Joseph Blenkinsopp analyses the so-called Wisdom Writings, especially the Book of Proverbs, and outlines the ethical teaching of the sages of Israel and the complex of ideas which supported it. He then goes on to show how dissonance between this theoretical framework and experience gave rise to grave religious problems concerning the nature of Israel's God and his relation with his people and considers how these problems were treated in the literature, especially in Job and Ecclesiastes. Tracing the development of Israel's legal tradition from its origins in the tribal structure, the author brings out the contacts between this tradition and the ethical teaching of the sages. Towards the end of the biblical period the synthesis of law and wisdom provided essential lines of continuity with the early Christian theology and rabbinic Judaism of the classical period.