The alleged period (still disputed) of the composition of an Egyptian book of proverbs, (published in the last century by the British scholar Sir Wallis Budge in 1923). Passages from this book appear similar to the Hebrew Book of Proverbs c. 950 BCE, (connected with King Solomon’s reign 971–931 BCE) testimony to the close cultural ties between Israel and Egypt in the days of Solomon. At the same time, the wisdom articulated is generally quite universal. Furthermore, the wisdom sayings within the Book of Proverbs may have been assembled and collated by a literary (possibly Court) figure of Ancient Israel, and either presented to Solomon for his final editing, flourish and publication – or simply published “in his honor.” In the TaNaKh Solomon himself never refers to the Book of Proverbs work.
Amenemope belongs to the literary genre of “instruction” (Egyptian sebayt). It is the culmination of centuries of development going back to the Instruction of Ptahhotep in the Old Kingdom but reflects a shift in values characteristic of the New Kingdom’s “Age of Personal Piety”: away from material success attained through practical action, and towards inner peace achieved through patient endurance and passive acceptance of an inscrutable divine will….
Amenemope counsels modesty, self–control, generosity, and scrupulous honesty, while discouraging pride, impetuosity, self–advancement, fraud, and perjury—not only out of respect for Maat, the cosmic principle of right order, but also because “attempts to gain advantage to the detriment of others incur condemnation, confuse the plans of god, and lead inexorably to disgrace and punishment.”
–Wikipedia online, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_of_Amenemope (accessed April 6, 2010)