The Doctrine of the

Abstract

"In reading the book of Proverbs it becomes apparent that people and actions are often presented in polar extremes. Some of the prominent polarities are the wise and the foolish, the righteous and the wicked, and actions that lead to honor or shame.1 This may leave modern readers with the impression that individual proverbs fail to present real situations because the situations in view seem too simplistic. Some, taking an extreme view, see Proverbs as “generally mediocre as literature, tedious as ethics, banal as religion.”2 This unmerited scorn may be due to a pervasive unpopularity of the proverb in modern culture, along with centuries of familiarity and repetition that have rendered them trite by modern standards, as well as the apparent lack of topical organization the book of Proverbs presents to the reader.3"