WISDOM LITERATURE

add. ·- the class of ancient hebrew writings which deal reflectively with general ethical and religious topics, as distinguished from the prophetic and liturgical literature, and from the law. it is comprised chiefly in the books of job, proverbs, ecclesiasticus, ecclesiastes, and wisdom of solomon. the "wisdom" (hokhmah) of these writings consists in detached sage utterances on concrete issues of life, without the effort at philosophical system that appeared in the later hellenistic reflective writing beginning with philo judaeus.