Consecutive Authorship

This article explores late antique Christian conceptualizations of the authorship and transmission of Proverbs in selected works of biblical interpretation preserved in Syriac. In Prov 25:1, the Judean king Hezekiah and his friends are described as writing or transmitting proverbs by Solomon. The article argues that to late antique interpreters, Hezekiahs involvement did not raise questions about the authenticity or attribution of Proverbs but rather about its textual history. It is shown how they used the figure of Hezekiah to develop different views on the production and transmission of Proverbs. Commentators presented the book of Proverbs as the result of consecutive compositional practices, in which selecting, ordering, salvaging, and restoring played central roles.