Texts in Conversation
Genesis explains the flood as the result of widespread violence and corruption and highlights the Sons of God. The Wisdom of Solomon retells the story more simply, tracing the disaster to Cain and ignoring the details of the Sons of God.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 6:17
Hebrew Bible
15 This is how you should make it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. 16 Make a roof for the ark and finish it, leaving 18 inches from the top. Put a door in the side of the ark, and make lower, middle, and upper decks. 17 I am about to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy from under the sky all the living creatures that have the breath of life in them. Everything that is on the earth will die, 18 but I will confirm my covenant with you. You will enter the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You must bring into the ark two of every kind of living creature from all flesh, male and female, to keep them alive with you.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Wisdom of Solomon 10:4
Deuterocanon
1 Wisdom guarded to the end the first formed father of the world, who was created alone, and delivered him out of his own transgression, 2 and gave him strength to rule over all things. 3 But when an unrighteous man fell away from her in his anger, he perished himself in the rage with which he killed his brother. 4 When because of him the earth was drowning with a flood, wisdom again saved it, guiding the righteous man’s course by a paltry piece of wood. 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.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Wisdom of Solomon has little interest in accurately recounting Old Testament history; such material is used solely for the author’s own apologetic ends. Hence Adam’s transgression in the Garden is glossed over (10:1; see also Sirach 49:16), and Cain is made the direct cause of the flood (10:4), passing over the difficult account of the fall of the angels (Genesis 6:1–4). Inevitably this moralizing and chauvinistic attitude to history leads the author into logically inconsistent statements. When Israel is persecuted her oppressors become the ungodly (10:15 and 10:20), but when Israel does the same to the Canaanites the author has to wriggle and squirm with embarrassment, coming up with nonsense like 12:10–11. For 10:1–2 see Genesis 2:7–4:16, for 10:4, Genesis 6–9, for 10:5, Genesis 10–22, for 10:6–8, Genesis 19, for 10:9–12, Genesis 27–33, for 10:13–14, Genesis 37–47, and for 10:15–21 Exodus 1–15. The chapter is held together, and its units marked out, by the repeated use of the pronoun hautē (translated “wisdom” in the NRSV) in verses 1, 5, 6, 10, 13, and 15. Each unit contains the word dikaios (righteous) once ..."
A. Peter Hayman, Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible: Wisdom of Solomon (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2019), 56.
* 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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