Wisdom in the traditions of Judaism and Confucianism.
Wisdom is a concept that encompasses the knowledge necessary to make decisions and judgments, an accumulation of knowledge related to a specific sphere of life, and it the summation of what a person or culture has learned about itself and life. Wisdom is demonstrated in decisions, but most often in answers to questions regarding life and function within life. While anyone can be considered to be wise or to possess wisdom in a particular avenue of life (business, family, religion, etc), understanding the value of wisdom requires contextualization (Eluil, 13). Religious views of wisdom vary in what they consider to be the focus of knowledge - in the Judaic tradition, the wise person is versed in the relationship between the self and God, in the Confucian tradition, the wise person is fully educated in the relationship between the self and other people. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the two different concepts of religious wisdom so that a greater understanding of each philosophy may be gained.
