Cognitive Disability in the Book of Proverbs

• In Event: Disability in the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinical Literature

Abstract

Judging by its lexical choice, the book of Proverbs is immensely interested in the human body and sensorial experience. Nearly the entire body is depicted in numerous texts relating to the book’s portrayal of right living, which it variously describes as wisdom, righteousness, uprightness, and other related terms. This interest in the human sensorial and corporeal experience is displayed not only in Proverbs’ characterization of wisdom but also in its characterization of that which contrasts wisdom. Building on this approach, the focus of this paper is how the book of Proverbs contributes to our understanding of cognitive disability in the Hebrew Bible. In particular, I argue that, when it employs language describing a person’s lack of wisdom, Proverbs reflects an assessment of that person’s cognitive ability. I suggest that the terms פתי and כסיל most clearly function as terms within Proverbs to describe those deemed as cognitively disabled, though other related terms may be included as well. Attending to the language of Proverbs in this manner advances Avalos’ notion of sensory criticism, which aims to understand how literary texts value the senses and in what ways they value or devalue human beings based on perceived physical or mental features in relation to those sensorial values. In doing so, I find that Proverbs can be characterized as “audiocentric” in its positive characterizations of wisdom but “cognocentric” in its discussion of that which contrasts to wisdom, situating the “unwise” as cognitively deficient to varying degrees, sometimes identifying willful ignorance, other times arguably indicating cognitive disability. The rhetorical value in representing the lack of wisdom as a deficiency of the mind is precisely the fact that it connotes a cognitive function lower or incapacitated in relation to the wise or understanding. Although פתי and כסיל admit a fair bit of ambiguity in terms of their exact connotation, this study seeks to demonstrate that Proverbs can contribute significantly to our understanding of the portrayal of cognitive disability in ancient Israelite literature.

Author

• Tyler Moser, The University of Texas at Austin