Latter-day Saint Perspectives

The Interview: In this episode of the LDS Perspectives podcast, Laura Harris Hales interviews Dan Belnap about wisdom literature in the Bible and the ancient Near East. Belnap explains that the books of the Bible are of various genres. Some, like the books of Kings, share historical narratives, while Isaiah is theological in nature. Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Job are categorized as wisdom literature. We do not engage with wisdom literature the same way we do with historical or theological texts, so they are often placed on a lower level by readers, compared to other biblical writings. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth studying. They actually give sound, practical advice for living a good life. We don’t know who the individuals are within Israelite wisdom tales. There’s a father. There’s a son. There’s a mother. There are these individuals. They’re just anonymous Israelite figures, literary figures. The literary figures have a different relationship with deity than you see among Egyptian literary wis