Hebrew Wisdom

Christopher Morley’s article “On Laziness” took a much different approach to narrate his thoughts on laziness than expected. He lists the benefits that come from it, instead of scolding us on why we shouldn’t be lazy. Though Morley does emphasize on the positives that come from laziness, he does warn us even if we’re lazy, we must still eventually be able to accomplish your given tasks. Throughout this essay “On Laziness,” Christopher Morley supports his claim that the world would be a better place if we were more lazy by appealing to logic, appealing to logic, appealing to emotions, and including irony.

Proverbs 8:10-11 to me is basically saying that knowledge is more powerful than money or wealth and nothing that you may want compares to that wisdom.

Proverbs 14:8 The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit.

Wisdom literature has long been part of the Jewish tradition with a large section of the Old Testament devoting itself to it. Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Sirach, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom Psalms make up this literature. Job, dates from the tenth century B,C and has a philosophical and theological reflection on why the righteous suffer. The suggestion is that this is an orderly made cosmos and ultimately all injustices will be turned to good. Proverbs, written in its final form in the third century B.C. is a collection of aphorisms and poems within the relationship between wisdom, righteousness and religious devotion. In tone and form wisdom literature differs from divine revelation and is grounded in observation of and human reflection upon experience. Furthermore, unlike the laws of the Pentateuch, which were proposed in coming from God, and unlike the prophets, who claim to speak the ‘word of the Lord’, on God’s behalf, wisdom does not purport to be truth (Borg: 2001:148). The conventional world-view of some wisdom writings is that righteousness leads to an ordered universe.

It is one of the most underrated troubles. For it causes many issues in the world, though the blame always seems to fall upon some other reason of cause. Laziness causes people to not want to fulfill their wildest dreams to refusing to do necessary duties. On the island of the lotus eaters, Odysseus faces laziness at its most extreme. The lotus flowers cause people to magically lose their longing for home. Sailors don’t have much control over their laziness, for it was forced upon them by way of magic lotus flowers from the natives. My troubles with laziness come from giving up because something is “too hard”, when really I just am being lazy. It causes me to not work as hard as I should to achieve my goal of having a happy and healthy lifestyle. Laziness in Odysseus’ story and mine are similar because we both lose the lust for our goal. Luckily we can both overcome laziness with hard work and determination, even if Pandora releases it from the box

The foolish do not disperse (or give) knowledge and instruction to others. They do not raise their children in Godly ways. In all understanding the Old Testament tells us that the basic foolish man does not want or give knowledge and delights in disobeying the teaching's of God's word.

Lazy is often used in a negative manner to describe someone. When one hears the word lazy, they think of someone that is being indifferent and slow-moving. Being called lazy is usually taken as an insult, but Chritopher Marley formulated an essay called “On Laziness” to prove to readers that being lazy isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, being lazy has numerous advantages that no one ever thinks of. Through the use of the rhetorical devices, diction and syntax, Morley clearly conveys the meaning, purpose, and effect of the text to the audience.

Proverbs simply compiles numerous short instructions for living an effective life on earth. The writers of the Book of Proverbs recognised the varied circumstances of a person’s life and provided principles to apply in a variety of situations rather than instructions to follow in only a few specific instances. The Book of Proverbs consists of like short quotes that are like values for Jewish people. The main purpose of Proverb is to define what it means to be fully devoted to God’s will. This leads a ‘holy life’ because Proverbs promotes Gods law as something that is part of life and is a duty to all human beings. “If I am not for me, who is for me; and if I am (only) for myself, what am I. And if not now, when?” – Hillel, Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14. This basically means that people were created for a specific purpose and that purpose is to follow Gods commands and to live a Holy life by following the sacred

"All of it is clear to a person who has understanding and right to those who have acquired knowledge." (Proverbs 8:6-9)

For example, in Proverbs 10:4-5, we see that working hard will lead us to a better life, but slacking off will cause us shame.

Imagine a world where everyone mopes around hating life, a world without excitement, a world full of brain-dead individuals from TV and doing nothing. Soon because of these people all plants die in the world slowly parishes. Imagine a world of infected and dirty water because everyone was not up for the job to clean it, and broken houses because there was nobody fixed them. The list goes on and on, this is known as if everyone was lazy and nobody has self endurance. Being lazy is being ineffective, because not doing what you're supposed to do will never give you a sense of accomplishment. This is important because if everyone relied on each other nothing would ever happen.

The Egyptian “Instructions of Amenemopet” influence the Israelite book of Proverbs with the wisdom literature. This was commonly used to train young people in morals and to ensure competent work in the court of the king. As many scholars felt as though it influenced Proverbs.

In addition to this belief, rooted in my personality, is a certain urge to always start acting on what I see as interesting or worthwhile, as soon as I learn about it. Not taking the time to get acquainted with the subject is called impatience by some, others will shout impulsiveness. Although they are probably right, I prefer to think of it as not procrastinating. This particular trait aids me in the quest to pursue my dreams and beliefs.

A proverb is "a brief, memorable saying that expresses a truth or belief" (Proverb). “Proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten" (Achebe 7), and they enhance the meaning of all the conversations. “A proverb is [basically] a short sentence based on long experience” (.

Wisdom Tradition is a term applied to the Old Testament books of Proverbs, Job, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. Wisdom Tradition books all share characteristics and points of view that are somewhat different than other biblical books. Wisdom tradition has very prominent characteristics from other books in the Old Testament such as a search for the goal of life, how to master it and questioning the problems of life, showing interest to human experiences that affect all people, joy of creativity and creation, and very little interest in the great acts of divine salvation. These qualities appear in a few books in the Old Testament. All of them show wisdom, but only some show both wisdom and tradition. Books such as Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes values the beauty of creation and the confidence of human life and nature. This was a new concept to Israel. They learned about wisdom tradition through other nations. They were influenced from Mesopotamian literature and took their ideas of meditations of sufferings and God’s justice into their Old Testament Books. Suffering can be seen in Job, but in the next essay and upcoming classes, we will be relating this to women suffering. The wisdom perspectives did not replace the other two major strands of thought in Ancient Israel, that of prophets and priests. It was simply a different focus that was complementary with the other perspectives presented in the Bible.