All right, now the second lesson here on Steerak is entitled wisdom comes from the Lord And that's actually straight from chapter 1 verse 1 so it seemed like a nice title to me But before we get into chapter 1 verse 1 you're gonna notice immediately something very strange pretty much extremely unique Throughout the entire Bible except for maybe perhaps Luke and that is we have a prologue here That's not super long But it takes up a good column in my Bible and that's a prologue that has no chapters and no verses at all Which that is very unique certainly in the scriptures no chapters no verses at all And it's going to introduce this entire book and why it was written and give you a bunch of detailed contextual data Historical context all this stuff. It's really really fascinating here So now Luke does have a very similar type of prologue obviously There's chapters and verses when Luke says I'm writing to you excellent the awful list many of undertaken to write an account of the things that have Transpired among us etc etc right so that's really unique that Luke gives a prologue and the New Testament that's very unique But in the whole Bible Steerak is just really fascinating So we have a lot of context a lot of details and data here that really help us because as I said in the introductory lesson on Steerak and laying the foundation for title and authorship and dating and key themes and all that good stuff that we discussed We have very little disagreements amongst scholars and academics and commentaries on when and why this book Was written so let me read here the prologue to you. It's not all that long But I just want to read the whole thing and we'll come back to the notes here and look at some key points about what is What this book is all about all right so it begins in the prologue you can't say chapter one verse one almost I chopped one verse one that's that's not the case so it begins like this whereas many great teachings have been given to us through the law and The prophets and the others that follow them on account of which we should praise Israel for instruction and wisdom And since it is necessary not only that the readers themselves should acquire understanding But also that those who love learning should be able to help the outsiders well by speaking and writing my grandfather Jesus After devoting himself especially to the reading of the law and the prophets and the other books of our fathers and after acquiring considerable proficiency in them Was himself also led to write something pertaining to instruction and wisdom in order that by becoming conversant with these also those who love learning should make even greater progress in living according to the law You are urged therefore he's talking to me and you to everyone you're urged therefore to read with good will and attention And to be indulgent in cases where despite our diligent labor and translating we may seem to have rendered some phrases imperfectly for what was originally Expression Hebrew does not have exactly the same sense when translated into another language Not only this work But even the law itself and all the prophecies and the rest of the books differ not a little as originally expressed When I came to Egypt in the 38th year the reign of the guarantees and stayed for some time I found opportunity for no little instruction It seemed highly necessary that I should myself devote some pains and labor to the translation of the following book using in that period of time Great watchfulness and skill in order to complete to complete and publish the book for those living abroad who wish to gain learning and being prepared And character to live according to the law. All right now as you can appreciate I hope that's a pretty interesting unique fascinating prologue as to why this book was not only just written by his grandfather Jesus, but also why his this grandson character here whose name we don't know translated into Greek So here's some key points to consider about this prologue So the grandfather's name is Jesus as it says right here My grandfather Jesus and we know that he is the son of Sirac if you go to chapter 57 You have a little bit more details there and we mention this in the introductory lesson But so his grandfather Jesus son of Sirac wrote this text in Hebrew in Jerusalem, right?
And he probably wrote this right around 200 to 175 BC or maybe even 195 to 175 BC That's a pretty narrow timeframe there that scholars work with to identify when this was written I wrote it in Jerusalem as we said We know that from the end of the the text and we're pretty darn confident He wrote this before the great troubles of Antiochus the fourth epiphany is or Antiochus However, you want to pronounce that Antiochus the fourth He was the great villain of the Maccabean period he reigned from 175 to 164 BC And that was the whole story of him Desigrating the temple erecting an altar to Zeus and slaying pigs on the altar in the Maccabees reconquer Jerusalem Rededicated temple, which was the story of Aponica So he wrote certainly before that period because it doesn't seem like there are any references whatsoever to the great struggles of that era All right now chapter 50 There's a whole long section there and we'll get there down the line We'll read it in detail But chapter 50 indicates that to this Jesus character knew the very holy very saintly very well educated popular beloved High Priest named Simon or Simeon in the second and he was high priest from about 219 to 196 BC It seems like depending on which commentary you read he may or may not be deceased There's a little bit of difference there, but it does seem like he's talking about Simon in the past tense So maybe we could say yeah, he wrote right after he died So that would bring us that would give us our dates if he's writing right after Simeon the second Simon the second died Let's just say 195 BC or certain maybe even round numbers 200 as many commentators say to 175 BC So that's how we can get to the numbers there within a couple of decades of when Jesus the son of Cirac wrote this book And he was a dedicated as you can see with his grandson is talking very highly of him He was very well educated very experienced and talented and studying and teaching the law and the prophets In fact that's what he says multiple times here through at least three different times He studied the law and the prophets and the other books those would be the wisdom books And by the way, this is this is called the Tanakh in Hebrew Bibles T-A-N-A-K I talked about this in a lot of our Bible studies here Because it's just so important to understand his tripartite division of the Old Testament The T stands for the Torah the law the end is the Nevi Eam which are the prophets that includes the historical prophets like First Second Samuel for Second Kings etc And the K is the Ketu V which are the writings that would include Job and Psalms and you know The Jews have a little bit of a structure that's slightly different than Protestant and Catholic Old Testaments But what's interesting about this is this Jesus and of Cirac character He studied the law the prophets and the other writings the Tanakh He was very very knowledgeable of all this and he taught the scriptures to other people as well He seemed to even have a little school our little following of other disciples and students that he instructed now This tripartite division of that he studied and that he taught other people. This is the earliest as many commentators point out This is the earliest mention of this tripartite division What's so interesting about that is because at the time of Christ you did not have a set canon By the Jews right so various Jewish groups differed as to what they considered was inspired scripture So very famously I can't get into all the details here But very famously the Sadducees only accepted the Torah the five books of Moses as inspired the Pharisees accepted a much larger Group of texts that would include the whole Tanakh the Torah and Eam Ketu Vim which again are the law the prophets and the writings And they had 22 books according to Josephus 22 We don't exactly know how they divided those but the Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters So basically the whole idea there is that if you have 22 books it kind of corresponds to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet meaning You have the complete all encompassing word of God in 22 books That's the kind of idea right there And you had like the Samaritans the only except the first five books the Essenian seemed to have accepted a larger group But the point is they did not have a set canon or table of contents is what the Jewish people said was definitively the word of God Everyone disagreed This was kind of cool here that in C-R-Ack you got this reference of Jesus Some of C-R-Ack who studied the all three categories of the law Jesus mentions all three categories as well very famously in Luke chapter 24 When he's taught right after the road to a mass when he speaks to the apostles in the upper room He showed that all these things were necessary he opened up their minds under understanding the scriptures And he went to the law of the prophets and the writings in the Psalms So this this broader acceptance of scripture of the Old Testament writings the Hebrew scriptures was accepted by this Jesus character But also Jesus Christ and the apostles as well and don't forget just because it's just pop in my brain right now I think it's really really special and I haven't seen anyone talk about this unless I missed it Which is totally possible that the entire the reality the fact that the character who wrote the individual who wrote this book his name is Jesus That is all typological of the true Jesus Jesus Christ Yeshua or Yeshua She asked the Jesus the Christ who uttered true wisdom and he was wisdom incarnate So I think that's pretty darn awesome through and through this book is very very much Anticipating the teaching of Jesus and the author's name itself is pointing forward to Jesus Christ I just geek out about that a lot and I think you could and should make a big deal about it Especially if you consider as I introduced to this book in the last lesson Jesus Christ seems to quote or reference directly or indirectly many many verses and passages of this book of sirek It seems very as does Paul as does James We're going to talk about these references to go through the next number of lessons on the spiral study But it seems very very clear that Jesus and the apostles accepted this book as inspired Which would be part of the ketuim but the writing so I think that that's we shouldn't make a Deal about that. Okay, so um this gives us a lot of knowledge about who this Jesus is and when he wrote as I introduced in the last lesson His grandson is writing this entire prologue and he translated the whole work and he says we don't know his name But he says he translated the book into greek for the outsiders for those living abroad All right, that would be the Jews of the diaspora So any of the Jews especially during this time of the Hellenistic period many hundreds of years have passed since the The Babylonian captivity and even the Assyrian captivity before then there are many Israelites and Jews who lived abroad like the entire Greco-Roman empire and obviously the Roman empires is growing at this time So he's writing to them so that way they would understand What's going on and to be faithful to the law and he says that he was in Egypt in the 38th year the reign of your guarantees And the commentators say that's 132 BC So he wrote to the or as you say he translated this work into greek his grandfather's work originally in Hebrew He translated this translated this into greek for the Jews of the diaspora everyone speaking greek during this time So essentially he's translating it into the common tongue that they could be faithful to the law of the prophets and the other books as well Now this had to have been at least in 132 BC Although he does say that he arrived in 132 BC and stayed there for a long time studying and then found a occasion to translate it So maybe you know we could date this translation to 125 BC 120 BC. We're not exactly sure So give or take 130 to 120 BC when he translated this now he definitely translated this after the Maccabean era So it's pretty interesting It's written in Hebrew before the troubles began with Antiochus the fourth and then it was sorry written in Hebrew before the troubles translated Into greek after the troubles began for a very important reason again Trying to get jewish men and women to be faithful to the law and not to fall prey to the temptations the allurements the But it's also as the scran son says in the prologue He's writing so that those who love learning should make even greater progress and living according to the law He says that a couple of different times so if you love learning if you love instruction if you want education Then you need to read this book he says and so i'm translating it into greek So either jews that don't live in Jerusalem who don't speak Hebrew well anymore Right, maybe they have a few language field words, you know that they know in their family context But don't really have a mastery over Hebrew anymore now you can read it in greek So that way you can come to understand the law now Certainly this is I guess important to remind you that during this time the greek Old Testament was being translated if it wasn't already completely translated The I talked about this in terms of seerak in the context of the dudor canonical books Where the greek sub two agents was first started being translated at least the first five books around 250 Maybe 200 BC but usually 250 200 BC and then over in the period of over 100 years or more It was slowly the rest of the Old Testament the law of the prophets and the other writings were translated to greek And so this book would have just simply been added on to miss the mystery of This whole course of history will find out in heaven exactly what happened when and what details occurred This would have been included into the greek Old Testament the sub two agents all right So it's written to outsiders.
I was saying one more thing about the outsiders these outsiders Those who are in the diaspora who are as he says towards the end living abroad are those faithful jews Or at least those jews who are fighting the cultural wars He's writing to them to stay faithful But you could by extension also include any gentile believers and that would include us right so the outsiders That's a common word for gentile so this book really is written to anybody jeward gentile who wants to be faithful to the law All right, so I think this is an awesome prologue right? No chapters no verses but it gives us all these great details and it sets the tone very very nicely for what's about that happen So what we're going to do here is study chapter one verse one all the way through the second half Well the first half of chapter six half of chapter six that's a lot of content Then we're going to continue on naturally and study all these chapters in the course of this study But one of the things you're going to notice as we go through this is that there's this alternating pattern Between a poem or a hymn on wisdom or some kind of aspect of wisdom The first poem we're going to talk about right now is wisdom's origins and god And then we're going to talk about another poem later on in this lesson There's more poems to come in future lessons So you got these poems on wisdom then it alternates with like what I say wisdom applied All right, so you're going to have a lot of discussion on wisdom applied to various aspects of life Whether it's parenting or you know subjecting yourself to the law or you're going to get generosity controlling your tongue Whatever it might be it's wisdom applied. It's like applications of wisdom to your life And that's what always happens here in this book. There's alternates back and forth.
Okay. All right So with that let's look at chapter one versus one through ten I think what I might do let's just read this whole section here It's his first poem on wisdom opening up the whole book very beautiful loss to say about this on the origins of wisdom in god All right, so let's read chapter one versus one through ten and they'll come back here and then we'll unpack this a little bit Actually one quick thing before I read this we're talking about wisdom a lot. I mean all the time wisdom is popping up in this book All right, it's mentioned a bajillion times. I actually should do a word study and see how many times is wisdom Actually mentioned here that would be easy.
They look I gotta do that But in any case what is wisdom? I've had opportunities to talk about and define wisdom in past wisdom literature books So I have a personal definition. I mean it's probably not perfect You can find different definitions on wisdom and different commentaries and they're all you know interesting and very equally good They're all very similar. So based on what I've said before in other bible studies I like to think of wisdom as understanding all things according to the proper end in god's design I'll say that again It's understanding all things whether it's moral things practical things anything about life or anything on this earth So understanding all things according to their proper end the Greek word there is telos or telos They're in their purpose their goal according to god's design, right?
So it can be very very simple if you're an architect and you're building a building you understand how things work according to the proper design And you build a building very accurately so it doesn't fall in on people's heads You know the people are inside the building you build a chair and you build a very good chair and it doesn't fall flat when someone sits on it Or an engine or anything like that So there's some examples of very practical things or wisdom according to friendship or marriage or parenting So you understand really what things are all about in the particular situation you're dealing with or morality like how to control your tongue or how to Pursue wisdom and righteousness and virtue because that's the proper end of man is to be holy and to be righteous as god created as to be So you can see no matter what topic you might pick in life wisdom is understanding what the proper end of that thing is It in living your life accordingly according to god's design, right? So that's how I think of wisdom. I don't think that's too far off the mark at all. So anyways, hopefully that helps you Now let's look at verse 1 through 10 and see wisdom's origins.
All right chapter 1 verse 1 All wisdom comes from the lord. That's the title of this lesson all wisdom comes from the lord and is with him forever The sand of the sea the drops of the rain the days of eternity who can count them the height of heaven the breadth of the earth the abyss and wisdom Who can search them out? Wisdom was created before all things and prudent understanding from eternity The source of wisdom is god's word and the highest heaven and her ways are the eternal commandments the root of wisdom to whom has it been revealed Her clever devices who knows them the knowledge of wisdom to whom was it manifested and her abundant experience who has understood There is one who is wise the creator of all the keen greatly to be feared sitting upon his throne and ruling as god The lord himself created wisdom in the holy spirit. He saw her and apportioned her He poured her out upon all of his works.
She dwells with all flesh according to his gift and he supplied her to those who love him In that amazing first poem that went away to start this whole book is one of the longest books in the bible That's a great way to start this whole thing. It's really really beautiful Alright, so first I want to remind you if you don't know already From previous studies together that wisdom is always personified and you'll test them here Especially in the wisdom literature as a woman a female because the noun in both Greek and in Hebrew is feminine So Hebrew is hochma in a Greek it's sofia It's easy to remember sofia because you probably know a gal named sofia in your life Right her name means wisdom so hochma and sofia are two words Greek and Hebrew they're feminine and they mean wisdom So very often it's wisdom is pro-personified as a female usually as a mother or a wife and that's very very important because Those two images of parenthood and spousal parenthood and spousal love that's those are the two biggie Metaphors in the scriptures for god's love for his church for his people the individual soul and his whole Calicia is assembly right there. Okay, so you're gonna see that all the time it's found in proverbs It's not on the book of wisdom. It's very very common.
You need to pursue This is the big deal in the book of proverbs You need to pursue lady wisdom and run away from lady folly those are the two ways and we're gonna see that of course take place here Alright, so wisdom is personified as a mother or as a wife certainly as a female Now as this poem opens up you remember here you got these little rhetorical questions Talking about how you can't really plumb the depths and the mysteries of life The standard to see the drops of the rain the days of eternity the height of heaven the breadth of the earth the abyss and wisdom So wisdom so no one can really fully plumb the depths of these realities and these mysteries of create the created order Let alone wisdom itself right no one can know the origins and the full breadth of any of these things Except for really god right and that's the whole point here as this poem continues Right, so only god can really comprehend wisdom as only god can comprehend the natural world And that's so true as advanced as science is in the various, you know, sub subjects of science There are always more and more questions that have to be answered. We're never fully going upon the depths of even, you know, biology chemistry physics Astrophysics quantum physics all this kind of stuff. All right, so that makes a lot of sense wisdom is being compared To the natural world and only god can understand these things But then it says here interestingly in verse four that wisdom was created before all things in later verse nine that the lord himself created wisdom Alright, so wisdom was created before all things by god himself Now as you especially if you go through all the wisdom literature books And you read proverbs in the book of wisdom the wisdom of Solomon in this book serac It talks in different contexts about wisdom being created or wisdom having divine attributes as if wisdom is divine herself and uncreatory And it could be very very confusing. So one of the commentaries I highly recommend the catholic commentary on sacred scripture Really does a great job and I wanted I definitely am going to share this quote with you It does a great job Defensuating in the mind of the church and in catholic theology the difference between uncreated wisdom and created wisdom There's a big difference there, right?
So uncreated wisdom is very much what the book of wisdom talks about in chapter seven and created wisdom is what we're talking about here in serac Proverbs eight also talks about wisdom being created But there's a bit of debate as to whether that could be created or uncreated wisdom depending on how you look at the Hebrew there And I talked in detail about that on the bible study on proverbs But let me just share this quote here with you and I think it really really helps because and the reason why this is important is because as we discussed The last lesson we'll have a chance to talk about it here and the rest of this bible study as well as other bible studies Wisdom is a type of Jesus Christ and wisdom is a type of holy spirit So if wisdom is a type of Jesus and the spirit and it talks about how wisdom is created That might leave some people as as it has happened in the past with the area in heresy and the area in crisis in early church For the bishop areas and others say well, okay Well, that just simply means if wisdom is a type of Jesus and wisdom is created air go therefore Jesus is created he is the first of God's creation And that's not true. Jesus and the holy spirit are not created So we have to distinguish in order to unite as Saint Thomas famously says all the time. All right, so without any further Do let me just share this quote here for you and I think this will help So it says quote Christian tradition distinguishes between uncreated wisdom the eternal logos or word who is with a father in the beginning Which is Jesus Christ and created wisdom the intellectual virtue that humans can acquire Which is a participation in uncreated divine wisdom while other biblical books speak of the first kind of wisdom uncreated Identifying it as with God's creative word or intelligence such as Psalms 33 problems three Ben Sire as wisdom is of the latter kind Creative wisdom although present at creation she had a beginning the Greek text of Proverbs 8 also speaks of wisdom as created While the wisdom of Solomon can see use of her as the uncreated emanation of God in wisdom chapter 7 verse 25 So that's the end of the quote and I think that's very very helpful because these three passages actually sirec one As well as some other poems but certainly sirec one Proverbs 8 22 wisdom chapter 7 25 speak of wisdom in these two different ways Whether it's uncreated that is the type of Jesus Christ and the holy spirit versus created wisdom as a virtue When I have more to say about that because we have to distinguish between that here pretty soon as well All right, so it's talking here very clearly in sirec chapter 1 that God created wisdom before all things He created wisdom in the holy spirit. This is referring to the gift the the intellectual virtue that we can acquire but also as a divine gift that's That's infused into our soul baptism, but I will talk about that very soon.
Just by way of example here Let me just flip back to wisdom chapter 7 We're gonna be Proverbs 8 out of it right now because scholars differ You know good scholars good catholic scholars and not just catholic but Protestant scholars We'll talk about Proverbs 8 that it could go either way It's either created wisdom or uncreated wisdom, but it's probably uncreated wisdom honestly But in any case wisdom said in the book of wisdom chapter 7 verse. Oh gosh. This is a whole section here It's another poem on wisdom Let's just go to verse 25 chapter 7 verse 25 and following says wisdom is a ruach a breath of the power of God a pure emanation of the glory of the almighty Therefore nothing defiled gets entrance into her. She is a reflection of eternal light a spotless mirror in the working of God and image of his goodness All right.
Well, this this language here is presenting wisdom as divine herself as uncreated divinity that a breath of the power of God Which is the same word for the holy spirit the reflection of eternal light would be referring to Jesus Christ The image of his goodness is also Jesus and I talked about this in the bible study on wisdom There are many passages in the new testament that pick up on this language here that Jesus is a reflection of the invisible God and image of the visible God and so many different passages But that is a good contrast So there is a difference between uncreated wisdom Which is what the book of wisdom chapter 7 is talking about and sireak is speaking of it as an intellectual gift All right, but there's of course a bit of overlap always here when you look at these things So that's an important thing to distinguish now even as a gift of God that God creates before all things It still kind of emanates from him because wisdom does have the character of divinity right because wisdom guides all things orders all things It's kind of the thing that where is it created is a created gift for humanity But that created gift to the intellectual virtue for humanity and the angels by the way It's still a participation in God's own wisdom And if it's a participation in God's own wisdom naturally you're going to find References to the Trinity and that's what you find here as well So for example verse 5 it says the source of wisdom is God's word or logos Well, this we know very clearly from the gospel of john chapter 1 his prologue that in the beginning was the word and the word was God and the word Was with God so I think it's very clear There's another passage where I think john very very much has sireak in the back of his mind And he's as he's writing his prologue on jesus christ as the word and as light the light of men etc He's got sireak in the back of his mind. So the source of wisdom is God's word Well, that's obviously jesus christ jesus is the word of god He is both uncreated wisdom that it has always existed always will exist He's the off of the omega but he's also jesus is with the father or the source of this intellectual virtue given to men who ask for and pursue it All right, and then I really briefly here you've got another set of rhetorical questions That again conclude that no one can comprehend wisdom but god. He is the one true wise one He's the creator of all things Which is why you have references to the sand of the sea and the days of eternity and the height of heaven and the earth and the abyss and all that stuff He is the creator of all these things. So he's the only one who truly understands these things He's greatly to be feared and he rules as god naturally that makes perfect sense But then back to verse nine the lord himself created wisdom in the holy spirit So this really concludes our trinitarian illusion here So uncreated wisdom is really father son and holy spirit All right, so share their dimension or divisions except for their persons But then created wisdom comes also from father son and holy spirit And as the source of all intellectual virtues.
So that's pretty darn amazing. So this is really good fun I'm doing this briefly systematic theologians can go into in a lot more fun detail But it's a wonderful Old testament allusion to the trinity here that wisdom comes from the father through his word and the holy spirit of course That's the trinity that's that's something to geek out about for sure Now don't forget again. Ungraded wisdom is both jesus and the holy spirit the ruach the breath of god All right, very good. So then um, let's go to the verse 10 here She dwells with all flesh according to his gift and he supplied her to those who love him Let's talk about this idea that wisdom is given to humanity as a gift for those who love him And that's going to flow into the second major theme of this whole book Which is the fear of the lord you really can't separate wisdom from the fear of the lord They're two sides of the same coin.
Hey, this is doc neck Thank you so much for listening to this course sample if you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson Please become a student over at scripture and tradition.com where you can listen to this entire course But also all the other courses that we have available in the snt audio library where you can listen to them on demand However, and whenever you want so thank you so much god bless you and keep setting your bible