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The Book of Proverbs
A Social Justice Commentary
Shmuly Yanklowitz
Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2022
The Book of Proverbs, attributed to King Solomon, is a profound collection of Jewish wisdom, song, and inspiration. Yet to contemporary readers, the text can appear vague, ambiguous, and contradictory. In this refreshing and relevant commentary, Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz challenges us to find modern meaning in this ancient text. Using his signature blend of social justice practice and Jewish thought from throughout history, Rabbi Yanklowitz shows how the words of Proverbs are strikingly pertinent to issues we face today. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Rabbi Yanklowitz explores such topics as income inequality, feminism, animal rights, environmentalism, and many more. The author’s commentary is paired with the full text of Proverbs—in both Hebrew and an updated, gender-accurate translation—so readers can glean their own insights.
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The Book of Proverbs
The JPS Audio Version
Michael,Norma,Kathy,Francie Anne JPS: The Jewish Publication Society
Jewish Publication Society, 2009
The audio version of the Book of Proverbs was created by JPS and JBI. Using the NJPS translation, Michael Bernstein, Norma Fire, Kathy Ford, and Francie Anne Riley narrated this book exclusively for The Jewish Publication Society.
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The Hermeneutics of Torah
Proverbs 2, Deuteronomy, and the Composition of Proverbs 1–9
Bernd U. Schipper
SBL Press, 2021

This revised and expanded English edition of Bernd U. Schipper’s 2012 Hermeneutik der Tora incorporates the results of his continued research and writings on Proverbs. For nearly a century, many biblical scholars have argued that the main theological traditions, such as the divine law, God’s torah, do not appear in the book of Proverbs. In this volume, however, Schipper demonstrates that Proverbs interacts in a sophisticated way with the concept of the torah. A detailed analysis of Proverbs 2 and other passages from the first part of the book of Proverbs shows that Proverbs engages in a postexilic discourse around “wisdom and torah” concerning the abilities of humans to fulfill the will of YHWH exemplified in the divine torah.

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Lexical and Semantic Aspects of Proverbs
František Cermák
Karolinum Press, 2019
This book is linguistic in nature, offering a number of aspects of contemporary languages and their proverbs. Focusing mostly on lexical, semantic and pragmatic aspects, the book also explores language corpora findings. Apart from collecting data on proverbs from dozens of languages, there is an effort to map proverbs within a language in a systematic and reliable way. The book will prove useful to paremiologists, lexicographers, and comparative linguists.
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Modern Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings
Bartlett Jere Whiting
Harvard University Press, 1989

This new collection by our greatest connoisseur of proverbs is the first and only comprehensive compilation of proverbial sayings, British and American, that are actually in current use in this century—old ones still part of common parlance, others recently coined, and familiar ones with new twists. It will be of inestimable value to students of the proverb, of more than passing interest to folklorists and cultural historians, and to the casual browser and language buff a delight.

Whiting has, in the course of fifty years' reading, culled these proverbial expressions from a huge range of sources, some seven thousand books as well as newspapers and magazines. Since proverbs are by nature popular, he has drawn heavily on popular writing such as detective stories and science fiction; with certain notable exceptions (James Joyce among them), major authors, writers of belles-lettres, have proved less fertile terrain than the purveyors of fiction for the masses. No one else has combed a comparable cross-section of the popular literature of this century in search of proverbial matter—and no one now could, given the ephemeral nature of those books. Moreover, only a scholar of Whiting's expertise could confidently identify the proverbial expressions therein, with all their inversions, variations, and parodies.

The volume is patterned after its predecessor, Whiting's Early American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases. The sayings are alphabetized by key words, usually the first important noun or verb, and there are cross-references to other items of similar gist. The body of each entry consists of quotations, with their sources, in chronological order. For those who may wish to trace the prior history of a proverb or phrase, citations are provided to earlier collections and reference works in which it appears.

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Proverbs
An Eclectic Edition with Introduction and Textual Commentary
Michael V. Fox
SBL Press, 2015

A new critical text for Proverbs drawing from many manuscripts

This first volume of The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition series, features a critical text of Proverbs with extensive text-critical introductions and commentaries. This and future HBCE volumes bring together a scholar’s critical decisions into a single text. construct an eclectic text, drawing from many manuscripts or placing entirely variant texts side by side. A common approach for critical editions of other ancient books, including the New Testament, the eclectic approach and scope used in the HBCE is a first of its kind for the Hebrew Bible.

Features:

  • Emendations set in context rather than singly and marginally
  • Introduction that sets out the method and purpose of the volume
  • Extensive list of abbreviations and sigla
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Proverbs Are The Best Policy
Folk Wisdom And American Politics
Wolfgang Mieder
Utah State University Press, 2005

Wolfgang Mieder, widely considered the world’s greatest proverb scholar, here considers the role of proverbial speech on the American political stage from the Revolutionary War to the present. He begins his survey by discussing the origins and characteristics American proverbs and their spread across the globe hand in hand with America’s international political role. He then looks at the history of the defining proverb of American democracy, "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Subsequent essays consider such matters as Abigail Adams’s masterful use of politically charged proverbs; the conversion of the biblical proverb "a house divided against itself cannot stand" into a political expression; Frederick Douglass’s proverbial prowess in the battle against racial injustice; how United States presidents have employed proverbial speech in their inaugural addresses; and the proverbial language in the World War II correspondence between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, which sharpened their communication and helped forge bonds of cooperation. Mieder concludes with an insightful, relevant examination of the significance of the ambiguous proverb "good fences make good neighbors."

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Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly before 1500
Bartlett Jere Whiting
Harvard University Press

This book is a collection of English proverbs, sentences, and proverbial phrases from the Middle Ages. The material is drawn from an exhaustive examination of the surviving texts, mainly printed ones but some still in manuscript. Certain books written later than 1500, usually by authors who were born twenty years or so before the turn of the century, are included, and John Heywood, the first great assembler of English proverbs, is represented by the sayings he compiled.

,"No matter how popular a saying may appear," Mr. Whiting points out in his Preface, "it comes to us at one remove or more from popular usage. The medieval proverbs which survive do so only because they were written down by educated men, none of them collectors from the field. In most cases the sayings were incorporated in literary works by authors who did not hesitate to make changes suggested by context, application, and meter. We sometimes forget that Heywood's Dialogue and Epigrams are poems, although Heywood's standards of prosody are such as to let him use proverbs without too drastic changes for rhyme and rhythm's sake. What we have in most quotations is the proverb, not as an author may have heard or read it, but in the form which suited his immediate convenience or whim."

The sayings are alphabetized by key words and the quotations are in chronological order. Cross-references link sayings of similar import, and the index is a guide to important words other than those by which the alphabetical order is established. References are given to the standard collections of English proverbs, so that the user can trace the later history of many of the sayings.

Filling a long-felt gap in the field, this work will be indispensable to students of Old and Middle English literature and of great value to everyone interested in the rich resources of proverb lore.

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What Goes Around Comes Around
edited by Kimberly J. Lau, Peter Tokofsky, and Stephen Winick
Utah State University Press, 2004
In this collection of essays prominent folklorists look at varied modern uses and contexts of proverbs and proverbial speech, some traditional and conventional, others new and unexpected. After the editors' introduction discussing the history and status of attempts to define proverbs, describing their contemporary circulation, and acknowledging the especially important work of paremiologist Wolfgang Meider, the contributions examine the continuing pervasiveness and idiomatic relevance of proverbs in modern culture.
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Words Of Common Sense
Brother David Steindl-Rast
Templeton Press, 2002

Brother David Steindl-Rast takes us on a journey to discover the wisdom preserved in common sense sayings that have been passed down through generations. These timeless words reflect the shared values cherished by people all over the world.

"When you drink from a stream,” says one Chinese proverb, “remember the spring." From these simple words we are reminded to be grateful for even the smallest graces that we receive. Another homespun phrase tells us that "a contented heart is a continual feast," reminding us to look within, rather than without, for the source of our happiness.

Words of Common Sense reveals the thread of human experience expressed in the world’s proverbs and sayings. It helps us connect with cultures other than our own and recognize our shared humanity. These words resonate around the world because they are timeless reflections on how to cultivate a life of love, gratitude, and meaning.

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