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Biblical Theology Bulletin, Nov, 2009 by Greg Schmidt Goering

God’s Twilight Zone: Wisdom in the Hebrew Bible. By T. A. Perry. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008 xxi 208. Paper, $19.95.

From the book’s subtitle, potential readers might expect a conventional survey of Israelite wisdom literature. While Perry treats several traditional wisdom passages, the book presents no systematic analysis of the wisdom corpus and will surprise many biblical scholars for its unorthodox conception of wisdom. Many of the texts chosen for literary analysis–stories about Noah, Tamar and Judah, Joseph, Samson, and Saul’s prophetic frenzy–are not generally classified as wisdom literature. To dismiss the book as unconventional grand rapids internet marketing company or as falsely advertised, however, would be to overlook the wisdom contained within. Perry’s narrative analysis of these “key moments in the Hebrew Bible” (p. xi) occurs in dialogue with both modern critical scholarship and traditional Jewish exegesis. Rather than historical context, the literary simultaneity of the Jewish Bible provides the interpretive frame. The author’s synchronic reading of the various scriptural texts thus constitutes an exercise in imaginative Jewish biblical theology.

The first section of the book interprets the traditional wisdom dichotomy “righteous/wicked” by juxtaposing the examples of Noah, Tamar, Judah, and Joseph with the figure of Pharaoh. The righteous person, Perry concludes, shares in God’s righteousness, in the sense that she or he brings forth and nurtures life. The second section examines several case studies in which characters (Samson and Solomon, e.g.) must render decisions in the midst of murky reality–what Perry calls “God’s twilight zone,” where paradox, ambiguity, and uncertainty make “determinate” judgments difficult. The final section focuses on the meaning of life’s transience in the epilogue to Ecclesiastes and the expression of wonder in Proverbs 30:18-20. The proper response to human existence in God’s twilight zone is enjoyment of life appropriate to one’s age, recognition of human vulnerability, and maintenance of wonder. Jews, Christians, and others will benefit from Perry’s theological insight, and scholars, religious leaders, and educated laypersons from his close reading of biblical texts.

Consonant with the title of the book, Perry’s close readings relish double-meaning and textual ambivalence (p. 121). Narrative hinges such as Genesis 2:4 (pp. 32-38) and Judges 13:25 (p. 58) and passages such as Genesis 38 and Judges 14 that at first glance interrupt narrative flow and seem “extraneous” (p. 54) are singled out as sites of significant meaning that deserve careful attention. When translating Psalm 1.2b, e.g., Perry asks whether we should read “his Torah” (referring to the righteous person of v 1) or “His Torah” (referring to God’s Torah, in parallelism with v 2a). In such situations of “ambivalence,” Perry suggests, it is an “interpretive mistake … to choose one alternative over the other” (p. 121). Here Perry himself illustrates the role of the twilight zone interpreter based on the exemplars of Samson and Solomon he has just analyzed.

Some of Perry’s readings contain midrashic insight. For example, he draws thematic connections between the stories of Judah (Gen 38) and Samson based on intermarriage, reversal, and a literal and figurative “going down” (pp. 56, 68). Or he suggests that the phrase “like the palm tree” (kattamar) in Ps 92:12 [Heb 13] refers to Tamar in Genesis 38 based on the presence of the definite article (p. 9)