Counsels of Wisdom is a piece of Babylonianwisdom literature written in Akkadian[1] containing moral exhortations.[2] It is composed primarily of two-line units,[3] without sections.[4] A translation of extant portions of the text was published in Lambert 1996. Existing manuscripts are fragmentary, but the original was estimated to be about 160 lines.[2]
Scholars disagree on the date of the work. Gemser and Bohl placed it in the First Dynasty,[5] but Lambert believes it should be dated to the Kassite period.[6] The work is attested primarily by a stone tablet written in Late Babylonian script.[6]
The text is addressed to "my son", which may be a physical son, a student, a successor, or a trope of the genre, as it is in later wisdom literature.[2] Scholars have observed several pieces of ancient wisdom literature to be similar, including the Instructions of Shuruppak, Counsels of a Pessimist, and the Hymn to Šamaš (See Shamash). Together these works were an ancient genre.[6] Similarities have been noticed with the Book of Proverbs, but no literary dependence has been found.[7] The Counsels of Wisdom is believed to have been somewhat popular in its time, since fragments of this passage are quoted in other extant works.[2]
Biblical scholar John Nolland sees a passage in the Counsels of Wisdom as a possible precursor to Jesus' command to "love your enemies": "Do not return evil to the man who disputes with you; requite with kindness your evil-doer... smile on your adversary."[8]
