Our professor is father Joseph Koterski, who teaches in the Department of Philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx. Most of his on the great philosophers of history, yet he also has a great love of the bible, as perhaps we may also. Some part of the bible are perhaps better known than others. We can think of the wonderful stories in Genesis, of the liberation of the people from captivity in Egypt.

This course will examine some of the lesser known books of the bible, and particularly those of biblical wisdom literature. These include such books as the haunting story of Job, a man afflicted even though innocent, or the constant exhortations to fidelity that occur in the books of Proverbs or Sirach. Joseph thinks this set of books are of great significance for those who are believers, as well as for those who may not believe, yet perhaps are still searching.

Precisely because of its concentration on some of great problems, such as:

human suffering,
the education of our young people,
the ways in which we seek to grow in virtue and avoid vice,
the way we try to make decisions and learn how to make better and more prudential decisions,
the specific questions of life,
the questions of vocations and career,
the kind of trust we need to exhibit when making new friends or choosing marriage partners.

Our questions for this course will be about these topics, and in particular, right here at the start, we'll concentrate a little bit on an experiment about what the bile has to say about the problems of suffering. We all know there is suffering in the world, and sometimes simply awful things happen to good people.

This problem of suffering is Joseph says we can approach from the perspective of philosophy, yet also from the bible as well. What we'll concentrate on in this course, is what the bible has teach us in this regard. When we talk about suffering, we might be doing it from our own acquaintance. Perhaps we've had strong cases of personal suffering in our own lives.

Perhaps we've had family members close at hand, or fiends, who've had significant suffering. Maybe we're simply thinking about people far off that we've seen on TV, or things that we've read about, all the suffering they've had that they just don't seem to deserve.

When the suffering really hits home, whether by virtue of what we've rad, or by virtue of what we ourselves have found, Father Koterski finds that some people who have the experience of really having their faith tested, sometimes even losing their faith, decide that God can seem so unjust that they cannot allow themselves to believe in that sort of God anymore.

Yet others can blame themselves, where they develop a sense,rightly so, that there is a connection between sin and guilt and its consequences. Also there can arise in a person a torturous sense that they must somehow be responsible if someone they know is suffering, perhaps their children, and they make this type of connection.

So what we'll ask in this course at the start, by way of an example of our approach to Biblical wisdom literature,is what the bible has to say about it, and what we might take away from it. Whether we ourselves are believers, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, we do so because we have a deep respect for the bible, precisely as God's word, as something that was revealed to us, something that had an affect for those at the time that it was revealed, yet then also has a deep affect, a significance, for us today.

Yet this material will also e of great hope, even for those of us who are non-believers,or people who are perhaps searching, simply interested, who are alert to the way in which survival has shaped the human culture, especially in the west. Knowing more about the bible will help us even understand our current culture, and those whose minds and hearts are shaped by this biblical understanding.

The bible has an awful lot to teach us then, about any questions, including that of human suffering. Why, for example, God seems to allow deep suffering. Why it is inappropriate to start blaming oneself, simply because one is suffering, or someone we know is suffering. These are the questions that we will need to examine, so our reference on these biblical themes will give us the opportunity to do that.

We'll also look at many other questions that the biblical wisdom literature offers. Father Koterski's own interest in this is multi-faceted. As a teacher of philosophy at Fordham, he's fascinated with this part of the bible, such as the Book of Job, which is filled with questions about some of the most important questions in life, the meaning of human existence. Yet not only about the endurance of human suffering of the moment, but also how to show our compassion to others who are suffering, how to educate our children, and all those other big problems of wisdom literature.

Philosophers tend to be a little bit skeptical, wanting to know why things are the way they are, how it is that people claim to know what they claim to know, and whether their arguments and evidence is sufficient. Father Koterski is absolutely absolutely agreed in the way of which the bible's wisdom literature shows some of that same questioning attitude.

He also brings the perspective of belief from a particular faith tradition, being a catholic Christian, in fact a Jesuit priest. He sees there being something from this tradition that he can bring to bear that will be of great interest, both for those who share in his convictions and belong to the same household of faith, as well as to those who are not, but perhaps are interested in searching.

Lets raise the question quite directly now, since you maybe saying at this point, "Should I continue with this lecture series, given the perspective of the lecturer?" Father Koterski hopes so, especially because of the intrinsic importance of the bible, of the common biblical interest which Jews, Christians, and other people of the book share. It's also something that this particular tradition has, one of genuine and common human wisdom. So he would like to share some of these perspectives.

He can also only think about how much in hos own life and course of studies, that he has learned so much by reading and studying perceptions that came from traditions not of his own, religiously or philosophically. So he would hope that this sort of discovery from this perspective will be interesting to you and helpful. He has tried to provide some discussion questions at the end of each lecture, in hopes they will provide for a lively sharing of different perspectives.

So we hope you will share out interest in this sapiential literature, as pat of our common human heritage, in the way human culture has emerged, especially in the west. It's something that remains deeply important to the Jewish culture, as well as Christian.

Lets also say something here about this Christian perspective on things. Christians take the very center of the bible to be the person of Christ. In regard to the questions of suffering that we'll be starting with in this series, Jesus presents himself as an innocent man who is a paradigm case of innocent suffering. Whether we share that particular matter of belief about his divinity, it's very useful to know how Christians come about this material.

According to the Christian faith, Jesus of Nazareth is the son of God who took on human nature and became man for our salvation, which we call the incarnation. Yet even if we don't share in that particular belief, there is still a lot to learn from him. He is a case in a way that's like that of Job from earlier in the scriptures. One who is entirely just and innocent. Yet in his case, he consciously accepts the suffering. In fact, he goes to his death saying that he died precisely for the rest of us.

In what the New Testament reveals of his deeds and words, he explains his own embrace of suffering in some of the same categories that the bible in its earlier potions used for the problem of the innocent suffering. One thinks of the way he quotes Isaiah or alludes to Job. He envisioned himself as making a sacrificial offering of himself and then completing what earlier figures in biblical history had begun. There's a way in which he's the new Adam, recapitulating the earlier Adam. There's a way in which he's like Abraham, Isaiah, and Moses, trying to complete what they had begun.

Toward the end of the course, we'll leave time to specifically consider Jesus, his deeds, and words. Yet there's a way that reflection on that, also adds something to the dimension of what we want to start with looking at in some of the earlier works. Let's turn to the specific question of what suffering is, in the bible. This is in any number of parts, for instance in the Torah or Law, as well as a very descriptive and reflective way in the writings of the prophets.

yet it's of special interest in the books that are the sapiential parts of the bible, the biblical wisdom books. What we'll do is go through them and perhaps compare one with another, on a given topic, like suffering. One sees in a book like Job, precisely because we have an innocent man here, who is without blame, if he's not exactly sinless, he's at least not guilty of the sort of sin that would provoke the amount of suffering he has.

So we'll take that perspective and compare it with the perspective we find in the books such as the Book of Proverbs. There's a way in which Father Koterski is showing his cards here as a philosopher. There's a way in which this is a bit of a debate in which the bible itself is entering, yet also we hope it's a way in which you are entering also. We support that precisely because in this discussion on the problem of suffering, there is insight to be gained by the way in which the biblical figures themselves discuss it. So we find here something of a philosophical character. This is really about the different points of view that humans are capable of, they are extreme interesting.

Then there's also what divine wisdom has to say to us about their suffering. Father Koterski thinks of the wonderful Jewish scholar he learned so much from, Gerhard von Rad, in his 1972 book Wisdom in Israel, where he reflects on this and does a terrific job. It's one of the books you may also be interested in consulting during this course.

In this course of lectures on biblical wisdom, we'll be look at all these various questions, but beginning with the problem of suffering as our opening gambit, because it's so engaging. In the case of incomprehensible suffering of the character of Job, the scene we see at the beginning of Job and his troubles, has him seated on the ground with ashes thrust upon his head, his garments torn.

Yet interestingly he's not alone. We see him in the company of three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They are sitting with him, grieving. In fact, they're practicing a wonderful custom within Judaism called "sitting shiva." The custom is that one sits with someone who is suffering, sometimes conversing, sometimes simply being compassionate toward the person who is suffering, or sitting there in silence and waiting for the person who is suffering to begin to speak.

As they're sitting there, we are also given, though Job is not, a sense of perspective from on high, mainly that his friends think of Job as suffering from some kind of sin, because of the way in which he's being punished. Yet Job is insisting that he's not being punished, and in fact, we are given a sense from the earlier parts of of Job, that he is not someone who is in fact suffering because of sin, but rather it's all a kind of divine test. He's described in these opening statements as whole-hearted and upright, a man who fears God and shunned evil.

What we are seeing in part of those opening chapters, is the council of heaven, in which a very curious figure by the name of Satan, is in conversation with the other angels before God. In our later tradition, Satan is the name for a true demon or devil, and there's a good reason that that. Here, at this point in the course of biblical revelation, the name Satan doesn't yet have all those connotations. He's one of the heavenly council and his name simply means "the accuser."

So true to his name, Satan makes an accusation to God, saying "Job is really only being reverential, only being faithful in praising you, because of his prosperity." So what Satan the accuser does, is to suggest a kind of devilish trial which is owhy we stat thinking of him as a devil and why in a subsequent tradition, Satan is the name for the different devils like Lucifer.

The test is that if Job were to be deprived of what he most loved, would he still show the same devotion to God, or would be just start cursing God, because of what he had to suffer? God, trusting that Job will be faithful in bad times as well as good, allows Job to be tried and tested, on the condition that his life be spared. There will be severe losses, but the losses that are afflicted upon Job, will never touch his life.

So in this opening scene, where we've got Job being tested, we also see these three friends of his, Shiva-sitting with him. That goes on for quite some number of chapters, so that more than half to book is devoted to these conversations. We'll have time to consider them in chapters 8, 9 and 10, but for the moment it's enough to note that these friends simply assume Job must have been guilty, and in fact guilty of something serious enough to have provoked such enormous suffering.

On the other hand, Job insists he is innocent, that he sinned like any man has sinned, and he's at least never done anything that was so egregious as to deserve the suffering this horrendous. He lost his children, his property, his servants, yet he's no more guilty than anyone else. Reluctant to speculate on the possible reasons for his suffering, Jon insists instead, from the posture of faith, that even in his darkness, that even in his suffering, God will come to his help.

There's a very beautiful passage in which he says, "I know that my redeemer lives." He insists that he will be proven innocent, if only he had his day in court, so his greatest insistence is precisely on getting his case to be tried. After a lengthy conversation which various angles are tried, in order to figure out the problem, a new character emerges on the scene. A much younger man, not like Job's friends who are perhaps of the same age. This man is named Elihu.

So Elihu, with all the great confidence of which sometime the young are capable, suggests he knows God's mind. He can show that God is perfectly just and innocent, and if he can do that, then Job must somehow be guilty. Well hardly has Elihu finished his first speech, when what do you know, God himself appears in a grand theophany.

God refuses to submit himself to any court proceedings, like Job is pleading for. Instead, God vindicates Job's innocence, that he is a faithful man, whom he had known from the beginning would faithful, despite his trials. God castigates the presumptions of Elihu, as well as the notions from the trio of Job's friends. In fact, at God's directive, Job starts pleading for his friends, so they will be spared punishments themselves, for any prescriptions it may have had.

Then there's the problem of the ending of the Book of Job. In the epilogue, there's a scene in which Job gets the restoration of his fortunes, he gets new children, new prosperity, all is returned. It's a part of the story that we can very much love, as it's a happy ending.

Yet some scholars think that it may have been added by thinkers who weren't so much following out the internal logic of Job, the tragedy of life and the need for faith in the midst of tragedy. So perhaps the ending was added by people who showed the perspective of one of the other wisdom books of the bible, the Book of Proverbs. We'll discuss this problem in lecture 12, but are just wetting the appetite for some of the philosophical debates we're going to have.

As we ponder this, it seems that the text itself shows the incredible fidelity of Job. The way in which he is steadfast in assuming God will show his utter rectitude, and will correct injustice and misfortune. It seems to Father Koterski that the bible is pondering this, and pondering it deeply, by the way in which the Book of Job, as well as Job's character shows it, as the other biblical texts are in conversation with it.

What we need to do is look at the questions here, the general question of suffering, the use to which the self might be put, because many of the spiritual writers reflecting upon the bible, have seen in this, advise for ourselves, how to conduct our lives in a time of suffering, and how we're to deal with those who are put in out path, our family members or friends.

We'll consider the relative merits of being silent and listening, trying to elicit perhaps a sense of what people are feeling. We'll consider the best and worst ways in which one should speak. How not what we think is always the right things to say, if someone is suffering. We'll consider and talk about some possible ways to pray in the midst of suffering. The ways to endure in patience and perseverance. They way to hope.


Lets now turn for a few minutes to what the course as a whole will look like. The anguish of Job speaks so loudly to us, but there was lots of other problems that are addressed in the bible's sapiential books. We'll find ways to examine these various books from a number of perspectives. We'll need to look at the texts themselves, the genres in which the writers are using and trying to explore the problems of wisdom, their place within the bible as a whole.

We'll look back at the questions theologically and philosophically that these books pose, the answers they give. We'll look at the ways in which we might use some of the answers in our own lives, and also about the question of human wisdom and divine revelation, and human response to divine revelation. There are very interesting questions in these matters.

The order we use for the topics in this course is roughly chronological. We don't know with utter certainty the dates of many of the books when we put it into historical period. Even though there's some scholarly debate about which came first, or perhaps the ways in which the texts were developed. Yet we'll be using for this course, the rough chronological orde that scholars have established.

The Book of Proverbs
The Book of Job
Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes)
Sirach (Ben Sira or Ecclesiasticus)
The Song of Songs (The Canticle of Canticles)
Daniel
The Wisdom of Solomon

Then toward the end of the course, we'll have 3 lectures on the gospels in which Jesus shows himself connected very deeply with the of earlier biblical wisdom. In addition to these books, there's also the bible's prayer book, the Psalms. There are many different types of psalms, but some of the 150 psalms seem to very closely belong to a group of didactic poetry that we call to the Psalms.

We'll be making use of the Psalms as a kind of interlude within this course at various points. After we've considered a particular book, we'll use the Psalms to sort of take a moment and think about how to reflect on what we've just studied, perhaps how to pray about it, how to reflect on what the problem is before we go onto the next book.

There are various sources for wisdom, and we'll mention three in particular. One is the experience we have and the reflection upon our personal experience, vicariously the experience others have and what we've come to know about, perhaps reading about.

Secondly, the reflection on the nature of things, sometimes the way things are is reflected in as really explaining to us more about how to deal with it, and perhaps God's intent.

Finally, there is a source of wisdom that is divine revelation. So whether we're doing this from the point of view of literature, history, or philosophy, there is a kind of wisdom, and biblical wisdom is long in teaching us about this, that comes through prayer and meditation, through insight from this revealed set of texts.

We will then do well to be asking ourselves regularly as we start this, what is it that's coming from human reflection on experience? What is it that's coming from nature? What is it that's coming from God and the way in which he's trying to elicit a response from us?

Father Koterski thinks that in making this kind of study, that both those who are believers and non-believers alike, will find much of great interest in these materials. There is something that even the believer who has already made use of thee texts, may find helpful.

Sometimes we get into patterns and habits. For example, habits of prayer, when we tend to regularly do it the same way. Father Koterski has found in his own experience of making retreats and reading books on the subject, that it can be really helpful to have people suggest new ways of praying or new ways of reading a text. So we're hopeful that our study will be helpful for those who are believers, in perhaps deepening and broadening their ways of prayer.

One preliminary note at this point is if you already have a method that works for you, then the best we can say is stick with it! Yet sometimes people are looking for a new way, so we hope what we have to offer, will be taken in that spirit.

People who are not particularly given to prayer or reflection in that mode, it may be interesting just to know what believers do, or what the phenomenon of prayer is about. It will be helpful in understanding others with whom we meet and deal, and perhaps give some suggestions of something analogous in our own life.

We think, for instance, of some of the great philosophers who had a habit of meditation, even though it wasn't something particularly directed to God. It was still extremely prayerful

Our course will consider these questions then, about what the bible has to offer, and what human experience has to do in responding to that. In the course, we'll look at these, one after the other.

In the next lecture, we'll begin by considering the oldest book of wisdom literature, the book of called Proverbs. Yet to set us up for this, we need to take a minute on the translations when one is using ancient texts like these. We're presumably going to be reading them in English, rather than in the original language. There are many wonderful translations of the bible that are available. In fact, we urge you to consider using different translations in the course of your study. As we move through the texts, we'll be looking at a number of different English translations, and by that sample, we'll see some of the variety that is possible.

If you have a bible that's already available, or one that for some reason of your own that you prefer, that's perfectly fine. It can be helpful to use both that text, as well as the one we'll be using. We'll identify which one that is, at several points in the course. It's useful to have several of these available, if only to see what a given translator has emphasized by choosing this way, rather than that way, to render a given passage.

Which translation is a good one? Well the best thing to consider here, is that we do need a translation made from the original language. So it's necessary to go back to the original Hebrew, back to the original Greek, and then see in the history of the translation whats happened, and how to understand some of the problems in the texts.

So it's crucial that we work on a translation that has a scholarly foundation, one in which the scholars have tried to find an accurate version of these texts. As you know, in the course of copying, mistakes can get made. The fact is, we do not have the original autograph, the manuscript the original author himself wrote. Those who composed the bile and the texts they made, are now gone. What we have are copies made subsequently in history and then copies made after that.

When scribal errors have crept in, modern scholars have tried hard to restore the original readings and make good sense of the text. Then the translator has to try to find a way to render this that's easily understandable in our own modern idiom.

There's even a problem of vocabulary. In the Hebrew texts of the bible, there are only about 5000 different words that occur. Many of them are used many times, but curiously it was found that 40% of them, 2000, only occur once. There are no ancient dictionaries of biblical Hebrew, so what we have to do is rely upon context for the meaning of those words.

In recent years we've also had archaeological discoveries of other ancient texts in other Near Eastern languages. Some words are also resent in these, so that we have an even better sense of what they mean. Since these words only occur once, and many of them are names, we are very clear on the meaning of most verses in the bible.

Yet on the other hand, there are still a few problems, and it's only fair to acknowledge those. Scholars have some wonderful methods for trying to resolve the various difficulties. Yet there is also the problem of finding a translator with the appropriate rhetoric for us, with the appropriate literary skills, the appropriate theological skills, and who is sensitive to the connotations of different words and phrases, as well the ability to turn those phrases from an appropriate language into a new version, for us, English.

For the sake of the beginning of our study with the book of Proverbs, we'll be using the translations called The New International Version, produced by the International Bible Society. We'll be able to sample some of the other translations by other translators, when we turn to other books of the bible.

Father Koterki looks forward to this study with us.