Colossians 1,17 'Hold Together': A Co-Opted Term

The Greek terms rendered 'hold together' in Col 1,17 (sunistemi), Wis 1,7 (suneko), and Sir 43,26 (sugkeimai) do not derive from Septuagint renderings of the Hebrew Bible; instead they are terms that Second Temple Jewish and Greek Christian apologists co-opted from Hellenistic philosophy to commend 'biblical' concepts to the Graeco-Roman world. From these texts we can infer the semantic relationships of these verbs. The 'liturgical composition' in Col 1,15-20 displays a combination of biblical wisdom and co-opted philosophy.