of wisdom literature is the proverb. In the Bible, the proverb is also known by synonyms, the most common of which is “saying.” The inscription to the book of Proverbs teases us into seeing even more in a proverb or saying by listing “words” and “riddles” as variants. Additionally, a concise memorable saying is known by the label “aphorism,” and I myself often use the adjective “aphoristic” in my teaching of literature. The Bible is an aphoristic book. Yet another synonym for proverb is “epigram.”

The opening chapters of this guide focus specifically on the proverb as a literary form—first its general traits and then specific techniques used by writers of the wisdom books and texts.

Obstacles to Properly Valuing the Proverb as a Literary Form

One of the changes I can chart over the course of my career in the Bible as literature is a growing appreciation for the proverb as literary genre. Implicit in that statement is that I began with an undervaluing of proverbs as a form of literature. I want to reach back to my earlier years and start with a discussion of the obstacles that stand in the way of giving biblical proverbs their due. The goal is to clear the path of roadblocks. I will delineate five obstacles, and I need to signal from the start that I am not listing them because I think they are the last word but because we need to understand the problem before we can find solutions.

1.A shift in cultural sensibility. Certain cultures are oriented toward proverbs and aphoristic thinking. Ancient cultures were proverbial cultures. Much of their knowledge and wisdom was preserved and passed on in the form of proverbs. One reason for this is that they were oral cultures rather than print cultures, and oral cultures depend on forms of speech that can be remembered and disseminated.

The modern age is not an oral age and is not oriented toward proverbial knowledge. Having said that, I need to add that even if modern culture as a whole is not given to aphoristic thinking, groups and individuals within it are. My mother was a walking encyclopedia of proverbs, and my life was much enriched by her ability to pronounce a proverb in the real-life situation where it applied.

Overall, though, we live in an age that does not think easily in terms of proverbs. Proverbs thrive in cultures that have a certain sensibility of thought and speech, and our society does not meet that criterion. It is not just a matter of not valuing proverbs; it is also a matter of lacking the mental equipment to cultivate them as a literary form. An advertising slogan is not a proverb.

2.Loss of memorizing. The reason oral cultures developed such forms as proverbs and the verse form of parallelism is that these are mnemonic devices (aids to memory). By contrast, we are a print and digital culture. Only a small segment of contemporary society memorizes in the old sense. Merely reading a succession of proverbs is of very limited appeal or usefulness. The true context for a proverb is not a collection or anthology of proverbs but actual situations of life. For a proverb to rise to our lips on such occasions, we need to be able to call the proverb to mind. Our cultural situation makes that difficult.

3.Indifference to wisdom. There is a sense in which proverbs were the ancient version of information storage and retrieval. I use that terminology to highlight the function served by proverbs. But the word “information” comes from our own age and is incorrect when applied to proverbs. Proverbs do not convey information; they convey wisdom. By contrast, we live in the information age. As far back as 1936, T. S. Eliot wrote, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? / Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

So wisdom starts with a strike against it: whereas “wisdom” and “folly” were dominant concepts in Bible times (as seen in the frequency with which those words appear in wisdom literature), in the modern age we have no clear understanding of what wisdom is. Before we can relish the proverb as a literary form, we need to understand what wisdom is because the proverb is the natural vehicle for expressing wisdom.

4.The disparagement of proverbs by biblical scholars. When I see the condescending attitude that some biblical scholars display toward the proverb, it is no wonder that the rank-and-file Christian does not value it. A well-known book on the genres of the Bible calls proverbs “catchy little couplets.” Who is likely to summon enthusiasm for catchy little couplets? Other familiar sources assert that biblical proverbs “do not reflect moral laws that are to be applied absolutely,” and that “proverbs are worded to be memorable, not technically precise.”

There are, indeed, interpretive guidelines and cautions that need to be stated, but these are not the first or only things we should say about the proverb as a literary form. It is a qualifier that we should add at the end of the discussion to prevent possible misinterpretation; the first thing to assert with conviction is that proverbs express truth.

5.The brevity of the form. The strength of the proverb is its conciseness. It expresses truth with a punch. But that is also a limitation. Literature is something we read and analyze and teach. What can be done with a concise proverb in these contexts? It is a problem that we need to solve. A common subtype in the proverbial literature of the Bible is proverb clusters, and these can be treated as we do other familiar forms such as a lyric poem or a meditation on a subject. But many of the proverbs appear in lists of individual proverbs, each on a different subject. Such a passage poses genuine problems for devotional reading and teaching.

There are ways to surmount the obstacles I have delineated, and these will occupy the rest of this guide. For the remainder of this chapter, I explore the general traits of the proverb as a literary form. I would not say that these traits offer solutions to the problems I have delineated, but they give us the right expectations. If we understand the defining traits of a proverb, we have some preliminary ways of analyzing a proverb.

Proverbs Are Apt and Memorable

When we first hear or read a proverb, we obviously do not know whether we will remember it, but we sense that it has a striking effect on us, and we know that it is worthy of memory. “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband” (Prov. 12:4). “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might” (Eccl. 9:10). “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22). Not all proverbs are that easy to remember, but the general tendency of proverbs is to stick in our minds.

It is the aim of a proverb to make an insight permanent. I have benefited from the following commentary on the nature of a proverb: “to epigrammatize an experience is to strip it down, to cut away irrelevance, to eliminate local, specific, and descriptive detail, to reduce it to and fix it in its most permanent and stable aspect.”3 A proverb fixes an insight or observation on human experience in its permanent and stable aspect.

Some proverbs pack such a punch that they not only express an insight but also compel it. I would certainly not raise the bar that high for all proverbs, but it is true of many proverbs. The most striking example of this in my own experience comes from beyond the Bible. Having been to England many times, things suddenly fell into place for me when I read the following aphorism: “The British will not change anything they can endure; Americans will not endure anything they can change.” An example from the Bible is Proverbs 10:7: “The memory of the righteous is a blessing.” Some proverbs have this quality of being a flash of insight.

Proverbs share with literature generally an ability to overcome the cliché effect of ordinary discourse. They often possess arresting strangeness. They do not strike us as everyday discourse but as language on display. To create an aphorism requires two things at least: an extraordinary power of observation or insight and a skill with language that most people lack. It is a literary gift.

What methodology for analyzing a proverb emerges from the foregoing? I have found that asking what it is in a given proverb that makes it striking or arresting yields preliminary insight into its meaning. I have learned to ask, What makes this proverb apt and memorable?

Proverbs Are Simple

One of the paradoxes of proverbs is that they are...