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Counsels of Wisdom

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Counsels of Wisdom is a piece of Babylonian wisdom literature written in Akkadian[1] containing moral exhortations.[2] It is composed primarily of two-line units,[3] without sections.[4] A translation of extant portions of the text was published in Lambert 1996. Existing manuscripts are fragmentary, but the original was estimated to be about 160 lines.[2]

Date of authorship

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Scholars disagree on the date of the work. Gemser and Frans de Liagre Böhl placed it in the First Dynasty,[5] but Lambert believes it should be dated to the Kassite period.[6] The work is attested primarily by a stone tablet written in Late Babylonian script.[6]

Comparison with other wisdom literature

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The text is addressed to "my son", which may be a physical son, a student, a successor, or a trope of the genre, as it is in later wisdom literature.[2] Scholars have observed several pieces of ancient wisdom literature to be similar, including the Instructions of Shuruppak, Counsels of a Pessimist, and the Hymn to Šamaš (See Shamash). Together these works were an ancient genre.[6] Similarities have been noticed with the Book of Proverbs, but no literary dependence has been found.[7] The Counsels of Wisdom is believed to have been somewhat popular in its time, since fragments of this passage are quoted in other extant works.[2] The work may have influenced the Wisdom of Ahiqar.[8]

Kindness to Evildoers

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Biblical scholar John Nolland sees a passage in the Counsels of Wisdom as a possible precursor to Jesus' command to "love your enemies": "Do not return evil to the man who disputes with you; requite with kindness your evil-doer... smile on your adversary."[9]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Kitchen 1977, p. 114.
  2. ^ a b c d Lambert 1996, p. 96.
  3. ^ Kitchen 1977, p. 88.
  4. ^ Kitchen 1977, p. 86.
  5. ^ Böhl, Frans Marius Theodor de Liagre (1942). "De zonnegod als de beschermer der nooddruftigen" [The sun god as the protector of the poor]. Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux (in Dutch). 8. Leiden: Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Gezelschap: 665–680, at p. 670. ISSN 0075-2118. OCLC 643516029.[verification needed]
  6. ^ a b c Lambert 1996, p. 97.
  7. ^ Whybray 2009, p. 51.
  8. ^ Greenstein 2022, p. 307.
  9. ^ Nolland 2005, p. 265.

References

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Further reading

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