Universidad Peruana Unión

Escuela de Posgrado

DEUT. 21:18-21:

PROVERBIAL LAW AND WISDOM

Un Trabajo

Presentado en cumplimiento parcial

De los requisitos de aprobación de la clase

Exégesis en Hebreo – Pr. Horna

Por

José Santos Padilla

Noviembre, 2015
 INFORME CRÍTICO DE LECTURA

Lectura 6

Callaway, Phillip R. Deut. 21:18-21. Proverbial Law and Wisdom. Journal of Biblical
Literature. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 1984. Reading time: 20 minutes.

The subject of Proverbial Law and Wisdom as addressed in this article is relevant

to all students of the Bible in either environment lay individuals or trained scholars both

can gain useful insights to a better understanding to this challenging legal procedures in

the life of Israel. Regretfully, the whole elaboration of the research is intended for scholar

purposes. There are elements than can be easily contested in this work.

Take for instance the purpose of the author, he fails to take ownership of his own

purpose, he bases his research in Gemser’s observation of this African tribes where they

employ prime forms of legal practice and wisdom, and this constitutes the the foundation

for the administration of justice and order in a given societal group.

I need to recall on the absence of his own purpose, because his own defines the

direction and methodology and conclusions of the work. In nature the work is good, he

announces five divisions and is faithful to his promise, every section becomes

interdependent one to each other, that is to say they keep a connection, a relation in

context with the discussion of the author.

Callaway adequately treats the text and acknowledges the unit of it, but deals with

it in separated fashion, he warns of this procedure to his readers. Describes the character

of the glutton and rebellious child uncommitted to the authority of his parents who is

object of death penalty. At the same time, he cites Merendino’s liberal approach to the

understanding of this pericope (Deut. 21:18-21), the author disagrees with Merendino’s

exegetical speculations of late composition to the corpus in this text, suggesting that

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proverbial wisdom tradition influences leaked to the discourse found in Deut. 21:18-21.

The result is an amputated piece of literature that breaks the unity and context of legal

compendium as prescribed in the the first five books of the Bible. This kind of

approaches disrupt the flow and unity of the bible and brings shadow to the serious

biblical exegetical exercise.

Linkage of the text or parts of it with proverbial wisdom is merited to the

supernatural nature of the inspiration of the bible, and the intertextuality of scripture but

since the vast majority of scholarship denies these presuppositions, becomes evident that

dealing with this text (,‫ ) זֹולֵ֖ל וְ סֹ ֵֽבא׃‬they attribute it to different authorship, anachronical in

nature or conditioned by near eastern primal forms of the text.

The authors efforts to stir his research leads him to liberal criticism that reduce the

pericope to preexisting form of nomadic legal law of procedures in near eastern tradition

and later found their way into Israelite religious tradition. This approach undermines

frontally the inspiration of the bible.

Callaway also requires from sociological support to provide validity to his work,

anthropological implications find their way in his understanding because of the societal

establishment of order and civility to control human behavior. But to render the final

reality of the exegetical process to humanistic assumptions. The final product bears the

nature of the methodology, that is to say humanistic.

The analysis is done following a consequential course predictable, the author is

clear in his language, his composition forms a unit that never breaks, which provide

easily his readers with concentration of the matter of the rebellious son that has come to

the point of hopelessness and now due to his rebellion must be put to death. Yet

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Callaway’s conclusion that the law is the final result of societal development is

unwarranted for the evidence found in the five first books of the bible. The right thing is

that proverbial wisdom is dependent or derived of the law.

The authors work reveals a well tailored piece, nonetheless lacking the position

wide open where Callaway stands when it comes to adjudicate either intertextuality to the

relationship between law and proverbial wisdom or a late edition as would be suggested

in liberal circles. For this reason, I cannot bear witness in defense of Callaway’s work.