Book of Wisdom

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Old Testament

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The Book of Wisdom (also called Wisdom of Solomon or just Wisdom) is one of the books of the Old Testament. It is one of the seven wisdom books of the Bible. It is part of the Catholic and Orthodox Biblical canon, put forward by the Council of Carthage in 397 and confirmed by Catholic leaders at the Council of Trent in 1546. It was written by a Jew in Ancient Egypt in the 1st century BC and talks about wisdom among other themes.

Who wrote the book and when[change | change source]

The book was initially written in the Greek language, but has the style of Hebrew poetry.[1] Tradition says that King Solomon wrote the book, but scholars reject this tradition. The Catholic Encyclopedia says: "It is freely admitted that Solomon is not the writer of the Book of Wisdom, which has been ascribed to him because its author, through a literary fiction, speaks as if he were the Son of David.".[2]

The book has the most classical Greek language of all the books in the Septuagint. It also had much of the Hebrew style that had existed when the book was written. The writer also must have been deeply involved in the philosophical, religious, and ethical writings in Hellenistic Alexandria.

References[change | change source]

  1. "NAB - Wisdom - Introduction". USCCB. 2002-12-09. Archived from the original on 2010-06-23. Retrieved 2010-07-10.
  2. "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Book of Wisdom". Newadvent.org. 1912-10-01. Retrieved 2010-07-10.

Other websites[change | change source]

Preceded by
Song of Solomon
Roman Catholic Old Testament Followed by
Sirach
Eastern Orthodox Old Testament
see Deuterocanon