Handout for November 12 on Wisdom of Solomon and Philo
Premodern biblical interpretation
- The four assumptions: cryptic, perfect, relevant, divine
- Origins
- Wisdom tradition of interpreting cosmos and society extended to scripture
- The decline or prophecy, the rise of stable authority (canon), and the need to reapply it
- Examples from WisSol so far
- WisSol 2:23–24, created in image of God’s nature, by the envy of the devil
- WisSol 10:19–21, opened mouth of infants
- Where is wisdom found?
- Ancestors, study with teacher
- Study of nature
- Experience
- Secret revelation
- Study of scripture
Theodicy
- Suffering of the wicked – punishment fits crime
- Suffering of the righteous
- Good known through contrast with evil (Stoicism)
- Chastisement ≠ condemnation
- Prosperity of the wicked
- Allows a chance for repentance
- No collateral damage
Goodness of creation
- Everything has a good purpose
- Creation can be used for good or bad as required
- Doctrine of opposites
- Everything (except humans) follows God’s commands perfectly
- Miracles are not necessary because nature works for God
Natural law
- The idea that certain moral truths are universal and absolute, not culturally constructed
- Embedded by creator in creation
- Creator can be known through creation
- Critiques
Universalism and particularism
- What makes the chosen people the chosen people?
- What should non-Israelites do?
- How should they know?
- If creator is knowable through the creation then all nations have access to God through observation and reason
- All true philosophy should lead to the recognition of one true creator, the god of Israel
- Romans 1:18-25
Philo of Alexandria
- Lived roughly 15 BCE to 50 CE
- Wealthy, educated leader of Jewish community in Alexandria
- Combined Jewish traditions and Platonic philosophy
- Eschatology
- Allegorical biblical interpretation: reading a story as symbolic such that ordinary persons and objects represent abstract and lofty ideas (especially personifications of virtues and vices)