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Chapter 3 explores the most important legacies of Hellenistic Jewish cosmology for early Christian doctrine on Creator and creation. “Hellenistic-Jewish cosmology” is not a single finalized system or worldview operative among Jewish communities in the Diaspora that had made their ultimate peace with Greco-Roman thought. The diverse literature of Second Temple Judaism, rather, evidences a complex process of critical adaptation and reformulation, providing important precedents for early Christianity on a number of levels, including the connection of cosmology and moral wisdom. The Wisdom of Solomon and Philo of Alexandria were indisputably the two most influential Hellenistic Jewish sources on patristic theologians. Wisdom of Solomon, in particular, projected a new teleology of creation, an integrative worldview that tied together the origins and destiny of material creation against the backdrop of God’s immanent action in the “meantime” of salvation history. Philo’s profound influence is assessed in terms of his nuanced philosophical interpretation of the “beginning” in Genesis 1, his ambiguous but important teaching on creation ex nihilo, and his highly sophisticated theory about “simultaneous” and “double” (ideal and actual) creation.

This chapter provides information on the wisdom literature of the Old Testament (OT) by focusing on several biblical persons including Job, Ben Sira, and Solomon. Wisdom literature reflects a general orientation to human life, and pictures individual persons in their everyday existence in a world created by God. The Book of Job tells the story of a saintly person who was tested by God through unexpected and unmerited suffering. He loses his weight, posterity, health, and social life. This book also relates his theological discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, and finally a response from God. Moreover, Sirach is considered as the most extensive example of Jewish wisdom literature. Wisdom appears at the beginning of Sirach (1: 1–30), at the halfway mark (24: 1–34), and at the end (51: 1–27). Lastly, the Wisdom of Solomon deals with retribution for good and evil, and the effects of immortality of Sophia as well.

Chapter 2 provides a preliminary account of biblical and classical wisdom traditions. Within the Old Testament, wisdom themes are found especially but not exclusively in wisdom literature (notably the quasi-divine figure of wisdom in Proverbs 8-9). A survey is also provided of the place of wisdom within classical culture, whose chief achievement is summed up precisely as the ‘love of wisdom’ (philosophy). Particular attention is paid to Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic understandings of wisdom. Within the context of the New Testament, pre-existing wisdom traditions, both biblical and classical, helped make some sense of the encounter with the person of Jesus Christ (for example as teacher and as pre-eternal) while also being soundly exploded by that same encounter, as most ably expressed by St Paul.