Texts in Conversation
The Wisdom of Solomon echoes Genesis 1:26 by using the phrase that humans were made in the image of God, but reinterprets it within a Hellenistic Jewish tradition to emphasize immortality as a defining aspect of that image.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 1:26
Hebrew Bible
26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” 27 God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Wisdom of Solomon 2:23
Deuterocanon
21 Thus they reasoned, and they were led astray; for their wickedness blinded them, 22 and they didn’t know the mysteries of God, neither did they hope for wages of holiness, nor did they discern that there is a prize for blameless souls. 23 Because God created man for incorruption, and made him an image of his own everlastingness; 24 but death entered into the world by the envy of the devil, and those who belong to him experience it.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... As indicated in Wisdom of Solomon 2:23–24, the image of God is rooted in the divine qualities of eternity and immortality ... It is possible that wordplay is involved in the way the author of the Wisdom of Solomon describes how “God created the human being in the image of God’s own being (idiotes) or perhaps of God’s own eternity (aidiotes)”. To come to grips with this enigmatic remark, one should keep in mind that it forms part of the conclusion of a speech describing the folly of the wicked who do not comprehend the goal or destiny of God’s creation of humankind, namely “incorruption” (1:16–2:24). “To sustain the bold claim for immortality, the author appeals to the powerful ‘image of God’ in the Genesis narratives” ..."
Hendrik Bosman, “Figuring God and Humankind: The Imago Dei in View of Anthropologies in the Old Testament,” in Fragile Dignity: Intercontextual Conversations on Scriptures, Family, and Violence, ed. L. Juliana Claassens and Klaas Spronk, SemeiaSt 72 (Atlanta: SBL, 2013), 50.
* 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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