Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha

The traditional scholarly title (since the early twentieth century) for the last section of the Wisdom of Solomon, chapters 11–19 (or for some, 10–19) is the “Book of History.” This is a misleading designation because the author of the Wisdom of Solomon chose to present certain events from the exodus and wilderness traditions of ancient Israel not in the context of a continuous historical narrative, but rather as paradigmatic examples of God’s justice and mercy toward both the righteous and the ungodly. The purpose of the second half of the Wisdom of Solomon is pedagogical and apologetic rather than historical. The author’s avoidance of proper names and the consistent division of humanity in moral terms (the righteous vs the ungodly/unrighteous) rather than along ethnic lines (Israel vs Egyptians or Canaanites) should be taken seriously as an effort to universalize the lessons of Israel’s stories. The consistent message of both the antitheses and the excurses in chapters 11–19 is that God manifests both justice and mercy in disciplining human beings (both the righteous and the unrighteous) with suffering. Thus, it would be preferable to call chapters 11–19 either the “Book of Discipline” or the “Book of Divine Justice and Mercy.”

The Wisdom of Solomon is a text intensely concerned with epistemological questions. What is true knowledge? Where does it come from? What’s its purpose? How does one attain it? In each of its parts, Wisdom can be seen directly and clearly tackling these types of problems. The Wisdom of Solomon is also a text deeply and frustratingly ambiguous. Is this some kind of embarrassing irony, a text so intent on delving into the nature and purpose of understanding ultimately unable to be understood? This study looks at how the ambiguity, surely present at several places throughout the book, is, in fact, rhetorically crafted and designed to guide to the reader to greater clarity and understanding. There is, then, no conflict between the stated purpose of the text, to lead the reader to wisdom and knowledge, and the means by which the author does so. The ambiguity and the epistemology of the Wisdom of Solomon are, in the end, inseparable.

The distinction between the good and the wicked is common in wisdom literature. Although the distinction can be viewed as ubiquitous, I would like to problematize it by considering the literary device deployed in constructing the archetypes of the good and the wicked. Specifically, I analyze the depiction of the wicked in chapters 1–6 in Wisdom of Solomon and argue that the construction of the wicked in Wisdom is indispensable in understanding how the righteous obtain wisdom through divine protection and acceptance of divine provision. First, I offer a close reading of the text, mainly Chapters 1–6, and parse out the ways of depicting the wicked in Wisdom of Solomon. In particular, I highlight the “collectivity” of the crowd, as opposed to a “single” righteous individual or group. Social theories of the crowd are critical to my formulation of the characteristics of the wicked. Second, I examine the relationship between the wicked and the righteous, and propose the idea of “a mirror effect” in these antithetical depictions. The mirror effect exhibits didactic values, as it instructs one to pursue righteousness and shun from evil. Third, I focus on the interaction between God, the righteous, and the wicked and suggest that divine intervention in helping the righteous stand firm among the wicked manifests both divine justice and divine mercy.

An analysis of personified Sophia’s soteriological role illuminates the interrelationship between eschatology and ontology in the Wisdom of Solomon. Read within the philosophical milieu of early imperial Platonism, Sophia functions similarly to divine intermediaries in the writings of Alcinous, Plutarch of Chaeronea, and Numenius of Apamea in how she leads souls from the earthly to the intellectual realm. In contrast to the temporal orientations in the treatise before and after, Wisdom 6:22–10:18 depicts Sophia’s benefit to humankind as ahistorical and ontological in nature.