The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life by Roland E. Murphy was published by Eerdmans Publishing Company in March 2002 and is our 16748th best seller. The ISBN for The Tree of Life is 9780802839657.

Since 1990 Roland Murphy's Tree of Life has been a standard introduction to the wisdom literature of the Bible. Now The Tree of Life is available in a third edition, complete with a new preface by the author and a special supplement that surveys the latest developments in wisdom research.

This superb study thoroughly explores the wisdom writings of the Bible, interpreting this literature in a way that illumines the development of Israel's search for wisdom throughout its tumultuous history. Murphy looks at each wisdom book individually — Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus, and Wisdom of Solomon — and adds to them a discussion of wisdom from other parts of the Old Testament. His careful investigations expose the various guises that wisdom adopts — the “fear of the Lord,” moral formation, the universality of human experience, the mysteries of creation, and others.