Background and History

The chapters above are the King James Apocrypha. This essay is the setting of Wisdom of Solomon: who is said to have written it, when and where the book places the story, what happens in it, which copies have been found, and why the Protestant canon does not include it.

Canon and Authorship

The Catholic Encyclopedia says the book is absent from the Palestinian canon because it was composed in Alexandria. Jerome’s prologue, under Church Lists, sets the Wisdom of Solomon outside the canon. Westminster Confession 1.3 refuses the books commonly called Apocrypha.

The same encyclopedia says the oldest headings ascribe the book to Solomon, that the passages in which the speaker is King Solomon are a literary fiction, and that the author’s name is unknown. It rejects Philo, Zorobabel, Aristobulus, and Apollo. Jerome already judged that the original language was Greek, not Hebrew.

At a Glance

Author	Unknown. The Catholic Encyclopedia says Solomon is a literary fiction, and that the book was written in Greek by an Alexandrian Jew.
Date	The Catholic Encyclopedia says the persecution in view is either under Ptolemy IV Philopator (221–204 B.C.) or Ptolemy VII Physcon (145–117 B.C.), and that the book may have been published after those princes died.
Place	Alexandria, in the Catholic Encyclopedia’s reading of the Greek, the Egyptian idolatry, and the Alexandrian canon.
Genre	A wisdom book in two parts: chapters 1–9 on wisdom, and chapters 10–19 on Israel’s history.
Chapters	19
Verses	436 in this King James Apocrypha
Key verse	Wisdom of Solomon 7:17 Apocrypha Not part of the 66-book Protestant canon. Catholic and Orthodox churches accept these books as deuterocanonical. For he hath given me certain knowledge of the things that are, namely, to know how the world was made, and the operation of the elements:Wisdom of Solomon 7:17 · King James Version (Apocrypha)Open source

Setting

The speaker asks for wisdom and describes what it teaches. Wisdom of Solomon 7:17

For he hath given me certain knowledge of the things that are, namely, to know how the world was made, and the operation of the elements:Wisdom of Solomon 7:17 · King James Version (Apocrypha)Open source says God has given certain knowledge of the things that are, including how the world was made and the operation of the elements. Can Christians Believe in Evolution? is the page that notes the Catechism’s quotation of this chapter.

The Text

The Catholic Encyclopedia says the oldest headings ascribe the book to Solomon, and that the Vulgate title is simply the Book of Wisdom. Jerome already judged that the original language was Greek, not Hebrew. The encyclopedia says the passages in which the speaker is King Solomon are a literary fiction, and that the author’s name is unknown. It rejects Philo, Zorobabel, Aristobulus, and Apollo as the writer.

Manuscripts

The encyclopedia says the Greek is preserved in five uncials, naming Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Ephremiticus, and Venetus, and in ten cursives. The Vulgate is the Old Latin, somewhat revised by Jerome. The Dead Sea Scrolls contents page opened for this collection does not name the Wisdom of Solomon among the three Apocrypha works it lists.

Structure and Themes

The encyclopedia divides the book into chapters 1–9, on wisdom and the fate of the righteous and the wicked, and chapters 10–19, on wisdom in the history from Adam through the exodus. Wisdom of Solomon 1:13

For God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living.Wisdom of Solomon 1:13 · King James Version (Apocrypha)Open source says God made not death, and has no pleasure in the destruction of the living. The encyclopedia says the book knows one God, treats wisdom as both a gift to the righteous and a figure with God, and is absent from the Palestinian canon because it was composed in Alexandria.

Rulers at the Time

The encyclopedia says the unrighteous rulers in the book are either Ptolemy IV Philopator (221–204 B.C.) or Ptolemy VII Physcon (145–117 B.C.), the princes under whom Egyptian Jews were persecuted, and that it is difficult to decide which. It quotes Lesêtre’s suggestion that the book was published after those princes died. No other reign list was added.

Issues With This Book

The book’s own voice is Solomon’s, and the encyclopedia says that voice is not the author’s. It is not in the Hebrew Bible. Church Lists quotes Jerome, who names the Wisdom of Solomon among books that are not in the canon, and the later Catholic and Orthodox sentences that receive it. Wisdom of Solomon 7

^7:1 I myself also am a mortal man, like to all, and the offspring of him that was first made of the earth, ^7:2 And in my mother’s womb was fashioned to be flesh in the time of ten months, being compacted in blood, of the seed of man, and the pleasure that came with sleep. ^7:3 And when I was born, I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth, which is of like nature, and the first voice which I uttered was crying, as all others do.Wisdom of Solomon 7 · King James Version (Apocrypha)Open source is a chapter, not a single verse: the Catechism’s note on the world’s making points at 7:17–22, and this King James chapter begins the relevant line at 7:17 For he hath given me certain knowledge of the things that are, namely, to know how the world was made, and the operation of the elements:Wisdom of Solomon 7:17 · King James Version (Apocrypha)Open source.

On This Site

These articles quote the church lists and the passages that those lists argue from. They link back to this collection.

Church Lists

The Council of Trent, session 4 (1546), receives Tobias, Judith, Esther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch with Jeremiah, Daniel, and two books of Maccabees, and it anathematizes a knowing refusal. That decree’s first and second books of Esdras are Ezra and Nehemiah, not the books titled 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras in this King James Apocrypha. The decree does not name the Prayer of Manasseh as its own book. The English of the decree is quoted on How Was the Bible Canon Decided, and What Is the Apocrypha?

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 120 says the Church discerned the canon by apostolic Tradition and counts 46 Old Testament books, including Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.

The Confession of Dositheus, from the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672, answers “What Books do you call Sacred Scripture?” by naming, among the books Cyril Lucaris had called Apocrypha, “The Wisdom of Solomon,” “Judith,” “Tobit,” “The History of the Dragon,” “The History of Susanna,” “The Maccabees,” and “The Wisdom of Sirach,” and it says “we judge these also to be with the other genuine Books of Divine Scripture genuine parts of Scripture.” That sentence, on the English hosted by CRI/Voice, does not name 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, or the Prayer of Manasseh. The host says the English is adapted from J. N. W. B. Robertson’s 1899 translation. The brackets around “Bel and the Dragon” on that page are the editor’s.

Anglican Article VI says the other books, “as Hierome saith,” the Church “doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.” The article’s other books include the Third and Fourth of Esdras, Tobias, Judith, the rest of Esther, Wisdom, Jesus the Son of Sirach, Baruch, the Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the Prayer of Manasses, and the First and Second of Maccabees. Its canonical First and Second of Esdras are Ezra and Nehemiah. The sentence is on the Articles of Religion and on What Do Anglicans Believe?

The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.

That is Westminster Confession 1.3, as printed by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. What Do Protestants Believe? quotes the same paragraph.

The Lutherhaus Wittenberg records a complete German Bible of 1534, printed by Hans Lufft in Wittenberg, titled Biblia, das ist, die gantze Heilige Schrifft Deudsch. A Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek record of a 1536 Lufft Apocrypha title page reads “Apocrypha. Das sind Bücher: so nicht der heiligen Schrifft gleich gehalten: und doch nützlich und gut zu lesen sind.” Bruce Metzger, writing in Christianity Today in 1957, says the 1534 edition gathered the books between the Old and New Testaments under that heading and did not include 1 and 2 Esdras. The 1534 leaf itself was not opened for this page.

The New Testament and These Books

These pages do not cite a sentence in the New Testament that names Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, or Maccabees as Scripture. Jude 14 says Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, and the next verse continues that prophecy. First Enoch is not one of the fourteen books in this King James Apocrypha.

1 Maccabees 9:27 says there was great affliction in Israel, “the like whereof was not since the time that a prophet was not seen among them.” 2 Maccabees 15:38 is the writer’s own limit: if the story is done well, that is what he desired, and if slenderly and meanly, that is what he could attain.

2 Maccabees 12:44 says that if Judas had not hoped the slain would rise, it would have been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead. Verse 45 says he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin. This King James text has no verse 12:46. The Catechism’s footnote 607 names 2 Maccabees 12:46 for that reconciliation. Is Purgatory Biblical? quotes the churches on that dispute and does not decide it.

Tobit 12:9 says alms deliver from death and shall purge away all sin. Sirach 3:30 says water quenches a flaming fire and alms make an atonement for sins. Those sentences are what the pages that discuss almsgiving and atonement are quoting. This site does not have a separate article whose only subject is alms.

Jewish Lists

Josephus, Against Apion 1.8 (William Whiston’s translation), says the Jews have “only twenty two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine,” five of them Moses, thirteen the prophets after Moses through Artaxerxes, and four hymns and precepts. History written since Artaxerxes “hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of Prophets since that time.”

Jerome’s prologue to Kings, the Prologus Galeatus, in Kevin P. Edgecomb’s public-domain translation, counts twenty-two books and says “whatever is outside of these is set aside among the apocrypha.” He names Wisdom, “the book of Jesus son of Sirach,” Judith, and Tobias as not in the canon, and he says the first book of Maccabees is Hebrew and the second is Greek. The translation is at tertullian.org.

Athanasius, Festal Letter 39 (367), counts twenty-two Old Testament books and includes “Jeremiah with Baruch, Lamentations, and the epistle” as one book. He then names Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, and Tobit as “not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read.” The English is the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers text on New Advent.

Melito of Sardis, quoted by Eusebius in Church History 4.26.14, lists the Old Testament books he learned in the East. The list includes “Wisdom also” and does not name Tobit, Judith, Sirach, or the books of Maccabees.

The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), “Bible Canon,” says the Jewish canon is twenty-four books: the five of the Law, eight of the Prophets, and eleven Writings. It summarizes the baraita in Bava Batra 14b as Law; Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Minor Prophets); and Writings (Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Chronicles). That summary does not include Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch as its own book, or Maccabees. The English of the Talmud on Sefaria is copyrighted, so this page does not reprint it.

3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, and Psalm 151 are not in this King James text.

Wisdom of Solomon