CHAPTER VI.
SUPPLEMENTARY ON QUESTIONS OF DATE AND ORIGIN.
There are two extreme views on the date of the Book of
Proverbs, between which are the theories of the mass of
moderate critics. The one is that represented by Keil in his
Introduction and Bishop Ellicott's Commentary, that the
whole book except chaps. xxx., xxxi., and perhaps the heading
i. 1-6, is in substance of Solomonic origin;[1] the other is
that of Vatke and Reuss (the precursors of Kuenen and
Wellhausen) that our proverbs as a collection come from the
post-Exile period. Much need not be said on the first of
these extreme views. It has been pointed out already that
the ethical and religious character even of the earliest proverbial
collection stands far removed from that of the historical
Solomon. It is indeed a pure hypothesis that any
Solomonic element survives in the Book of Proverbs. I
doubt not that many bright and witty sayings of Solomon
came into circulation, and some of them might conceivably
have been gathered up and included in the anthologies. But
have we any adequate means of deciding which these are?
It would appear from 1 Kings iv. 33 that the wisdom of the
historical Solomon expressed itself in spoken fables or moralisations
about animals and trees. A few, a very few, of the
proverbs in our book may perhaps satisfy the test thus
obtained, and be plausibly represented as a Solomonic element.
But why Solomon should be singled out as the
author, it would tax one's ingenuity to say, and the judgment
of Hitzig (in such matters a conservative critic) must be
maintained that the survival of Solomonic proverbs is no
more than a possibility.[2]
