Election And Knowledge In The Wisdom Of Solomon

Abstract

Like most of his predecessors in the Jewish wisdom tradition, the author of the Wisdom of Solomon classifies humankind in binary terms: individuals are either righteous or unrighteous, wise or foolish. Pseudo-Solomon's understanding of election rests less on divine determinism and divine caprice and more on human initiative in the divine human relationship. One might even say that humans elect God. Moreover, what separates the elect from the nonelect is a specialized divine knowledge. Unfortunately, nowhere does the author specify the content of the specialized knowledge. Nonetheless, knowledge is something that all humans share, by virtue of being human beings. All mortals can observe the natural world and as such reason about the creator. Keywords: divine human relationship; Wisdom of Solomon