The book of Proverbs is the mainspring of the biblical wisdom tradition. Katharine Dell explores the possible social contexts for its varied material and provides an overview of the characterisation of its theology by scholars. She discusses how individual proverbs, instructions and poems came together to form the collections we have today. Dell also shows that echoes of other Old Testament genres such as prophecy, law and cult can be found in Proverbs and that its social and theological context is much broader than scholars have recognised in the past.

Introduction; 1. Social context(s) in Proverbs 1-9; 2. Social context(s) in Proverbs 10:1-22:16; 3. Social context(s) in Proverbs 22:17-31:31; 4. Mention of Yahweh in Proverbs; Conclusion.