The Personification of Wisdom and Folly as Women in Ancient Judaism

This article traces the personification of wisdom and folly as women in ancient Judaism. Wisdom was an important but enigmatic concept. Authors steeped in the sapiential tradition helped make wisdom more understandable by describing it as a woman. Male teachers used trope to make wisdom more desirable to their male students. The trope of personifying wisdom and folly as women is also associated with sexual ethics, in the pedagogical context of men being given advice about women, particualrly kinds of women that would make good wives and those whom men should avoid. These tropes are central in the book of Proverbs, which are then appropriated in a various ways by texts such as Ben Sira, the Wisdom of Solomon and various writings from the Dead Sea Scrolls.