Scriptures & Texts
Wisdom of Solomon
Deuterocanonical Books
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A Greek philosophical exhortation written in Alexandria, most likely in the first century BCE, and attributed to King Solomon in the convention of the wisdom tradition though certainly not written by him. It urges the pursuit of divine Wisdom, personified as a figure present at creation who pervades all things; it warns the ungodly, who are made to argue that life is short and might is right; and it rereads the Exodus as proof that the cosmos itself fights for the righteous. Its language of the immortality of the soul and its long polemic against idolatry draw on Hellenistic philosophy, and its portrait of the persecuted just man was read by early Christians as prophecy. Catholic and Orthodox churches receive it as deuterocanonical; Judaism and the Protestant churches do not, the latter printing it, when at all, among the Apocrypha.
Facts
Origins
Era of Composition Attributed Author / CompilerAn anonymous Alexandrian Jew writing in Greek, c. 1st c. BCE (critical) 1 Attributed Author / CompilerAscribed to King Solomon (traditional) 1 Status
Canonical StatusSourced to the subject's own accountDeuterocanonical 2Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy Canonical StatusSourced to the subject's own accountDeuterocanonical 3Tradition: Roman Catholicism Canonical StatusNon-canonical 1Tradition: Judaism Text
Literary Form Structure
Structure19 chapters; wisdom, the immortality of the soul, and a critique of idolatry 1 Learn More
A Greek Book of Wisdom from Alexandria
The Wisdom of Solomon (also called the Book of Wisdom) is a Jewish writing composed in Greek, most probably at Alexandria in Egypt, in the late first century BCE or early first century CE. Although it is cast in the voice of King Solomon, the archetype of wisdom, as an address to the rulers of the earth, scholars are virtually unanimous that this attribution is a literary device (pseudepigraphy) and that the real author was an anonymous Hellenistic Jew writing centuries after Solomon's time.
The book belongs to the tradition of Jewish wisdom literature, alongside Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes, but it is unmistakably a product of the encounter between that tradition and Greek philosophy: its vocabulary and thought draw on Platonic and Stoic ideas, which it presses into the service of Israel's faith. Written for a Greek-speaking Jewish community under pressure from a surrounding pagan culture, it aims both to strengthen Jews in their ancestral faith and to commend that faith, and its God, against idolatry and unbelief. It is one of the finest literary achievements of Hellenistic Judaism.
Wisdom, Immortality and Providence
The book falls into three broad movements. The first (chapters 1-5) contrasts the destinies of the righteous and the wicked and introduces a theme new to the biblical wisdom tradition: the immortality of the soul. Where earlier Hebrew wisdom had little to say of any meaningful life beyond death, Wisdom teaches that "the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God," that God created human beings for incorruption, and that death entered the world through the devil's envy, a decisive step in the development of Jewish and later Christian belief in the afterlife.
The central section (chapters 6-9) is a great hymn to Wisdom herself, personified as a radiant female figure, "a breath of the power of God" and "a spotless mirror of the working of God," who was present at creation and who enters holy souls to make them friends of God; Solomon is presented praying for her as the supreme gift. The final section (chapters 10-19) rereads the history of Israel, especially the Exodus, as the work of Wisdom guiding and delivering the righteous, and mounts a sustained polemic against idolatry, ridiculing the worship of images and of nature and tracing the origins of false religion.
Canon and Influence
The Wisdom of Solomon was included in the Septuagint, the Greek Bible of Hellenistic Judaism, but not in the Hebrew canon fixed by the rabbis. This divergence determined its later fate. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, following the Greek and Latin tradition, receive it as deuterocanonical, fully part of Scripture, whereas Judaism and, at the Reformation, the Protestant churches placed it among the Apocrypha, valued but not canonical.
The book was well known in early Christianity: its portrait of personified Wisdom contributed to Christian reflection on Christ as the Wisdom and Word of God, and its language about the righteous sufferer and about immortality left marks on the New Testament and on later theology. Its influence on the doctrine of the soul's immortality, and on the fusion of biblical faith with Greek philosophical categories, was considerable.
Modern scholarship values it both as a high point of Hellenistic Jewish literature and as an important witness to the ways Second Temple Judaism engaged the wider intellectual world, and it continues to be read liturgically in the Catholic and Orthodox churches and studied across the traditions as part of the biblical Apocrypha.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Held Differently
Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.
Anglicanism, Denominations Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church of England reads for example of life and instruction of manners, but does not apply to establish doctrine, a status short of full doctrinal canon.
Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.
Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.
Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.
Church of Sweden, Denominations Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.
Not canonized, but retained. Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since.
Lutheranism, Denominations Lutheranism does not canonize Wisdom of Solomon. Luther placed the deuterocanonical books in a separate section of his 1534 Bible as good and useful to read, but not equal to scripture.
Belongs to Tradition
Held as canonical scripture in the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.
Declared canonical scripture for the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent, Session IV, 1546.
Excluded from Canon
Anabaptism, Denominations This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Wisdom of Solomon, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
Baptist, Denominations This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Wisdom of Solomon, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Wisdom of Solomon, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Wisdom of Solomon, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Wisdom of Solomon, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
Protestantism, Denominations The Protestant confessional consensus holds a thirty-nine-book Old Testament and does not canonize Wisdom of Solomon, against the wider canon affirmed at Trent in 1546 and at Jerusalem in 1672. Lutheran and Anglican practice retains several of these books as edifying reading while denying them authority to establish doctrine.
This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Wisdom of Solomon, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
This tradition holds the standard thirty-nine-book Protestant Old Testament and does not canonize Wisdom of Solomon, following the confessional consensus among Protestant bodies against the wider Trent and Synod of Jerusalem deuterocanon.
Found In
Sources
1. An Introduction to the Apocrypha
Bruce M. Metzger, Oxford University Press, 1957The chapter on the Wisdom of Solomon and its Alexandrian, Hellenistic settingView the Source 2. The Confession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, 1672)
Synod of Jerusalem, Eastern Orthodox Church, 1672Vol. I, on Critopulus' Confession and the canonQuote, Vol. I, on Critopulus' Confession and the canon
mentions only twenty-two canonical books of the Old Test., and excludes from them the Apocrypha, mentioning Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach, Baruch, and the Maccabees.
3. Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent
Council of Trent, 1563Fourth Session (1546), the decree listing the Book of Wisdom among the received booksthe holders' own accountView the Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion
Church of England, 1571Page descriptionQuote, Page description
The Thirty Nine Articles of Religion outline the doctrinal foundation of the Church of England. They address key theological issues such as the nature of God, the role of the Holy Scriptures, and the sacraments.
The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority
The Holy Bible
Anonymous (multiple authors), Robert Barker, 1611Wisdom of SolomonView the Source The Belgic Confession
Guido de Bres, 1561Article 6Quote, Article 6
We distinguish between these holy books and the apocryphal ones, which are the third and fourth books of Esdras; the books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Jesus Sirach, Baruch; what was added to the Story of Esther; the Song of the Three Children in the Furnace; the Story of Susannah; the Story of Bel and the Dragon; the Prayer of Manasseh; and the two books of Maccabees.
The Westminster Confession of Faith
Prologus Galeatus and the Vulgate Prefaces
Jerome, 391On the books the church reads for edification but does not use to establish doctrine
Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source Essays About This Entity (2 essays)
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