It can be a challenge to understand wisdom’s place in Israel’s salvific history, but John L. McLaughlin makes this complicated genre straightforward and accessible.

This introductory-level textbook begins by explaining the meaning of wisdom to the Israelites and surrounding cultures before moving into the conventions of the genre and its poetic forms. The heart of the book explores the wisdom books themselves: Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), and the deuterocanonical Ben Sira and Wisdom of Solomon. McLaughlin also points to where wisdom is expressed in the historical books and in the New Testament.

Designed especially for beginning students, An Introduction to Israel’s Wisdom Traditions offers an informed, panoramic view of wisdom literature’s place in the biblical canon.