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WISDOM
The third major
part of the Old Testament, “the Writings,” includes all the
books not in the Law and the Prophets. This CLAA course includes
just the Wisdom books, since we have dealt with the other books
(Ruth, Psalms, Lamentations, Esther, Judith, Daniel, Ezra,
Nehemiah, Chronicles, Tobit, and Maccabees) inside of those
courses where they fit historically. (See Prophets I and II
Course Descriptions.)
Aside from
presenting the material in chronological fashion, this allows us
also to spend an entire course just on the Wisdom literature:
Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, and Sirach.
This literature
is the Hebrew equivalent to the classical literature of the
Greeks—it is the brightest and best, the distilled wisdom of
generations and generations of experience, thought, and
meditation by holy men, inspired by God, who were quite
literally in love with wisdom. It does not focus primarily on
history, but rather on both a contemplative and practical
understanding of God and His ways with man.
Taking our lead
from the literature itself, this course will have the same three
goals:
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Learning to
use the wisdom literature to come to a deeper understanding
of God
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Learning to
take the fruits of this contemplation and apply them very
practically to everyday Christian life.
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Learning to
love wisdom.
Throughout the
classical Catholic tradition, these books were revered and
meditated on carefully. They were the source book for questions
about the highest and most unsearchable aspects of God Himself,
but also for the most practical questions regarding the daily
living out of holiness. Having a foot both on earth and in
Heaven, they are the perfect preparation for the Christian who
would know God and love and serve Him in this life.
Being both
earthly and Heavenly, they are also the perfect preparation for
reading in the Gospels about the one who IS God’s Wisdom
incarnate:
“Now with
you is wisdom, who know thy works and was present when you
made the world.” (Wisdom
9:9)
“Christ is
. . . the wisdom of God”
(1 Cor 1:24)
“In the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the
Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things
were made through him, and without him was not anything made
that was made . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us.” (John 1:14)
This course,
then, will read through the wisdom literature carefully for a
deeper understanding of God, a practical application of this
understanding in Christian life, and as a preparation for
reading about Christ in the Gospels, who is the perfect
Incarnation of the wisdom of God. |
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YOUR
INSTRUCTOR
 Nathan
Schmiedicke, Ph.D.
Dr. Nathan Schmiedicke
is the director of the CLAA Biblical Studies program. Dr.
Schmiedicke was born the fifth of eleven children and raised on
a small family farm in Michigan. He attended Catholic school
through eighth grade and was home-schooled through High school.
After graduating with honors from Thomas Aquinas College (CA) he
married his college sweetheart, and began graduate school at
Marquette University (Milwaukee). He completed his PhD in
Biblical Theology in 2007 and began teaching Theology,
Scripture, and languages at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in
Philadelphia, PA and classics at nearby Villanova University.
Dr. Schmiedicke is a Senior Fellow with the
St. Paul Center for
Biblical Theology. Nathan and Wendy have five boys.
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