It sits in the Bibles of more than a billion Christians. It seems to describe the mocking of Jesus long before it happened. Its words are read at funerals all over the world.
And yet it isn’t Scripture.
The Wisdom of Solomon is one of the most beautiful Jewish books ever written. It’s full of wise words. But it’s not among the writings that God Himself breathed out. This post lists 6 clear reasons why.
First, a quick warning. Some websites say “The Wisdom of Solomon” is just another name for the book of Proverbs. It isn’t. Proverbs is in every Bible. The Wisdom of Solomon is a separate book, written many centuries later.
KEY WORDS TO KNOW
- Scripture: the books God breathed out (2 Timothy 3:16). They carry God’s full authority.
- Inspired: breathed out by God. Every word of an inspired book is God’s Word.
- Canon: the list of books that belong in the Bible. The word comes from a Greek word for a measuring rod.
- Apocrypha: a group of Jewish books written in the years between the Old and New Testaments. The word means “hidden things”.
- Deuterocanonical: “second canon”. This is the Roman Catholic name for the same group of books.
Here’s the book in a nutshell:
| QUESTION | THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON |
|---|---|
| Other name | The Book of Wisdom |
| When was it written? | Some time between about 100 BC and AD 40 |
| Where? | Alexandria, a Greek city in Egypt |
| Original language | Greek |
| Length | 19 chapters |
| Main themes | Wisdom, life after death, the foolishness of idols, and God’s care for Israel in the Exodus |
| Which Bibles include it? | Roman Catholic and Orthodox Bibles. Protestant Bibles leave it out, or print it in a separate section called the Apocrypha. |
Reason 1: It Claims a Writer It Cannot Have
The book never prints Solomon’s name. But it speaks in his voice. The writer says God made him king and told him to build the temple:
“You have chosen me to be king of your people… You have given command to build a temple on your holy mountain.”
Wisdom of Solomon 9:7–8
Only one man fits that description: Solomon. But Solomon died around 931 BC. The Wisdom of Solomon was written in Greek, in Egypt, more than 800 years later. The writer even borrows ideas from Greek thinkers such as Plato. Jewish scholar David Winston dates the book to the reign of Roman emperor Caligula (AD 37–41).
The early church noticed this too. Jerome (about AD 347–420), the scholar who translated the Bible into Latin, pointed out the book was never found in Hebrew. Its style, he said, sounded Greek. Some ancient writers even thought it came from Philo, a Jewish thinker in Alexandria.
Writing under a famous person’s name is called pseudonymity (from Greek words meaning “false name”). It was common in the ancient world. But God’s Word doesn’t borrow a false name. Paul tells us God “never lies” (Titus 1:2, ESV). A book that’s wrong about its own writer cannot be breathed out by the God of truth.
“BUT ISN’T ECCLESIASTES THE SAME?”
Some people say a later writer also used Solomon’s voice in Ecclesiastes. But look at the differences:
- Name: Ecclesiastes never names Solomon. It speaks of “the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem” (Ecclesiastes 1:1, ESV).
- Language: Ecclesiastes was written in Hebrew, the language of Israel. The Wisdom of Solomon was written in Greek, centuries after Solomon.
- Israel’s judgement: the Jews always counted Ecclesiastes as Scripture. They never counted the Wisdom of Solomon.
Reason 2: Israel Never Had It in Its Bible
Paul says “the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2, ESV). “Oracles” means the very words God spoke. God gave the Old Testament to Israel to keep. So the best way to find the Old Testament canon is to ask a simple question: which books did Israel receive?
Jewish historian Josephus (AD 37–100) gives a clear answer:
“We have not an innumerable multitude of books among us… but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine.”
Josephus, Against Apion 1.8
Those 22 books are the same as our 39. The Jews simply counted them differently. For example, they counted the twelve Minor Prophets as one book. The Wisdom of Solomon is not on the list.
Jesus used the same Bible. He spoke of “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44, ESV). These are the three parts of the Hebrew Bible. He also spoke of the martyrs “from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah” (Luke 11:51, ESV). Abel dies in Genesis. Zechariah dies in 2 Chronicles 24, the last book in the Hebrew order. It is like saying “from A to Z”. Jesus drew a line around Israel’s Bible, and the Wisdom of Solomon sits outside it.
Princeton scholar William Henry Green made this point over a century ago. Jesus often argued with the Jewish leaders. He accused them of adding human traditions to God’s Word. Yet he never once accused them of leaving books out of their Bible.
“BUT THE SEPTUAGINT INCLUDED IT!”
The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It was made in Egypt from about 250 BC. Many early Christians used it. Some say its list of books should be our canon. But there are 3 problems:
- No fixed list: we have no Septuagint copy from the time of Jesus that gives a list of books.
- The old copies disagree: our oldest full copies come from the 300s and 400s AD. Codex Vaticanus has no Maccabees at all. Codex Alexandrinus adds 3 and 4 Maccabees, which Rome does not accept.
- Egyptian Jews did not quote it: Philo lived in Alexandria itself. He quoted the Old Testament again and again, but never quoted these books as Scripture.
Scholar Roger Beckwith studied all the evidence. He showed Jews in Israel and in Egypt shared the same list of holy books.
Reason 3: It Comes From a Time When God Sent No Prophets
The Old Testament came to us through prophets. God “spoke to our fathers by the prophets” (Hebrews 1:1, ESV). They “spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21, ESV).
But the Jews believed that the line of prophets ended with Malachi, around 430 BC. Josephus says the books written after that time were never given the same honour, because there was no longer “an exact succession of prophets”. Surprisingly, the Apocrypha itself agrees:
“Thus there was great distress in Israel, such as had not been since the time that prophets ceased to appear among them.”
1 Maccabees 9:27
The Wisdom of Solomon was written during these “silent years”. Its writer never says “Thus says the LORD”. He writes as a thoughtful teacher, not as a prophet.
The Genevan theologian Francis Turretin (1623–1687) listed the same reasons in his famous Institutes. These books were not written by prophets. They were not written in Hebrew. They were never given to the Jews as Scripture. And Christ never quoted them as Scripture.
Reason 4: The New Testament Uses It but Never Calls It Scripture
The New Testament writers probably knew the Wisdom of Solomon. Some of their words sound like it. But hearing an echo isn’t the same as calling a book God’s Word. The table below shows the main echoes.
| NEW TESTAMENT PASSAGE | SIMILAR WORDS IN THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON | DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT CALL IT SCRIPTURE? |
|---|---|---|
| Romans 1:18–32: people turn from God to idols | Chapters 13–14: idols are foolish and lead to every kind of sin | No. Paul never names or quotes it. |
| Hebrews 1:3: Jesus is “the radiance of the glory of God” | 7:26: wisdom is “a reflection of eternal light” (the same rare Greek word, apaugasma) | No. The writer uses a word; he does not quote a text. |
| Ephesians 6:13–17: the armour of God | 5:17–20: God puts on armour | No. Both go back to Isaiah 59:17, which is Scripture. |
The New Testament quotes the Old Testament hundreds of times. It often uses words like “it is written” or “Scripture says”. It never does this for the Wisdom of Solomon.
Remember, too, the apostles quoted many human writers. Paul quoted Greek poets (Acts 17:28; Titus 1:12). Jude quoted the Book of Enoch (Jude 14–15). Using a book is not the same as calling it God’s Word.
A SURPRISE: PAUL MAY BE ARGUING AGAINST IT
In chapter 15, the Wisdom of Solomon says to God: “For even if we sin we are yours” (Wisdom 15:2). The writer feels safe because he belongs to Israel.
Now read Romans 2:4 (ESV): “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”
Jonathan Linebaugh has studied these two books side by side. He shows that both talk about God’s kindness, but in very different ways. In the Wisdom of Solomon, God is kind to those who are worthy. In Romans, God “justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4:5, ESV). Paul may be correcting this book, not quoting it.
Reason 5: It Teaches Things the Bible Doesn’t
God never contradicts himself. So if a book disagrees with Scripture, it cannot be Scripture. Many of the Wisdom of Solomon’s ideas come from Platonism, the teaching of the Greek thinker Plato. Plato taught that the soul is good and the body is like a prison. Compare what the two books say:
| TOPIC | THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON SAYS | THE BIBLE SAYS (ESV) |
|---|---|---|
| Your soul before birth | “Being good, I entered an undefiled body” (8:20). The soul lived before the body. | “You knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). God makes us as whole people. |
| Your body | “A perishable body weighs down the soul” (9:15). | We long not to be “unclothed”, but “further clothed” (2 Corinthians 5:4). |
| Creation | God made the world “out of formless matter” (11:17). | What is seen “was not made out of things that are visible” (Hebrews 11:3). |
| The Flood | “The earth was flooded because of him”, meaning Cain (10:4). | The Flood came because the whole human heart was “only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). |
| The manna | It was “suited to every taste” (16:20). | It tasted “like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31). |
| Life after death | The soul lives on with God (3:1). It says little or nothing about the body rising. | The body will be raised in glory (1 Corinthians 15:42–44). |
To be fair, some Roman Catholic scholars say Wisdom 11:17 means God first made the “formless matter”. Even if they’re right, the other problems remain.
Reason 6: The Church’s Careful Scholars Left It Out
Some early Christians quoted the Wisdom of Solomon warmly, and Augustine counted it as Scripture. But when church leaders sat down to check which books truly belonged, again and again they left it out.
Timeline: How the Church Treated the Wisdom of Solomon
- About AD 170, Melito of Sardis: travelled to the land of Israel to learn the exact list of Old Testament books. His list does not include the Wisdom of Solomon. When he writes “Proverbs, which is also Wisdom”, he means Proverbs.
- Late 100s, the Muratorian Fragment: this early list says the book was written “by the friends of Solomon in his honour”. So even this list admits Solomon did not write it.
- AD 367, Athanasius: this bishop of Alexandria said the book was “not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us”.
- AD 393 and 397, Hippo and Carthage: two local councils in North Africa, guided by Augustine, accepted it. They spoke for their region, not for the whole church.
- About AD 400, Jerome: “Let it read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church.”
- 1532, Cardinal Cajetan: a leading Roman Catholic scholar still followed Jerome on the eve of Trent.
- 8 April 1546, Council of Trent: Rome declared the book Scripture and cursed anyone who disagreed. This was the first binding decision for the whole Roman Catholic Church.
So the Protestants didn’t invent a new canon. They went back to the old one.
WHAT THE PROTESTANT CONFESSIONS SAY
A confession is a written statement of what a church believes. Two of the best known speak clearly:
“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.”
Westminster Confession of Faith 1.3 (1646)
“All which the Church may read and take instruction from, so far as they agree with the canonical books; but they are far from having such power and efficacy, as that we may from their testimony confirm any point of faith.”
Belgic Confession, Article 6 (1561)
That’s the title of this post in a sentence: wise words, but not Scripture.
John Calvin didn’t forbid people to read these books. His complaint was about Trent. He said the council gave them “a place which they never before occupied”, so they could be used to support its own errors.
Someone may ask, “Who are you to decide? Only the church can tell us which books belong.” But the church doesn’t create the canon. It receives it. Israel recognised its Scriptures without a council, and Jesus still blamed people for not knowing them: “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29, ESV). Michael Kruger calls the canon self-authenticating. God’s books carry the marks of their divine Author, and God’s people learn to recognise them. As Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice” (John 10:27, ESV).
So Why Read It at All?
None of this means the Wisdom of Solomon is worthless. Read it the way you’d read a good Christian book:
- A window into history: it shows how faithful Jews thought in the years just before Jesus.
- Help with Romans: its chapters on idols shed light on Romans 1.
- A longing fulfilled: its writer longed for wisdom. The New Testament shows that wisdom is a person: Christ is “the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24, ESV).
- Training in discernment: reading it carefully helps us to “test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21, ESV).
The simple rule is this: learn from it, but never build a doctrine on it.
Conclusion: Do Not Add to His Words
“Every word of God proves true… Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar” (Proverbs 30:5–6, ESV). The Wisdom of Solomon gives us wise words, but they are human words. For God’s own wisdom, we must go to the books he breathed out—and above all to the one they point to. As Jesus said, “something greater than Solomon is here” (Matthew 12:42, ESV).
Tough Questions, Honest Answers
Is the Wisdom of Solomon the same as Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)?
No. They are two different books, though both are called “wisdom” books. Sirach was written in Hebrew around 180 BC by a Jerusalem teacher named Jesus ben Sira. His grandson later translated it into Greek. In his preface the grandson asks readers to forgive any mistakes in his translation—a very human note. He also speaks of “the Law and the Prophets and the others that followed them”, which shows that a three-part Hebrew Bible already existed. Like the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach is useful to read but is not Scripture.
Was the Wisdom of Solomon in the 1611 King James Bible?
Yes, but in a separate section. The 1611 King James Bible printed the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments. The 1599 Geneva Bible did the same, with a preface explaining that these books were for history and good conduct, not for proving doctrine. The Church of England’s Articles said the same thing. Being printed inside a Bible’s covers is not the same as being part of the canon. Many Bibles today print maps and study notes too, and nobody thinks those are Scripture. From 1826 the British and Foreign Bible Society stopped printing the Apocrypha in its Bibles.
Does Wisdom 2:12–20 predict Jesus’ crucifixion?
It can look that way. The passage describes wicked men who plot against “the righteous man” because he calls himself God’s child. They say, “if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him” (2:18), and plan to “condemn him to a shameful death” (2:20). But the writer is drawing on Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, which really are prophecies of Christ. When the mockers at the cross speak in Matthew 27:43, Matthew echoes Psalm 22:8, not Wisdom. In Wisdom, the “righteous man” stands for any faithful Jew who is mocked. So the passage echoes true prophecy; it does not add a new one.
Did Martin Luther remove the Wisdom of Solomon from the Bible?
No. Luther translated the Apocrypha and printed it in his complete German Bible of 1534. He placed it in its own section with this heading: “Apocrypha: these are books which are not held equal to the Holy Scriptures, and yet are profitable and good to read.” He was following Jerome, not inventing something new. Rome had not yet made a binding decision on these books; that came at Trent in 1546, twelve years later. The books slowly disappeared from most Protestant Bibles only in the nineteenth century.
Why is Wisdom 3:1–9 read at funerals, and should Christians use it?
It is a beautiful and comforting passage. It begins: “But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them” (3:1). Christians can enjoy it as fine writing. But at a funeral, people need promises they can fully trust, and only God’s Word gives those. The Bible itself says the same things with God’s authority: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” (Revelation 14:13, ESV), and to depart is to “be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians 1:23, ESV). Best of all, Jesus promises, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25, ESV).
Is the Wisdom of Solomon in the Ethiopian Bible?
Yes. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has the largest Bible of any church, often counted as 81 books. It includes the Wisdom of Solomon, and also books such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees. This is a very old and fascinating tradition. But a longer list does not make a book inspired. The same tests apply: was it given to Israel, did it come from a prophet, and does it agree with the rest of Scripture? The Wisdom of Solomon fails those tests in Ethiopia just as it does everywhere else.
Which other books make up the Apocrypha?
In older Protestant Bibles such as the 1611 King James, the Apocrypha includes 1 and 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, additions to Esther, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch with the Letter of Jeremiah, three additions to Daniel (the Song of the Three Young Men, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon), the Prayer of Manasseh, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. The Roman Catholic Church accepts seven of these as Scripture, plus the additions to Esther and Daniel. Orthodox churches accept a few more, such as 3 Maccabees and Psalm 151. The fact that churches still disagree about the list shows how different these books are from the Old Testament that Israel received and Jesus used.
Related Reads
- Book of Sirach: Should It Be in Our Bibles?
- Book of Jubilees: Why It Isn’t Scripture
- Why Isn’t the Book of Tobit in the Bible? 5 Clear Reasons
- The Truth About Apocryphal Books: Why They’re Not in the Bible
- How Did Jews Know the Old Testament Canon Before Rome Did?
- The Masoretic and Septuagint: How Ancient Texts Shaped the Bible
- The Westminster Confession: Why This Document Still Matters
- Wisdom Personified: The Compelling View of Jesus in Proverbs 8
