Texts in conversation

Compare Wisdom of Solomon 9:8 and 2 Baruch 4:3 and Hebrews 8:5

Deuterocanon · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

Summary

The Wisdom of Solomon, Hebrews, and 2 Baruch follow a common tradition that depicts the Jerusalem temple as a copy of a heavenly temple. Wisdom refers to the temple as a copy of a primordial tent, while Hebrews similarly contrasts heaven and earth.

Passages

Wisdom of Solomon 9:8

Deuterocanon

7 You chose me to be king of your people, and a judge for your sons and daughters. 8 You gave a command to build a sanctuary on your holy mountain, and an altar in the city where you live, a copy of the holy tent which you prepared from the beginning. 9 Wisdom is with you and knows your works, and was present when you were making the world, and understands what is pleasing in your eyes, and what is right according to your commandments.

50 BCE – 50 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Wisdom of Solomon

2 Baruch 4:3

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch

2 Do you think that this is that city of which I said: ‘On the palms of My hands have I engraved you’? 3 This building now built in your midst is not that which is revealed with Me, that which was prepared beforehand here from the time when I took counsel to make Paradise, and showed it to Adam before he sinned, but when he transgressed the commandment it was removed from him, as also Paradise. 4 And after these things I showed it to My servant Abraham by night among the portions of the victims.

70–135 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Baruch

Hebrews 8:5

New Testament

4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. 5 The place where they serve is a sketch and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, just as Moses was warned by God as he was about to complete the tabernacle. For he says, “See that you make everything according to the design shown to you on the mountain.” 6 But now Jesus has obtained a superior ministry, since the covenant that he mediates is also better and is enacted on better promises.

80–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Hebrews

References

"... The idea of a sanctuary where YHWH dwells, made or prepared by God’s own hands, which echoes later in Exodus (e.g. 24:9-11; 25:40), became a topic of interest and imagination which surfaced in Wisdom of Solomon 9:8 and in a wide range of other works, from Qumran (4Q174) to Philo (Plant. 1:47ff), to the rabbis (e.g. Mekhilta de'Rabbi Ishmael 25-40). In 8:2 Hebrews refers to the sanctuary as the true tent “which the Lord has pitched (or built), not human beings.” While the vocabulary of Exodus 15:17 and Hebrews 8:2 is slightly different, the idea of a sanctuary built by the Lord is the same. Hebrews refers to “the perfect tent—not made by hands” in 9:11 and, again in 9:24, declares that “Not into a hand-made sanctuary did Christ enter ... but into heaven itself ...” These statements reinforce Hebrews’ heavenly/earthly cosmology reflected in Exodus 25:40 and the incorporation of the language of Exodus 15:17 as the seminal expression of this sanctuary concept ..."

Scott Ronald Moore, “A Conviction of Texts Not Seen: Perceiving Exodus as the Generative Text of Hebrews” (diss., University of Denver, 2017), 253–254.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

2 Baruch87 chapters

Compare Wisdom of Solomon 9:8 and 2 Baruch 4:3 and Hebrews 8:5

Summary

Passages

Wisdom of Solomon 9:8

2 Baruch 4:3

Hebrews 8:5

References

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