In my Wisdom Literature class, I’m taking the approach of tradition history.  We are trying to look at this corpus through each stage of development.  We started with textual criticism.

At any rate, I can’t find the exact video I used, but this one will do.  To illustrate the importance of textual criticism, I told them that they did not want to be the preacher preaching on a text that might not have been original to a book.  To help communicate the point, I showed them this video:

It’s a sweet little video isn’t it.  Problem is that it’s based on Proverbs 4:7, which a text that is in the Masoretic text, but not in the Septuagint.

I wasn’t trying to make any points about whether or not the text was original.  I only wanted to realize that in preaching these sorts of things ought to be taken into consideration.  You may not want to focus in a sermon, or theological dialogue, or a song on a text that could be questionable from a text critical perspective.