This informative, creative, and convincing study takes up some of the key instructional texts of the Second Temple period as examples of “lived wisdom.” Elisa Uusimäki is a thoughtful and observant expert on this material, and in this volume she moves in an innovative direction ... This book invites the reader to pause from concentrated study of individual textual units to consider the purpose of this material: to form the impressionable person and invite them into sacred community with other virtuous individuals forms of virtue, and a piety that honored God through worship and learning ... Modern students of this material can be grateful for this book, because it offers a vivid depiction of a “lived wisdom” that illuminates many of the critical passages in these sources and the authors who produced them.

Dead Sea Discoveries

Clearly structured and well researched, this is a valuable contribution to the study of Jewish wisdom in the late second temple period as lived, and well-integrated into its Hellenistic Mediterranean context.

SOTS: The Society for Old Testament Study Book List

Elisa Uusimäki brings a fresh perspective to bear on ancient Jewish wisdom literature, approaching it from the angle of lived experience rather than from literary categories. Also refreshing is her interdisciplinary perspective and her integration of materials written in Greek and Hebrew. A most stimulating book!

John J. Collins, Holmes Professor of Old Testament, Yale University, USA

What is wisdom and how can it be performed? Elisa Uusimäki leads her reader through a rich variety of early Jewish writings in which wisdom appears as lived religion and embodied practice, not just an abstract idea or a moral objective. Deconstructing canonical boundaries, she reveals how Jewish sages taught and performed wisdom in the international context of the Greco-Roman world, both as a quality of an individual and as a communal endeavour.

Martti Nissinen, Professor of Biblical Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland

Elisa Uusimäki offers a refreshing perspective on wisdom as a way of life in Second Temple Judaism. Her innovative approach brings early Jewish writings into conversation with classical Greek philosophy, making it clear how Judaism could have been perceived as a “philosophy” in the ancient world.

Karina Martin Hogan, Professor of Theology, Fordham University, USA