Like Grapes of Gold Set in Silver: An Interpretation of Proverbial Clusters in Proverbs 10:1-22:16

Best exegesis of this difficult middle section of the book, with emphasis on context in understanding and relating the individual proverbs. [Full Review]

Like Grapes of Gold Set in Silver: An Interpretation of Proverbial Clusters in Proverbs 10:1 - 22:16 Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 273 Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001. Pp. xiv + 378, Cloth, $108.90, ISBN 3110163764. Andrew Steinmann Concordia University River Forest, IL 60305 Recent scholarly opinion on the sayings assembled in Prov 10:1-22:16 has tended to view this “sentence literature” as purposely arranged and ordered by the editor of these “Proverbs of Solomon.” In line with this trend, Knut Heim presents his doctoral research, carried out under A. R. Millard at Liverpool. Heim sets out to study how individual sayings in this collection function in context and provides an enjoyable study of proverbs and their contextual connections. The beginning of this work is occupied with a survey of scholarship. Heim begins by examining positions of those scholars who have denied that sentence literature is to be read in literary context. They believe that sayings are to be read individually and that interpretation of them is not to be colored by surrounding proverbs. Heim offers a fair reading of these scholars but deftly points out the deficiencies of such approaches and the fallacies of arguments used to defend them. His major contention is that readers of Proverbs tend to read sayings without reference to their context because of the very nature of proverbs as self-contained units. Therefore, many have a legitimate concern to safeguard the integrity of individual proverbs that denies any external constraint (such as context) on their meaning. A second chapter surveying scholarship on proverb performance demonstrates that paroemilogists agree that in oral usage the performance context provides clues for understanding and applying proverbs. [Full Review]