Wisdom literature
The earliest known wisdom literature dates back to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, originating from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Wisdom literature from Jewish, Greek, Chinese, and Indian cultures started appearing around the middle of the 1st millennium BC.
In classical antiquity, the didactic poetry of Hesiod, particularly his Works and Days, was regarded as a source of knowledge similar to the wisdom literature of Egypt, Babylonia and Israel.
[6] Proverbs were particularly popular among the Sumerians, with many fables and anecdotes therein, such as the Debate Between Winter and Summer, which Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer has noted as paralleling the story of Cain and Abel in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 4:1–16)[7] and the form of disputation is similar to that between Job and his friends in the Book of Job (written c. 6th century BC).
[13] Instructions of Shuruppak[14] (mid-3rd millennium BC, Sumer): The oldest/earliest known wisdom literature,[5][15][1] as well as one of the longest-lived,[5] and most widely disseminated in Mesopotamia.
Specific topics include: what kind of company to keep, conflict avoidance and diffusion, importance of propriety in speech, the reward of personal piety, etc.
[19][20] Instructions of Shupe‐Ameli (AKA: "S(h)ima Milka" or "Hear the Advice"): A father provides his son with conservative "Positive Wisdom" (to work with friends, avoid bad company, not desire other men's wives, etc.
[22] Other texts display a variety of views concerning life after death, including the rationalist skeptical The Immortality of Writers and the Harper's Songs, the latter of which oscillates between hopeful confidence and reasonable doubt.
The majority of the text date to the 1st–4th century AD, though the original materials the texts may be older;[24] recent scholarship confirms that the syncretic nature of Hermeticism arose during the times of Roman Egypt, but the contents of the tradition parallel the older wisdom literature of Ancient Egypt, suggesting origins during the Pharaonic Age.
[25][26] The Hermetic texts of the Egyptians mostly dealt with summoning spirits, animating statues, Babylonian astrology, and the then-new practice of alchemy; additional mystical subjects include divine oneness, purification of the soul, and rebirth through the enlightenment of the mind.
[27] The wisdom literature of Egyptian Hermeticism ended up as part of Islamic tradition, with his writings considered by the Abbasids as sacred inheritance from the Prophets and Hermes himself as the ancestor of Muhammad.
