The ancient Near Eastern tradition of the 'wisdom literature' — texts that explore the human condition, the problem of suffering, and the nature of justice through literary rather than systematic philosophical form — represents an intellectual tradition older than and parallel to the Greek philosophical tradition that Western history has centered.

The Babylonian 'Theodicy' (approximately 1000 BC) is a dialogue between a sufferer and a friend about why the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper — the same question addressed by the book of Job. The sufferer describes his piety and his undeserved suffering; the friend offers conventional wisdom; the sufferer rejects the consolations; ultimately the text acknowledges the mystery without resolving it. The structural and thematic parallels to Job are striking enough that direct literary relationship seems likely.

The Egyptian 'Dialogue of a Man with His Soul' (also called 'The Man Who Was Tired of Life') from approximately 2000 BC explores the attractions of suicide against the arguments for continuing to live — one of the earliest sustained philosophical treatments of a question that would not become a recognized philosophical topic in the Western tradition until much later.

The relationship between Mesopotamian wisdom literature and the Hebrew Bible is one of the most productive areas of biblical scholarship. Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Psalms all show thematic and sometimes verbal parallels to Babylonian and Sumerian texts that suggest either direct borrowing or participation in a shared ancient Near Eastern literary tradition. The degree to which Israelite religious literature drew on its Mesopotamian environment has been a sensitive but important scholarly question since the 19th century.