Texts in Conversation
2 Peter uses Lot's distress at the evil around him to urge readers to avoid immoral behavior. It keeps the story simple and avoids embellishments found in other traditions, though it shares details with the Wisdom of Solomon.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 10:6
Deuterocanon
5 Moreover, when nations consenting together in wickedness had been confounded, wisdom knew the righteous man, and preserved him blameless to God, and kept him strong when his heart yearned toward his child. 6 While the ungodly were perishing, wisdom delivered a righteous man, when he fled from the fire that descended out of heaven on the five cities. 7 To whose wickedness a smoking waste still witnesses, and plants bearing fair fruit that doesn’t ripen, a disbelieving soul has a memorial: a standing pillar of salt. 8 For having passed wisdom by, not only were they disabled from recognising the things which are good, but they also left behind them for their life a monument of their folly, so that where they stumbled, they might fail even to be unseen; 9 but wisdom delivered those who waited on her out of troubles.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
2 Peter 2:7
New Testament
4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into Tartarus16 and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment, 5 and if he did not spare the ancient world, but did protect Noah, a herald of righteousness, along with seven others, when God brought a flood on an ungodly world, 6 and if he turned to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when he condemned them to destruction, having appointed them to serve as an example to future generations of the ungodly, 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men, 8 (for while he lived among them day after day, that righteous man was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) 9 —if so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials, and to reserve the unrighteous for punishment at the day of judgment, 10 especially those who indulge their fleshly desires and who despise authority. Brazen and insolent, they are not afraid to insult the glorious ones,
Date: 120–130 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Wisdom of Solomon 10:6 and Josephus' Jewish Wars 4.484 say a total of five cities were destroyed. In Philo’s Abr. 145 it says that four of the five cities of the Plain were destroyed, which is harmonious with Genesis 19:17–22 and the preservation of Zoar, to which Lot fled. The omission of these additional cities in 2 Peter is no more unusual than the majority of references that only mention Sodom and Gomorrah, or those that mention only Sodom and exclude Gomorrah ... In contrast, the parallel verse in 2 Peter 2:6 does not follow this line of condemnation at all. It does not identify the acts that merited the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and therefore does not connect their destruction to the punishment of the angels on the basis of a similar sin. Rather, in 2 Peter the following verses about Lot maintain a strictly biblical and historical context describing them as licentious (2:7) and lawless (2:7,8) ..."
Jenny Devivo, “2 Peter 2:4–16: The Redaction of the Biblical and Intertestamental References Dependent on Jude 5–11 and Their Overall Significance for the Document” (diss., Loyola University Chicago, 2014), 87–89.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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Wisdom of Solomon 10:5 "kept him strong in the face of his compassion for his child". Who is this referring to? As you read through chapter 10, some of the people are evident such as "steering the righteous man by a paltry piece of wood". "Compassion for his child" makes me think of Moses, but t ...
Wisdom of Solomon 10:5 "kept him strong in the face of his compassion for his child". Who is this referring to? As you read through chapter 10, some of the people are evident such as "steering the righteous man by a paltry piece of wood". "Compassion for his child" makes me think of Moses, but then it would not be in chronological order, because "rescued a righteous man" "escaped the fire that descended on the Five Cities" refers to Lot and the story of Lot precedes Moses. Is this an unknown story not mentioned in the OT, does it refer to Abraham being concerned about Lot? Lot was a grown man at this point, not really a "child" unless it is just a manner of speech.Cheryl, I think you are confusing Abraham with Moses
Cheryl, I think you are confusing Abraham with Moses