Saturday, January 01, 2011

Scripture Saturday--Jesus is Wisdom

John draws an obvious parallel in this weekend's Gospel between Jesus and Wisdom from Ecclesiasticus.

In the first reading, the Old Testament writer tells us that  Wisdom speaks her own praises, in the midst of her people, she glorifies in herself.

God told Wisdom to pitch your tent in Jacob, make Israel your inheritance and Wisdom says that in the beginning He created me, for eternity, I shall remain.

At the start of his Gospel, John tells us
In the beginning was the Word:
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God.


The Word was made flesh,
and pitched his tent among us,
and we saw his glory.

Ecclesiasticus, by the way, is one of the so-called "apocryphal" books of the Bible, that were removed by Protestant groups after the Reformation because they include such teachings as praying for deceased persons.  It is also objected to because they believe that Jesus and the disciples do not quote from those books, but as we have seen, that is obviously false.

Ecclesiasticus is also called Sirach or The Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach, or The Wisdom of Sirach,
not to be confused with either Ecclesiastes or The Book of Wisdom.

If you have a Catholic Bible, peruse Ecclesiasticus and partake of its wisdom.

The illustration, above, is a portion of Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew.

4 comments:

Moonshadow said...

Interesting. I didn't know that any original Hebrew version of Sirach existed but I see that significant portions (more than half?) have been found. cf.

However, an equally clear parallel is made by the Church on Trinity Sunday when Pr. 8:22-31 is read.

Staying in Balance said...

Oh, that's good to know, Moonshadow! Ecclesiasticus is one of my favorite books of the bible.

TACParent said...

You sure do know your bible. That's an interesting picture you found!

Staying in Balance said...

I was thrilled to have found it!

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"Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews). Within the context of medieval Europe, that prohibition was effectively a rule of universal abolition. "— Rodney Stark

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