Language:
English
Year of publication:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook (2020-2021)
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2021) 67-91
Keywords:
Wisdom of Solomon Criticism, interpretation, etc.
;
Creation in post-biblical literature
;
Time Biblical teaching
;
Time in post-biblical literature
;
Greek literature, Hellenistic Jewish authors
;
History and criticism
Abstract:
If Paul Kosmin is right, the new temporal regime established by the Seleucids right after coming to power at the beginning of the 3rd century BCE stimulated a wide range of localized, vernacular efforts to re-imagine time. Speculations about time can be found in philosophical treaties as well as in the lived religion of Hellenistic-Roman times. The so-called deuterocanonical literature proves to be part of this development. A clear example of this ongoing debate surely is the Wisdom of Solomon. Its author uses different strategies to adopt, update, and reformulate the idea of God being the creator and master of time, an idea that is already extant in older Jewish authoritative writings. We find a nexus of time-related arguments throughout the book, which uses protological statements stemming from the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 as well as eschatological ideas about life after death for the righteous. The argumentation culminates in “Solomon’s” speech in chapter 7. With great philological skills and from an especially exegetical point of view, the idea of God as master of time is expanded: by using a probably well-known quotation from a Greek-Hellenistic poem, the author states that God as creator and perfector of time surely also is the ruler of the time “in between,” which is also called “the middle of times.” The argument is summed up by the pedagogical advice to seek wisdom in the transitional times the addressees are living in to make the right decisions for life.
DOI:
10.1515/9783110705454-004
URL:
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