What's WISDOM about?

This book is also called “The Wisdom of Solomon” and attributes its wise sayings to Solomon, the second great king of Israel in the ancient past. The book of Wisdom was written shortly before the birth of Jesus, when the Greek empire ruled the world.

Discovering God in a global pagan culture

The Greeks were impressive with their sophisticated philosophy and art, and many Jews had begun wondering if it would make sense to adopt Greek culture and Greek religion in place of their ancient loyalty to the God of justice who seemed much like the best of Greek culture.

The book of Wisdom is a poetic description of how God appears to us and to sophisticated people in the form of high moral and ethical behaviour. The author introduces the image of a divine woman named “Wisdom” who can influence our thinking. She has been with God from the very beginning of the universe and continues to be central in guiding people in the best way to live. No doubt the author was thinking about Greek philosophy and the theory that there is an underlying order from which all actual objects emerge. The writer is showing how a person could take part in this Greek idea of an eternal source for physical objects without abandoning the Jewish concept of God. This idea of a divine being who is with God and is active in helping people to live well, provided a foundation for what Christians would later call Holy Spirit.

How Wisdom is helpful to us

We may be encouraged by this book to feel able to express our Christian faith through morally good secular concepts without losing our experience of God.