The Use of Wisdom of Solomon in Romans
A Common Hellenistic and Rhetorical Background?
The New Testament letter to the Romans has long intrigued readers with its connections to the deuterocanonical or apocryphal book known as the Wisdom of Solomon. Written at least a century apart, these two texts both engage questions of knowledge of God, human behavior, morality, judgment, and Jewish-Gentile relations. But do these similarities reflect a deeper literary relationship? Could Romans have directly engaged Wisdom as a source text, whether positively or critically? Perhaps the parallels are more coincidental or broad, tapping into common literary and theological ideas without direct dependence? Careful examination of the potential connections in vocabulary, rhetoric, imagery, and theology can help shed light on the diversity of traditions present in the first century environment that shaped emerging Hellenistic Jewish and Christian thought. The question of what sort of intertextual conversation may have occurred between Wisdom of Solomon and the epistle to the Romans remains in open discussion by a variety of scholars.
The Wisdom of Solomon, a Jewish work originally composed in Greek near Alexandria, Egypt, was most likely written during the mid-first century BCE. As part of the collection of Greek Septuagint, it is included in the canons of Catholic and Orthodox churches but considered apocryphal by most Protestants. Thematically, Wisdom focuses on the concept of “wisdom” itself, exploring it in relation to both humanity and God. For humans, wisdom represents the perfection of righteous knowledge, a gift from God evident through moral action. In relation to God, wisdom dwells eternally as God’s companion and creative partner. Stylistically, the author makes wide use of personification, portraying Wisdom almost as a divine being.
As a diaspora text, the Wisdom of Solomon represents a significant Hellenistic reshaping of Jewish thought. It interprets the Torah and Hebrew wisdom tradition through concepts like Logos and through natural theology familiar to Greek philosophy. Figures like Solomon, Adam and Abraham are recast as inspired sages aligned with Hellenistic ideals. Paganism and idolatry serve as foil for affirming Jewish theology and ethics. Overall, the Wisdom of Solomon provides insight into how diaspora Jews, under the influence of Greek culture, sought to convey the universal appeal of their faith using intellectual frameworks accessible in the Mediterranean. It illustrates how Jewish intellectuals navigated both continuity and adaptation to Greco-Roman thought.1
In the epistle to the Romans, an expansive letter addressed to the early Christian community in Rome, the apostle Paul discusses a broad range of theological and community-centered topics. The availability of righteousness and grace through faith in Christ, the inclusion of Gentiles into God's covenant family, and the transformational ethical implications of the gospel highlight the work. While structured as a formal letter addressing the specific circumstances in which the community found itself, Romans still found a universal appeal and profoundly influenced later Christian thought and practice. Recent scholarship has aimed to interpret Romans against the historical-cultural backdrop of honor, shame, and imperialism in first-century Greco-Roman society, shedding light on the undercurrent of rhetoric to win support from the Roman churches for his planned mission to Spain. By proclaiming an impartial gospel that overturned prevailing social hierarchies through Christ's shameful crucifixion, Paul sought to unite Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome around a vision of divine righteousness available equally to all people regardless of ethnic, cultural, or social status.2
The opening chapter of Romans contains several strong allusions to the Wisdom of Solomon, as many scholars find here in Paul similar rhetoric trending towards universalizing human nature in sin beginning in particular with idolatry. This theme, of Gentiles hopelessly mired in idolatry, is picked up in multiple places within the Wisdom of Solomon. Here in chapter 11, during a retelling of the Exodus, the Egyptians are described as notably idolatrous:
For though they had mockingly rejected him who long before had been cast out and exposed, at the end of the events they marveled at him, when they felt thirst in a different way from the righteous. In return for their foolish and wicked thoughts, which led them astray to worship irrational serpents and worthless animals, you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures to punish them, so that they might learn that one is punished by the very things by which one sins. (Wisdom of Solomon 11:14-16)3
Moving beyond the Exodus narrative and Egypt, the author of the Wisdom of Solomon begins to describe a more generalized fall into idolatry:
For all people who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know the one who exists, nor did they recognize the artisan while paying heed to his works; but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world … Yet again, not even they are to be excused; for if they had the power to know so much that they could investigate the world, how did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things? But miserable, with their hopes set on dead things, are those who give the name “gods” to the works of human hands, gold and silver fashioned with skill, and likenesses of animals, or a useless stone, the work of an ancient hand. (Wisdom of Solomon 13:1-2, 8-10)4
Into the ensuing chapters, the author continues to attack the practice of idolatry using highly descriptive and evocative language:
… they no longer keep either their lives or their marriages pure, but they either treacherously kill one another, or grieve one another by adultery, and all is a raging riot of blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, faithlessness, tumult, perjury, confusion over what is good, forgetfulness of favors, defiling of souls, sexual perversion, disorder in marriages, adultery, and debauchery. For the worship of idols not to be named is the beginning and cause and end of every evil. (Wisdom of Solomon 14:24-27)5
What scholars in turn note in the opening of Romans is similarly evocative language stressing how idolatry is root of many of the ills that Gentiles find themselves in. The rhetoric used by Paul here shares much of the same language and structure used throughout the Wisdom of Solomon, much of it concentrated into the first chapter:
For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen because they are understood through what has been made. So, people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! (Romans 1:20-25)6
New Testament scholar Jonathan Linebaugh, commenting on these many points of contact between Romans and the Wisdom of Solomon, notes what may be behind Paul’s stresses: “Their themes and vocabulary overlap to a considerable extent, and, most significantly, the argumentative sequence of Romans 1:18–32 develops in parallel to Wisdom 13:1–14:31 — a rhetorical progression that is unique to Wisdom and Romans … These connections ensure that Jewish readers of Romans — that is, readers in the tradition of Wisdom of Solomon — would find themselves sympathetic to Paul’s announcement that those who ‘served created things rather than the Creator’ (Romans 1:25) and were therefore given over to immorality (1:24, 26–31) ‘deserve death’ …”7
In what is perhaps the most notorious chapter in Romans, chapter 9, we see two key points of affinity between the Wisdom of Solomon and Romans called out by scholars and commentators. In the Wisdom of Solomon chapter 12 we find rhetorical questions declaring the unassailable divine character in regard to judgment:
… judging them little by little you gave them an opportunity to repent, though you were not unaware that their origin was evil and their wickedness inborn, and that their way of thinking would never change. For they were an accursed race from the beginning, and it was not through fear of anyone that you left them unpunished for their sins. For who will say, "What have you done?" or will resist your judgment? Who will accuse you for the destruction of nations that you made? Or who will come before you to plead as an advocate for the unrighteous? (Wisdom of Solomon 12:10-12)
A notable parallel is found in Paul’s rhetoric:
For the scripture says to Pharaoh: “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may demonstrate my power in you, and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then, God has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden. You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who has ever resisted his will?” But who indeed are you—a mere human being—to talk back to God? Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?” (Romans 9:17-20)8
Likewise, in the 15th chapter of the Wisdom of Solomon, we find the use of potter and clay imagery as a metaphor for the relationship between the divine and humans:
Lovers of evil things and fit for such objects of hope are those who either make or desire or worship them. A potter kneads the soft earth and laboriously molds each vessel for our service, fashioning out of the same clay both the vessels that serve clean uses and those for contrary uses, making all alike; but which shall be the use of each of them the worker in clay decides. (Wisdom of Solomon 15:6-7)
While likely drawing from multiple sources, including the Hebrew prophets, Paul still shows a likely affinity for the Wisdom of Solomon in his own use of the metaphor:
But who indeed are you—a mere human being—to talk back to God? Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use? (Romans 9:20-21)9
New Testament commentator Ernst Käsemann, in his commentary on Romans, points out the similarity here in this specific section of chapter 9: “It comes from a broad Old Testament tradition … Paul develops the tradition in his own way but seems to borrow from Isaiah 29:16 in verse 20b and comes very close to Wisdom of Solomon 15:7 in verse 21b.”10
The strong similarity in the type of rhetorical questioning used to underscore the unassailable acts of God has drawn scholars to the conclusion that here in Romans 9 is not merely subtle allusion or echo, but full literary dependency. As one scholar says directly, “Paul knew and used Wisdom.”11
While there are other potential points of contact between the Wisdom of Solomon and Romans, including a controversial similarly with Romans 5:12 and a shared referent to the divine ordering of governing authorities in Romans 13:112, the two shared rhetorical goals, used in Romans chapter 1 and chapter 9, are most frequently discussed in comparative studies between the two books. It’s a common conclusion that given the shared background, we should not be surprised to find Paul using a book like the Wisdom of Solomon in the advancement of his own rhetorical goals.
Winston, David (ed.) The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Doubleday, 1979
Jewett, Robert Romans: A Commentary, Fortress Press, 2007
Linebaugh, Jonathan A. “Wisdom of Solomon and Romans 1:18 - 2:5: God's Wrath against All” in Blackwell, Ben C., et al. (eds.) Reading Romans in Context: Paul and Second Temple Judaism (pp. 38-45), Zondervan, 2015
Käsemann, Ernst Commentary on Romans (p. 269), William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980
Linebaugh, Jonathan A. God, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Texts in Conversation (pp. 13-18), Brill, 2013
Can you help me with a source to find a good translation faithful to the oldest Septuagint texts that have been found? Or, even better, an interlinear book like the Diaglott? It would be nice if it even contained the apocrypha generally accepted as canonical prior to Christianity.
Online would be nice for speed, paper is just nice in general…
My concern with some of this apocrypha, is if some were created after the fact to appear as though they were reference works used by Bible authors that are agreed to be canonical …. Tough to verify, I would think.