Many scholars have tried to find a phrase or sentence that sums wisdom up in a nutshell, however, wisdom is so diverse as a phenomenon that to pin it down in this way leads to difficulties in interpretation. Wisdom beings with experience, human experience of the world and of God as creator and sustainer of that world. It represents the cumulative experience of many generations. The author concludes with an examination of teh Israelite appropriation of wisdom as distinctive. As a particular understanding of reality its theology permeates all corners of Israelite thought, and hence wisdom influence is strong within the Old Testament and outside it.
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