Another echo of Gen 2:7 appears
in Wisdom of Solomon, where the author criticizes and idolater for worshiping
images of wood or ceramics. Such created things, venerated as gods, have no
living spirit, because an ignorant human being made them: “He did not know the
one who formed him and inspired [εμπνευσαντα]
him with an active soul and breathed him and inspired [εμφυσησαντα] him with an active soul and
breathed [εμφυσησαντα] a
living spirit [πνευμα ζωτικον] into
him” (Wis 15:11). The statement that the idol-maker received life (πνευμα), breathed by God, is a
clear allusion to the creation of Adam (Gen 2:7). Moreover, having received the
breath of life from God, the human being is depicted in Wis 15:16 as “one whose
spirit is borrowed” (το πνευμα δεδανεισμενος).
Similarly, Wis 16:14 parallels “spirit” and “soul,” saying that only God has
control over death and life: “A person in his wickedness kills but cannot bring
back the departed spirit [εξελθον πνευμα] or
set free the soul that has been taken [ψυχην παραλημφθεισαν]” (cf. Deut 32:39; Tob 13:2). (Erik Eynikel and
Jeremy Corley, “Πνευμα in the Septuagint,” in Missed
Treasures of the Holy Spirit: Distinctive New Testament Pneumatologies, ed.
Jeremy Corley and Jessie Rogers [Catholic Biblical Quarterly Imprints 5;
Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2024], 64)
