Anden och Visheten : We declare Gods wisdom, a mystery...

Sammanfattning: The central theme in 1 Cor 2:6-16 is wisdom and spirit, sophia and pneuma. The word wisdom occurs 16 times in 1 Cor 1-3, and this is the first time the concept is central in a passage in the New Testament. Paul is talking about the mysterious wisdom from God. He addresses the theme because Corinthians are obsessed with wisdom. There have been many theories about if Paul or the Corinthians have been influenced by Greek philosophical ideas, and to what extent. The theme of wisdom was central both in the Hellenistic philosophical tradition as well as in the Jewish sapiential tradition, and it is closely linked to pneuma. The sapiential book Wisdom of Solomon portrays Wisdom as a personification bordering to a hypostasis of God, as the guidance to a righteous life and even savior and the one who gives eternal life. The description of Wisdom seems synonymous with the Spirit of God, and the giver of both life, knowledge, and spiritual wisdom. Paul also claims that the Spirit of God is the one who reveals the wisdom from God. Considering these perspectives this thesis sought, through a thorough analysis of 1 Cor 2:6-16 and a broader analysis of Wisdom of Solomon, and a comparison between how they portrayed the concept of wisdom and spirit, to investigate if Paul was inspired by Wisdom of Solomon and if he drew an innovative picture of wisdom. It’s difficult to answer if Paul was directly inspired by this book in 1 Corinthians, or if the Corinthians were and he only responded to their misunderstanding of both the gospel and the concept of wisdom. Paul seems to have drawn an innovative picture of wisdom, but it was deeply rooted in the Jewish apocalyptical thought, which in turn was rooted in the Jewish sapiential tradition.