This is not to say that the Jew could not see wisdom in any other source, for indeed he did. To the Jew, wisdom was personified and seen present with God before the beginning (cf., Pr.8:22; Job 28; 38:1-40:2). Since nature was God's divine creation and wisdom was the agent with which He created it ( Ps.104:24; Pr.3:19), then wisdom could be seen in every aspect of the natural world (Ps.97). Listen to Paul's Jewish reasoning for the attainment of knowledge of God: "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they [those who reject God and His knowledge] are without excuse" ( Rom.1:20).

We arrive now at the second major area of difference in Greek and Jewish thought. This is evident in the dilemma that eventually comes to any one who has emerged from Plato's cave into the light: should he or she there remain, or, remembering his fellowman behind, descend back into his darkness with the hopes of so benefiting others? As any student of human nature knows, obviously some would choose the former, while others more benevolent, the latter. To the enlightened Greek mind, often disengagement from the common man, sometimes even from society, followed. What had been gained through contemplation became secretive and imparted only to those proven worthy to acquire such esoteric teachings. Thus an elitism developed, with a related hierarchy of the enlightened and their corresponding wisdom. (If this is beginning to sound like the Essene, it should, for similar patterns often develop in achieved enlightenment and acquired knowledge, and to the Christian, should be carefully guarded against.)

To the Jew, however, the response was quite different. Unlike the Greek metaphysician, he was to act upon what he had learned, for it was not the contemplation of, nor the learning of, but the doing of God's word that became paramount. It was not enough to be a hearer only of those things spoken to him, either through observation in nature, contemplation in thought, or examination of His revelation, but He must do those things learned of Him ( Deu.5:27,31; 6:3). Once man had achieved the knowledge and understanding of the nature of the Divine, life lived in the Divine meant life in imitation of the Divine ( Lev.11:43,45). If, as the Divine says ( Jer.9:24), He is a doer of lovingkindness, then man too must love to do that kindness; if judgment, then man must exercise justice; and if righteousness, then man must live righteously. Only in doing these could man please God ( Ecc.2:24-26; 12:13-14; Mi.6:6-8). Obviously to fulfill this, he could not separate himself from his fellowman. To the Jew, then, Israel was community and Judaism was their calling, and that lived out through every fiber of their being.

Listen to Job's defense of himself after his calamities came upon him and it appeared to his three counselor friends that God was sorely displeased with him:

Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness; As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle. When the Almighty was yet with me, . . . When I went out to the gate through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street! The young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up. The princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth. The nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth. . . . Because I delivered, the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out. (Job 29)

In addition, and in contrast to the Greek, if the Divine was no respector of one person over another, then all men must be seen standing equal before Him, and equally accessible to Him. Clearly then, this knowledge for salvation, or the elevation of man to the Divine, was common to any man, to the exclusion of none. To the blind, he could hear. To the deaf, he could see. To both, he could feel, sense, and smell. To every man, God so equipped him that none could not discern who was the creator of all that surrounded him, including the uniqueness of himself. In this order of things, God's image was unmistakably visible. There was sunshine and rain, life and love, joy and peace, grace and mercy, righteousness and justice, and the omni-faceted radiance of a caring Creator. But within this creation could be seen, heard, and detected something that could not be reconciled or harmonized with these attributes of goodness and holiness -- the existence of evil. Righteousness and justice had their antithesis. This posed another crucial question that had to be answered: how could a holy God, divine and perfect in all His attributes, create and come in contact with a material world that contained such obvious evil? And thus arose the diverging views toward the polytheistic Greek gods and the monotheistic God of the Jews. (Read here Paul's address to these Greeks in Athens in the seat of their higher intelligentsia of his time - Acts 17:16-34.)

For the Jewish philosopher, or theologian, who had at last come to embrace a singular God, this did not pose the problem as it did for the Greek mind. Although there are in some early Rabbinical writings allusions to elements within Judaism of another god, as might be seen in their highly developed hierarchy of angelology, with the lesser who could communicate with man identified as, Yahoel, or more often, the lesser Yahweh (the God of Israel seen in the Old Testament), to the serious Jewish theologian, this was heresy. At times, others failed to understand in the writings of the Jews the personification of the attributes of God, and thus saw in them references to more than one. (This will be discussed further under the meaning of Logos as ascribed to Jesus by John.) But to the serious Jew who had embraced that blood covenant at Sinai (Ex.20:22-23; 24) and swore allegiance to only one God ( Ex.20:3; 24:7-8), he had no problem with accepting His word given to Moses for His identification -- the great "I AM" ( Ex.3:14). (It must be remembered, it was their failure to hold to Him as such that brought upon them judgment after judgment. Compare: Ju.10:10; I Ki.11:33; Isa.5:24; 24:5; Jer.6:19; 9:13; 16:10-13; 17:12-13; 18:15; 19:4; 19:13; 22:9; 44:23.)

As for evil, it was the result of man bringing upon himself the curse God had warned him of if he willfully participated in what had been revealed to him that would bring about his reduced state of existence. And having been precisely forewarned of those undesirable consequences, this he knowingly desired and independently chose to do anyway.