Wisdom as a Model for Jesus' Ministry

Eva Gnther traces the influence of the Jewish wisdom tradition on shaping the earliest Christology. While it is well known that Wisdom's role of a Schpfungsmittler was transferred to Jesus in early Christian sources such as 1 Cor 8:6 and John 1:1-3, there is another important function of Wisdom, which can be related to the ministry of the earthly Jesus. The author demonstrates that Wisdom had come to be seen as an agent in history in some prominent Second Temple texts, allowing for her function of saving and guiding the people of Israel to be transferred to Jesus in the "Lament over Jerusalem" (Matt. 23:37-39 par.). However, rather than being presented as an incarnation of pre-existent Wisdom, Jesus is portrayed in the saying as a representation of God like the divine Wisdom, who in turn had taken on features of an "older" divine representative, the Angel of the Lord, in Second Temple texts. In the "Lament over Jerusalem" Jesus is presented as the contemporary form of this mediator.