The most obvious example, of
course, is whether Paul cited Wisdom of Solomon as sacred scripture in Rom
1:19–32 (compare Wis 12–15). The parallels between Rom 2:4 and Wis 15:1–5 also
suggest more than a casual familiarity with that book. The question this raises
for Lim has to do with the way that Paul makes use of this text and whether he
is citing it as scripture. He is not convinced that Paul thought of Wisdom as
scripture, but he does not deny Paul’s awareness of this text. It may be that a
reexamination of how the NT uses and cites the OT texts and other texts needs
further clarification. Some scholars continue to insist that Paul cited Wisdom
as scripture in this text and that may well be the case. Lim cites Dunn as an
example. The lack of Paul’s use of citation formulae is not necessarily
determinative here, as we see in other NT examples where Jesus, according to
Mark 14:62, cites Dan 7:13, but does not use any scriptural formulae such as
“as the scripture says.” It is generally conceded that Jesus saw and cited
Daniel of sacred scripture. This practice of citing scriptural texts without
the scriptural formulae is also found throughout the book of Hebrews in which
its author regularly cites many OT texts, more than almost any other NT book,
but with one exception (Heb 10:7) without the familiar introduction “as it is
written.”
That author and others seems to
be “writing with scripture,” to use Jacob Neusner’s line, which often reflects
the way that the NT writers occasionally made use of scriptural texts, namely
without the typical introductory formulae. Paul’s use of the Wisdom of Solomon,
like other NT writers’ use of Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, may reflect what was
common in the early churches who welcomed these books and subsequently included
them in sacred scripture collections. While Sirach was a disputed book for
generations in rabbinic Judaism, it was welcomed initially by the rabbis as
scripture and it is also included in early Christianity scripture canons. Does
this suggest that it was also accepted as scripture in the first century and
cited as such in several texts in the NT? The history of the early churches’
reception of both of these books as scripture suggests that Paul too may have
had a more positive view toward Wisdom as scripture than what some scholars
have seen. (Lee Martin
McDonald, The Formation of the Biblical Canon, 2 vols. [London: T&T
Clark, 2017], 1:262)
