Wittgenstein and the Old Testament
Abstract
1. Introduction—Wittgenstein’s Acquaintance with the Bible
1.1. Religious Instruction
1.2. Personal Reading
1.3. Attending Mass
2. Wittgenstein’s Attitude Towards the Old Testament in General
The Old Testament seen as the body without its head; the New Testament: the head; the Epistles of the Apostles: the crown on the head.
Despite the qualifying last sentence regarding the Epistles, this quotation makes it clear that Wittgenstein regarded the Old Testament as being somewhat inferior or subordinate to the New Testament9. There are, however, also statements by Wittgenstein that at least allow for a more neutral reading, for example, when he said: “For me too the Old Testament is a collection of Hebrew folk-lore—yes, I would use that expression” (Drury 1981b, p. 116). Elsewhere, Wittgenstein admitted that the Old Testament captures something:When I think of the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament on its own, I feel like saying: the head is (still) missing from the body. These problems have not been solved. These hopes have not been fulfilled. But I do not necessarily have to think of a head as having a crown.(Wittgenstein 1980a, p. 35e; BEE 162b,16v–17r)
Wittgenstein probably thought that what Malachi here states about the people of Israel could also be said about human beings in general or about Wittgenstein himself: It is difficult to stand before God, one must be purified to endure the greatness of God (cf. Mal. 3:3). Why exactly Wittgenstein considered this statement to be so important, I cannot say; but at any rate, he at least concedes that the Old Testament has made an important point.Wittgenstein’s ‘Hebraic’ conception of religion was, Drury suggested, based on the sense of awe, which one feels throughout the Bible. In illustration of this he quoted from Malachi: ‘But who may abide the day of his coming and who shall stand when he appeareth?’ (Mal. 3:2). This stopped Wittgenstein in his tracks: ‘I think you have just said something very important. Much more important than you realize.’
3. Wittgenstein’s References to Passages in the Old Testament
4. The Wisdom Literature in the Old Testament
5. Wittgenstein’s Selection Analysed
6. Wittgenstein on Wisdom
Wisdom is cold and to that extent stupid. (Faith on the hand is a passion.) It might also be said: Wisdom merely conceals life from you.
(Wisdom is like cold grey ash, covering up the glowing embers.)(Wittgenstein 1980a, p. 56e; BEE 134,9)
Amongst other things Christianity says, I believe, that sound doctrines are all useless.
That you have to change your life. (Or the direction of your life.)
That all wisdom is cold; & that you can no more use it for setting your life to rights, than you can forge iron when it is cold. […]
Wisdom is passionless. By contrast Kierkegaard calls faith a passion.(Wittgenstein 1980a, 53e; BEE 132,167–168)
Ich denke in jenem Zitat aus Spinoza an das Wort ‚Weisheit‘ welches mir ein im letzten Grunde hohles Ding zu sein schien (& scheint), hinter dem sich der eigentliche Mensch, wie er wirklich ist, versteckt. (Ich meine: vor sich selbst versteckt.)
[Concerning that quote from Spinoza I am thinking of the word ‘wisdom’ which to me seemed (& seems) to be an ultimately hollow thing behind which the actual man, as he really is, is hiding. (I mean: hiding from himself.)—my translation]
‘Wisdom is grey.’ Life on the other hand and religion are full of colour.(Wittgenstein 1980a, p. 62e; BEE 134,181)
The tenor here is clear: wisdom is cold, boring and colourless, whereas faith is hot and passionate. Wittgenstein also uses the concept of wisdom differently (see Hosseini 2007, pp. 24–44)27, but what is interesting for me here are those passages in which Wittgenstein expresses reservations about this kind of wisdom, about teachings that tell you how to lead your life or how the world is organised, about what is only read together but not felt (see Wittgenstein 1980b, p. 121), about prudence (see Wittgenstein 1997, pp. 64, 101), about knowledge that ‘leaves you cold’. Terms that Wittgenstein contrasts with ‘wisdom’ are faith, essential experience, feeling, warmth.28 This wisdom is what remains when the liveliness, the unpredictable, the passion (the fire) is subtracted and only the rules (the “cold grey ash”) are left.What inclines even me to believe in Christ’s Resurrection? It is as though I play with the thought.—If he did not rise from the dead, then he decomposed in the grave like any other man. He is dead and decomposed. In that case he is a teacher like any other and can no longer help; and once more we are orphaned and alone. So we have to content ourselves with wisdom and speculation. We are in a sort of hell where we can do nothing but dream, roofed in, as it were, and cut off from heaven. But if I am to be REALLY saved,—what I need is certainty—not wisdom, dreams of speculation—and this certainty is faith.(Wittgenstein 1980a, p. 33e; BEE 120,54r–55r)
7. A Deliberate Focus on the Wisdom Literature?
It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed ‘Wisdom.’ And then I know exactly what is going to follow: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
- Someone who, like Job, says “Der Herr hat’s gegeben, der Herr hat’s genommen” [The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away] expresses, according to Wittgenstein in (4), the same understanding of religion as someone who says that he knows that—even if he is doing well now—his fate can turn for the worse (see BEE 131,27). According to this understanding, humans cannot grasp the order of the world and use it to guide their lives, rather they are confronted with unpredictable fates that they must accept (as God-given).
- In (5), the subject of his reflection is actually not wisdom, nevertheless a certain view of wisdom, akin to critical wisdom, shines through. Wittgenstein here deals with certain questions about the application of concepts and draws a comparison with the God of the Book of Job, who makes it clear in his speeches (in Job 38–41) that he is above laws and principles—that he stands outside the deed–consequence relation—and that, as Wittgenstein says, “moral concepts cannot be applied to him” (BEE 136,47b; my translation). For humans, therefore, there are no insights into life-regulating principles on which they could rely.
- In (6), Wittgenstein uses the quotation from the Psalms to describe a situation in which an essential decision is to be made which cannot be subordinated to a theoretical rule: “‚Er sprach in seinem Herzen zu sich‘. Wenn ich einen Entschluß fasse spreche ich in meinem Herzen zu mir, aber nicht, z.B., wenn ich philosophiere.” (BEE 165,195) [‘He spoke to himself in his heart’. When I make a decision, I speak to myself in my heart, but not, for example, when I philosophise.’]. According to Wittgenstein, the expression ‘speaking in the heart’ is only used when something is at stake, not when one is theorising or speculating.
- When in (12) Drury comments on the killing of the children who mocked Elisha by saying “we ought to think that such a tragedy is a direct punishment from God for a particular act of wickedness”, then he claims to identify a deed–consequence relation at this point in the Old Testament. I understand Wittgenstein’s reaction to this (“That has nothing to do with what I am talking about”, as a follow up to “After all, children have been killed by bears”) as meaning that he thinks the story was not told to establish a connection like the deed–consequence relation but to cope with serious events in life (the fact that in the history of humankind, children have indeed been killed by bears). This is in line with the view that Genia Schönbaumsfeld33 attributes to Wittgenstein “that ‘objective’ or speculative thought (‘wisdom’) is incapable of solving ‘the problems of life’, because what is needed is something that ‘takes hold of you’.” (Schönbaumsfeld 2007, p. 31)34.
An exegesis of Christian teaching: Wake up completely! When you do that you recognize that you are no good & thus the joy you take in this world comes to an end. And it can’t come back either if you stay awake. But now you need salvation,—otherwise you are lost. But you must stay alive (and this world is dead to you) so you need a new light from elsewhere. In this light there can be no cleverness, wisdom; for to this world you are dead. (Since this world is the paradise in which, because of your sinfulness, you can’t go about anything, however.)(Wittgenstein 2003, p. 241; BEE 183,232)
8. Summary
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
1 | On Wittgenstein’s relationship to Hänsel see the Afterword “Traurig wie die Töne seiner Klarinette …” by Ilse Somavilla (Somavilla 2012). |
2 | An important approach to the New Testament for him was also Tolstoy’s Kurze Darlegung des Evangeliums (see, e.g., Wittgenstein 1969, p. 28; Nedo 2012, p. 142). |
3 | Karl Wittgenstein had very specific ideas about what was worth learning and therefore did initially not send his children to school but had them taught by home tutors: Mathematics, English, French—and Latin (see Nedo 2012, p. 71; McGuinness 1988, p. 24). That Wittgenstein’s Latin was apparently quite good can be seen, for example, from the fact that he complains to Drury about a poor English translation of the Latin of Augustine’s Confessiones (Drury 1981a, p. 104). |
4 | That does not, in itself, imply that he had the Luther Bible in mind, because he was reading the Vulgate at that time; it just means that he probably did not read a Catholic version of the Bible. |
5 | This is the translation by Josef Franz von Allioli, published in 1830–1832, which was based on the Vulgate (see Salzmann and Schäfer 2009). |
6 | A clear example can be found in BEE 120,54r: There Wittgenstein quotes 1 Kor. 12:3b: “und niemand kann Jesum einen Herrn heißen außer durch den heiligen Geist” [no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit], which is exactly the text of the Luther Bible of 1912, whereas the Catholic translation by Allioli reads: “und niemand kann sagen: Herr Jesus, außer im Heiligen Geiste”. Incidentally, it should also be mentioned that the Vulgate says: “Et nemo potest dicere, Dominus Jesus, nisi in Spiritu sancto.” Here, Wittgenstein thus quotes the version that corresponds less to the Vulgate, which he values so highly. |
7 | I will use the expression ‘Old Testament’ although nowadays Christian Biblical scholars prefer the expression ‘Hebrew Bible’ or ‘First Testament’ out of respect for Jewish persons, to avoid the pejorative sound of ‘old’. I fully share this attitude of these Biblical scholars. The reason why I am sticking to the term ‘Old Testament’ is that Wittgenstein and his dialogue partners used it and otherwise I would have to keep changing it, which could lead to misunderstandings. |
8 | I have the impression that Wittgenstein’s statements on the Old Testament do not reveal any changes over the course of time. To be honest, however, it must also be said that even if one could identify minor deviations in the tendencies of his statements, there would not be enough material to draw conclusions about a chronological development of his attitudes. |
9 | I will not deal with Wittgenstein´s relationship to the New Testament here—although there would be a lot to say about it—as this is not the subject of my paper. |
10 | This information is based on the controversial book by William W. Bartley III (Bartley 1973); Monk considers this specific passage to be sufficiently plausible, however. |
11 | It must be said, however, that Wittgenstein himself is said to have been very astonished by this interpretation. |
12 | Here I quote Wittgenstein in the language in which he expressed himself in each case. The English translations in square brackets are mine. |
13 | All Bible quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. |
14 | Wittgenstein’s relationship to this passage may have been influenced by a reading of Kierkegaard’s Discourse on Job in the book Fire opbyggelige Taler/Four Upbuilding Discourses of 1843. |
15 | ‘Behemoth’ is often understood/translated as ‘Nilpferd’/‘hippopotamus’—a large animal living on land. |
16 | ‘Leviathan’ is often understood/translated as ‘Krokodil’/‘crocodile’—a large animal living in water. |
17 | Biesenbach notes (Biesenbach 2011, p. 37) that this phrase occurs several times in the Bible, then he chooses a few passages from Genesis as examples. However, the passage in the Psalms is better known, which can be recognised, among others, by the fact that Anselm refers to it in his Proslogion, preceding his ontological argument. |
18 | “Wann verstehe ich den Satz: ‘Unser Leben währet siebzig Jahre’? Immer? oder während ich ihn lese? Bei jedem Wort nur dies Wort, oder das Ganze auf einmal am Schluß?” (BEE 116,97) [When do I understand the sentence: ‘Our life lasts seventy years’? Always? or as I read it? Only this word with each word, or the whole at once at the end?’] From the context of the psalm it is clear that the sentence means that life is transient, that it has an end. One could see this as a play on words around the word ‘end’. |
19 | Shortly before this the phrase “that a philosopher should be a king” (Drury 1981b, p. 142) is used. Note that Kohelet is also a wise man and a king (or, as some exegetes hold, there is a Kohelet, the king, and a Kohelet, the wise). |
20 | For an explanation of how I understand this passage, see the last point of the bulleted list in Section 7. |
21 | This is perhaps Drury’s admission that someone who is not a biblical scholar, but a believer who has his knowledge mainly from church attendance, for example, has not learnt to read the Bible other than in fragments. |
22 | Whether there is a specific group of people behind these texts, whether, for example, Israel’s sages comprised a distinct professional class, is the subject of much debate (see, e.g., Crenshaw 1998, p. 35), but it is not relevant for my purposes here. |
23 | Schellenberg herself argues against this view; the reason why I quote this essay is because it gives a careful presentation of the arguments in favour of the view. |
24 | What is meant here is not primarily or not only knowledge of God (see Schellenberg-Lagler 2024), but knowledge of the (processes in the) world. |
25 | |
26 | As an aside, I would like to point out that all the Old Testament texts mentioned so far come from poetic parts of the Bible. The Book of Job is (also) a story, but Behemoth and Leviathan appear in the poetic part of it. I see, however, no reason to assume that Wittgenstein would have been particularly interested in poetry in the Old Testament, I do not even know of any evidence that he would have been aware of which parts are poetic, since the poetry of the Hebrew Bible is not so easily recognised as such. |
27 | Examples of other uses that Wittgenstein makes of the concept ‘wisdom’: wisdom as contentment with fate (see Hosseini 2007, p. 34), wisdom as something that is more than cleverness (see Hosseini 2007, p. 38), wisdom as self-knowledge (see Hosseini, p. 39), wisdom as something you wish for from a spiritual leader (Hosseini 2007, p. 44). |
28 | For a thorough analysis of the relationship of the concepts of passion, intellect, heart, mind, wisdom, speculation, abstract mind, and soul in Wittgenstein (see Mulhall 2011, pp. 312–24). |
29 | To be honest, I am not able to interpret this statement. As far as I know, nowhere else does Wittgenstein relate wisdom to vanity. One could read the statement as a kind of joke—that Wittgenstein does not find the word ‘vanity’ in these texts, but that he judges what he finds in the texts as vanity—; however, I do not think that this is a seriously defensible reading of Wittgenstein’s statement. |
30 | I repeat what I have already said above: Wittgenstein also makes different uses of the term ‘wisdom’; here I am relying on only one of these uses. |
31 | Note that, for my purposes here, it does not matter whether Wittgenstein is merely describing a critical view of wisdom or adopting it himself. |
32 | As already mentioned, I will not comment on all of Wittgenstein’s references to the wisdom literature. Some of them have nothing to do with the subject of wisdom—the paragraph in which the number of letters in the Song of Songs is mentioned (see (11)), for example, is about mathematical notations. Why Wittgenstein (in (10))—is puzzled that Ecclesiastes is included in the Bible is, I must confess, unclear to me, and I find no evidence for any answer. |
33 | The affinity that Schönbaumsfeld sees between Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard on this point could also explain Wittgenstein’s reference to Kierkegaard in the conversation with Drury. |
34 | In John Churchill’s words, Wittgenstein articulates an opposition between “the capacity of the certitude of faith to ‘make me change my life’” and the “impotence of information gathered by the intellect” (Churchill 1985, p. 418). |
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(1) | Genesis 2:19–20 | So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle and to the birds of the air and to every animal of the field […].13 | “Adam benennt die Tiere — — —” (BEE 183,159) [Adam names the animals — — —] |
(2) | Genesis 3 | Wittgenstein refers to “the story of the Fall in Genesis”, (Drury 1981b, p. 122) | |
(3) | Genesis 3:12 | The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” | Outside [Ely Cathedral] we looked at a carving over a Norman door, depicting the serpent tempting Eve. WITTGENSTEIN: “I can hear Adam saying ‘the woman Thou gavest me to be with gave me to eat’.” (Drury 1981b, p. 119) |
(4) | Job 1:21 | He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” | ”Der Herr hat’s gegeben, der Herr hat’s genommen.” (BEE 131,27)14 [The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.] |
(5) | Job 40:15 Job 41:1 | Look at Behemoth,15 which I made just as I made you; it eats grass like an ox. Can you draw out Leviathan16 with a fishhook or press down its tongue with a cord? | “(Sowie man auf ein Wesen, das das Nilpferd & das Krokodil geschaffen hat, die Moralbegriffe nicht anwenden kann. Hiob.)” (BEE 136,47b) [(Just as one cannot apply moral concepts to a being that created the hippopotamus & the crocodile. Job.)] |
(6) | Psalms 14:1 and Psalms 53:1 | Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”17 | “Er sprach in seinem Herzen zu sich.” (BEE 165,195) [He spoke to himself in his heart.] |
(7) | Psalms 90:10 | The days of our life are seventy years or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. | “Unser Leben währet siebzig Jahre” (BEE 116,97)18 [Our life lasts seventy years] |
(8) | Ecclesiastes/Kohelet 1:1 (and several other occurrences in Ecclesiastes) | Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. | “Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas.” (Drury 1981b, p. 142)19 |
(9) | Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 | For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted | “Auch im Denken gibt es eine Zeit des Pflügens & eine Zeit der Ernte.” (BEE 118,87r) [In thought, also, there is a time of ploughing & a time of reaping.] |
(10) | Ecclesiastes | “Isn’t it strange that such a book as ‘Ecclesiastes’ was included in the canon” (Drury 1981b, p. 158), | |
(11) | Song of Songs | “Er hat soviele Schillinge als das Hohe Lied Buchstaben hat.” (BEE 122,39r) [He has as many Shillings as the Song of Songs has letters.] |
(12) | [Drury:] 2 Kings 2:23–24 [Drury:] Luke 13:4 | DRURY: “There are some passages in the Old Testament that I find very offensive. For instance, the story where some children mock Elisha for his baldness: ‘Go up, thou bald head.’ And God sends bears out of the forest to eat them.” WITTGENSTEIN: (very sternly) “You mustn’t pick and choose just what you want in that way.” DRURY: “But I have never been able to do anything else.”21 WITTGENSTEIN: “Just remember what the Old Testament meant to a man like Kierkegaard. After all, children have been killed by bears.” DRURY: “Yes, but we ought to think that such a tragedy is a direct punishment from God for a particular act of wickedness. In the New Testament we are told precisely the opposite—the men on whom the Tower of Siloam fell were not more wicked than anyone else.” WITTGENSTEIN: “That has nothing to do with what I am talking about. You don’t understand, you are quite out of your depth.” (Drury 1981b, p. 183) |
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Heinrich, E. Wittgenstein and the Old Testament. Religions 2025, 16, 774. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060774
Heinrich E. Wittgenstein and the Old Testament. Religions. 2025; 16(6):774. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060774
Chicago/Turabian StyleHeinrich, Esther. 2025. "Wittgenstein and the Old Testament" Religions 16, no. 6: 774. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060774
APA StyleHeinrich, E. (2025). Wittgenstein and the Old Testament. Religions, 16(6), 774. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060774