wisdom rather than “intermediaries” or “hypostases” (see further Weiss, Untersuchungen 318–31; Dunn, Christology 168–76, 217–30). The character and effectiveness of this divine Wisdom become clear in wider Jewish usage, both in the affirmation of its unknowability, unless God takes the initiative (Job 28; Bar. 3:28–36), and in the claim that God has expressed his wisdom most clearly in the Torah (Sir. 24:23; Bar. 3:36–4:1). As the sequence of parallels with motifs characteristically used of Jewish
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