Walter Vogels: The God who creates is the God who saves.The Book of Wisdom's reversal of the biblical pattern1Gerhard von Rad's position on creation has had a profound impact on OT studies. According to himYahwistic faith is centred on election and is consequently first of all salvation-faith. Creation-faith neveracquired independence and importance. All references to creation are in connection with and in dependenceon salvation-faith.2 Creation is thus considered as secondary in the OT.3 Some scholars believe that creation,even in Deutero-Isaiah, where it seems so important, plays only an auxiliary role to the essential message,which is Yahweh's new salvific actions for his people.4 Yahweh is the "creator" of Israel.Because salvation was considered the centre of OT theology, scholars for a long time did not know what todo with the wisdom literature, which either omits salvation history altogether or seems to treat it as not ofprimary importance. A classical example of this uneasiness is von Rad's OT Theology. In his first volume hedevelops the historical traditions of Israel and in his second the prophetic traditions. Only a few pages in thefirst volume touch on wisdom as part of what he terms "Israel's response".5 Von Rad must have had aconversion, because several years after his Theology, he published a separate book on Wisdom.6 It was W.Zimmerli who restored wisdom to its proper place by arguing that if wisdom is part of the Bible, it mustbelong to its theology. It does not belong, he maintained, to salvation theology but to creation theology.7Wisdom literature does indeed speak of creation in, for instance, the poem describing the role Wisdom playsat the moment of creation (Pr 8:22-31) and in the Book of Job where all speakers refer to creation. It issuggested, however, that even the Book of Job confirms the general rule that in the OT the concept ofcreation is always at the service of another aspect of the salvific purpose of God.8To verify this very common af...