Texts in Conversation
The Wisdom of Solomon and Romans both treat sin as a form of self-punishment. Wisdom shows idol worshipers suffering through the animals they worship, while Romans presents sin and idolatry as actions that turn back on the person who commits them.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 11:15
Deuterocanon
14 For him who long before was thrown out and exposed they stopped mocking. In the end of what happened, they marveled, having thirsted in another manner than the righteous. 15 But in return for the senseless imaginings of their unrighteousness, by which they were led astray to worship irrational reptiles and wretched vermin, you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures to punish them, 16 that they might learn that by what things a man sins, by these he is punished. 17 For your all-powerful hand that created the world out of formless matter didn’t lack means to send upon them a multitude of bears, fierce lions, 18 or newly-created and unknown wild beasts, full of rage, either breathing out a blast of fiery breath, or belching out smoke, or flashing dreadful sparks from their eyes; 19 which had power not only to consume them by their violence, but to destroy them even by the terror of their sight.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Romans 1:23
New Testament
20 For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen because they are understood through what has been made. So people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Date: 55–58 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In the context of the present revelation of God’s wrath, Paul makes a universal claim about human beings: that they are “without excuse” because they failed to honor the Creator, about whom it is possible to know something (“what is knowable about God”) by observing the works of creation, which God manifested to them (1:19–20). Their failure to acknowledge God leads to folly (1:21–22), which is demonstrated, on the one hand by their idolatry, and on the other by their immorality. Paul presents these sins as punishments in themselves; three times, he states that God “gave them up” or “handed them over” (1:24, 26, 28) to idolatry (1:25), “degrading passions” (1:26–27) and “every kind of wickedness” (1:29–31). This way of explaining human sinfulness resembles a principle articulated in the Wisdom of Solomon that was fairly widespread in apocalyptic texts: “one is punished by the very things by which one sins” (Wisdom of Solomon 11:16; compare Testament of Gad 5:10; Jubilees 4:32) ..."
Karina M. Hogan, “The Apocalyptic Eschatology of Romans,” in The Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the Shaping of New Testament Thought, ed. Loren T. Stuckenbruck (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017), 155–174.
* 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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