Purity and the idea of man’s election in selected fragments of The Book of Wisdom. Analysis and exegesis of three uses of the words with stem κατθαρ (Wis 2:16; 14:24; 15:7) in their close literary context
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/TiCz.2015.051Keywords
Book of Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon), God-potter metaphor, God’s election, purity (cleanness)Abstract
The presented article’s purpose was to carry out a research concerning the possibility of accessing purity (and hence, salvation) by those from outside the Nation of Israel. To answer this research problem, the analysis of therms cleanness (purity) and uncleanness (impurity) in the Book of Wisdom is performed – a subject to which Polish biblical literature does not pay much attention. On the basis of the analysis of three appearances of words with stem καθαρ (ἀκαθαρσία – impurity in Wis 2:12–16 and καθαρός – pure in Wis 14:22–26 and Wis 15:7–13) the article presents the precise meaning of the words in the discussed pericopes as well as their common features and possible interpretations. During the exegesis, some references to the most important Greek dictionaries and lexicons are made (mostly Old and New Testament theological dictionaries). Questions concerning theology of the Book of Wisdom are posed, such as: what is the relation between purity and the Law?, as well as the relation between purity and the notion of God’s election? An important question concerns the theory of universalism of the Old Testament ideas in the book, supposed by some scholars, especially in the context of the God-potter metaphor in Wis 15:7–13. The carried research leads to the observation of the tension between universalism and exclusivity in the theological thought of the author of the Book of Wisdom. A solution to this tension, as well as the answer to the problem of non-Israelites access to purity and salvation is proposed. It consists of the hypothesis of the book’s author intuition concerning the universalism of salvation.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
CC BY ND 4.0. The Creator/Contributor is the Licensor, who grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work on the fields indicated in the License Agreement.
- The Licensor grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work/related rights item specified in § 1 within the following fields: a) recording of Work/related rights item; b) reproduction (multiplication) of Work/related rights item in print and digital technology (e-book, audiobook); c) placing the copies of the multiplied Work/related rights item on the market; d) entering the Work/related rights item to computer memory; e) distribution of the work in electronic version in the open access form on the basis of Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND 3.0) via the digital platform of the Nicolaus Copernicus University Press and file repository of the Nicolaus Copernicus University.
- Usage of the recorded Work by the Licensee within the above fields is not restricted by time, numbers or territory.
- The Licensor grants the license for the Work/related rights item to the Licensee free of charge and for an unspecified period of time.
FULL TEXT License Agreement
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 553
Number of citations: 0