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You can find previous episodes of “The Stone Chapel Podcast” at Lanier Theological Library.
“The Stone Chapel Podcast” is part of the ChurchLeaders Podcast Network.
This episode has been edited for clarity and space.
Joey Dodson
Hi. I’m Joey Dodson. I’m the Craig L. Blomberg Chair of New Testament at Denver Seminary in colorful Colorado.
David Capes
Dr. Joseph Dodson, Joey, welcome back to our podcast.
Joey Dodson
Thanks so much for having me.
David Capes
It’s a delight to see you here. You’re here for a few days. You could be here for a few weeks, if you wanted to, or maybe a few months working, because we have places for scholars to do that kind of thing. But you’re here working on a project.
Joey Dodson
Yeah, this is my third time here finishing up a project, so it’s become part of my rhythm to finish a book here. And I’m very grateful to you and Mark and people at the Lanier Theological Library. It’s a great place to have quiet, to have a library, to have community.
David Capes
And to be asked to interrupt your work and come over and do a podcast!
Joey Dodson
It’s always great to talk to you.
David Capes
Yes, I’m delighted. Last year you finished a book, and it’s the book that we’re going to be talking about. It’s entitled, “Paul the Rabbi Philosopher: Stoic and Jewish Philosophy in the Apostles’ Thought.” But we’re just so glad that you’re here. Thanks for being a part of this conversation today. All right, I always ask, what’s the big idea of the book.
Joey Dodson
Yes, thanks for having me. Homer was the most important work in the first century. I begin by talking about how Homer’s favorite nickname for Odysseus is “polytropos”, a man of twists and turns. Because he can become all things to all people according to the matters at hand. And so it’s similar to how Paul can, in a sense, out Odysseus, Odysseus. He’s the one by his own profession, can become all things to all people in order to reach them. To the Jew, he becomes one like a Jew. To those that are not a Jew, he becomes like them as well. And this is an example of how Paul is a man of twists and turns. How when he’s standing toe to toe with a Jewish contemporary, he can carry on a great conversation, and
then also with the philosophers of his time. Paul is that man of twists and turns, and how that fleshes out in his letters.
David Capes
One of the things that people don’t realize is that Paul himself actually quotes from literature from his time, and authors from his time. Do you find that people are upset that Paul is drawing from something other than the Jewish tradition?
Joey Dodson
I don’t think they should be, if they are. Paul is a man of many worlds. He was born in Tarsus, and Tarsus was like an Ivy League town of the day, full of scholars.
David Capes
Like a Princeton.
Joey Dodson
Yes, or like a Lanier! So he’s surrounded by those and Paul as one who has a heart to reach all people, is willing to use whatever he can in order to proclaim the truth of the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
David Capes
Your book is really divided into two parts. The first part is the more Jewish part. You say, Paul the rabbi, the philosopher. Do you mean that in a technical sense, Paul the rabbi?
Joey Dodson
I do not. Almost like what we see in the fourth gospel, when John and calls Jesus a rabbi. So this is not a professional rabbi post, 70 AD. But this is a rabbi to show that Paul is a Hebrew of Hebrews, that Paul is one who has that Jewish training. One of my children is neurodivergent, and once just blurted out, “Paul has Jewish underwear.”
I’m not sure what the child meant, but I do think that at Paul’s core, he is a Jewish teacher. The first half of that puts him in conversation as if he’s having a cup of coffee with a current author of his time, who we call the author of the “Wisdom of Solomon.” Which is actually in our very first New Testament, the Muratorian Canon. But that’s a different discussion for a different podcast. I put Paul in dialog with the author of the “Wisdom of Solomon.” They’re writing about some of the exact same issues. They’re dealing with it.
And most scholars believe that when Paul writes Romans, the “Wisdom of Solomon” is on the desk. Where it is on the desk, whether it’s in the center or on the side, is debated. But the vast majority of Romans scholars think that we probably shouldn’t read Romans unless we have the “Wisdom of Solomon.” And some even say that the interlocutor, the imaginary friend that Paul conjures up in Romans 2:1, “but what about you, Oh, man.” Paul is gesturing to the author of the “Wisdom of Solomon,” or someone like him.
David Capes
For those who don’t know the “Wisdom of Solomon,” where would they find it?
Joey Dodson
In the Deuterocanonical text, the Apocrypha. And it was written somewhere between Malachi and Matthew, probably at the turn of the first century.
David Capes
So it’s really contemporaneous with Paul and Jesus.
Joey Dodson
Yes correct. And again, it deals with some of the exact same issues that Paul’s going to deal with, particularly in Romans. This is someone who doesn’t know Jesus Christ and probably had written this before the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, but a faithful Jew trying to live out faithfulness to Torah, faithfulness to the Lord in exile.
David Capes
Yes, as I recall, it’s mostly written in terms of a poetic form, isn’t it?
Joey Dodson
Yes, it’s Alexandrian Greek. And so as similar to what we might see with Philo Apollos, who hung out with Priscilla and Aquila. This is the type of language that he would have, and it’s very beautifully written. And he’s going to not only deal with some of the same topics and the same context as Paul, but drawing from the same holy text, the same Hebrew, the same Jewish Scriptures that Paul is going to be drawing on.
David Capes
Are there quotations in the “Wisdom of Solomon,” like Paul says when he uses an introductory formula, let’s say, or other times like that?
Joey Dodson
Yes, there are, exactly. Even sometimes, when Paul writes in Romans, it sounds like he may be quoting. In Romans 5:12 where it says, “sin and death enter into the world”, the “Wisdom of Solomon” says almost the exact same Greek, except he leaves off sin. It’s just “death enters into the world”. Some believe that even Romans, chapter 1:18-32 is a paraphrase, a summary of the “Wisdom of Solomon” chapter 13, even to the point of “you were without excuse”, like what we see in Romans 1.
David Capes
How would you define wisdom, not necessarily the book “Wisdom of Solomon.” What is wisdom?
Joey Dodson
I think Paul, and we don’t see it as much in Romans as we might see it in 1 Corinthians and
Colossians, but there’s this wisdom theology, or wisdom Christology, that’s there. We see it in John, in the “Wisdom of Solomon,” he’s going to have a Holy Trinity. His Holy Trinity is going to be masculine, feminine and neuter. The masculine is going to be logos. And so the Logos is going to be a figure that’s very similar to what we see in John 1. And then the neuter is going to be the spirit, the spirit of holiness, the Holy Spirit. And then the feminine is going to be Sophia. She’s the main character in this. Sophia means wisdom, probably going back to Proverbs, where you have lady wisdom that was with God at creation. Through her, all things are created, and so she is the hero. But again, he’s going to use spirit, logos, and wisdom interchangeably throughout the work.
David Capes
It’s a fascinating book. It really is, and I would encourage people to go and read it if they have the opportunity. And to read your book, because what you do is you bring elements from the “Wisdom of Solomon” into contact with things that Paul has said, and to see the similarities and differences.
