This new edition has been considerably expanded to take in work on the legal and didactic material published since the 198s. It gives more attention to the different literary genres used by Israel's sages and to the social settings in which the material came into existence and circulated. References to relevant archaeological data have also been brought up to date. The main purpose of the book, however, remains the same: to trace the course of two related key streams of tradition, law and wisdom, throughout the history of Israel in the biblical period, and to demonstrate their essential lines of continuity with classical Jewish thought and early Christian theology.