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20 - Creation in the Wisdom Literature

from Part IV - Themes in the Wisdom Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2022

By
Zoltán Schwáb
Edited by
Katherine J. Dell
Edited in association with
Suzanna R. Millar  and
Arthur Jan Keefer
Katherine J. Dell
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Suzanna R. Millar
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Arthur Jan Keefer
Affiliation:
Eton College
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Summary

Zoltan Schwab discusses creation in the Wisdom Literature. He begins with a historical overview, describing how Wisdom Literature’s creation texts became guides for meditation in antiquity, encouragements for science in early modernity, and mirrors for liberal ethics in (post)modernity. Scholars have characterised Wisdom Literature as emphasising ‘creation theology’ and ‘world order’, but Schwab suggests this is misleading. Rather, these texts exhibit ‘creator theology’, concerned with the God behind the world. Their theology holds in tension twin themes of power and beauty. As a case study of this, Schwab turns to Ecclesiastes. Creation is often seen as unimportant in this book, but Schwab argues the opposite. For example, wind (hebel, rûaḥ) infuses the argument throughout. In Ecclesiastes, God creates everything, not just in a single primordial act but in ongoing creative activity; not just in the realm of nature but in the realms of history and culture. Ecclesiastes, then, points us towards the deep things of God’s creation, but it concludes that we cannot ultimately comprehend them.

Keywords

creationscienceethicspostmodernityworld orderEcclesiastes
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Wisdom Literature , pp. 391 - 413
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Further Reading

Belousek, Darrin W. Snyder. ‘God the Creator in the Wisdom of Solomon: A Theological Commentary’, 2015. www.academia.edu/15912414/God_the_Creator_in_the_Wisdom_of_Solomon_A_Theological_Commentary.Google Scholar
Brown, William P. Wisdom’s Wonder: Character, Creation, and Crisis in the Bible’s Wisdom Literature. Grand Rapids: 2014.Google Scholar
Dell, Katharine J. ‘The Significance of the Wisdom Tradition in the Ecological Debate’. Pages 56–69 in Ecological Hermeneutics, Biblical, Historical and Theological Perspectives. London: 2010.Google Scholar
Habel, Norman C., and Wurst, Shirley, eds. The Earth Story in Wisdom Traditions. Vol. 3 of The Earth Bible. Sheffield: 2001.Google Scholar
Huff, Barry R. ‘From Societal Scorn to Divine Delight: Job’s Transformative Portrayal of Wild Animals’. Int 73.3 (2019): 248–258.Google Scholar
Johnston, Robert K. ‘Wisdom Literature and Its Contribution to a Biblical Environmental Ethic’. Pages 66–82 in Tending the Garden. Edited by Granberg-Michaelson, W.. Grand Rapids: 1987.Google Scholar
Linafelt, Tod. ‘The Wizard of Uz: Job, Dorothy, and the Limits of the Sublime’. BibInt 14.1–2 (2006): 94–109.Google Scholar
Schifferdecker, Kathryn. Out of the Whirlwind, Creation Theology in the Book of Job. HTS. Cambridge, MA: 2008.Google Scholar
Schmid, Hans Heinrich. Gerechtigkeit Als Weltordnung. Tübingen: 1968.Google Scholar
Schmidt, A. Jordan. Wisdom, Cosmos, and Cultus in the Book of Sirach. Vol. 42 of Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies. Boston; Berlin: 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, Carey. ‘The Beasts of Wisdom: Ecological Hermeneutics of the Wild’. BibInt 25.2 (2017): 135–148.Google Scholar
Zimmerli, Walther. ‘The Place and Limit of the Wisdom in the Framework of the Old Testament Theology’. SJT 17 (1964): 146–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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