Wisdom Books and the Bible

While reviewing the Lectionary readings for November, I came across a reading from the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon. A quick check of the various bibles in my house showed that I own no copy of this Book. I wondered what the Book of Wisdom is, and why is it not in my Bible? So, I “Googled” the Book and was sent quickly to the Wikipedia.

“Book of Wisdom, or Wisdom of Solomon or simply Wisdom is one of the deuterocanonical books of the Bible. It is one of the seven Sapiential or wisdom books of the Septuagint, which includes Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon (Song of Songs), and Ecclesiasticus (Sirach).” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Wisdom

“Wait!” I thought. What is meant by “Deuterocanonical?” It means “of the second Canon.” It “is a term used since the sixteenth century in the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Christianity to describe certain books and passages of the Christian Old Testament that are not part of the Jewish Bible...The Deuterocanonical books are considered canonical by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox, but are considered non-canonical by Protestants.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterocanonical

And what is “Septuagint?” The Septuagint, or simply ‘LXX,’ “... was the common Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC in Alexandria. It is the oldest of several ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek [and] is quoted by the Christian New Testament ... In the 3rd century BC, most Jewish communities were located in the Hellenistic world ... It is believed that the LXX was produced because many Jews ... needed a Greek version of the scripture for use during synagogue readings.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint

LXX was the basis of the Old Testaments of the earliest Christian Bibles. But, some things change.

“Some scriptures of ancient origin are found in the Septuagint but are not present in the Hebrew Bible ... The New Testament makes a number of allusions to and may quote the additional books. The books are Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus Sirach, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremy (which later became chapter 6 of Baruch in the Vulgate), additions to Daniel (The Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, Sosanna and Bel and the Dragon), additions to Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Odes, including the Prayer of Manasses, and Psalm 151.”

Christian churches differ about what’s in their bibles. Moreover, some Christian churches have changed what they considered “canonical.” Some left their canons unchanged. Roman Catholics include some of these books in their bible. Eastern Orthodox Churches still use all the books of the Septuagint. In fact, “[t]he Ethiopian Orthodox church's narrower Old Testament canon includes the books of the Hebrew Bible, all of the Apocrypha, and "Jubilees, 1 Enoch, and Joseph ben Gurion's (Josippon's) medieval history of the Jews and other nations." http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/bible/canon2.stm The full King James version of the Christian Bible often includes these additional books as "Apocrypha." Protestant Bibles follow the Hebrew Bible and exclude the additional books.

Anglican lectionaries use all of the books of the Septuagint except Psalm 151. While the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts Psalm 151 as canonical, Roman Catholics, Protestants, and most Jews consider it apocryphal. However, it is found in an appendix in some Catholic Bibles, as well as in some ecumenical translations, such as the New Revised Standard Version. (Psalms 151-155 are called the Five Apocryphal Psalms of David.)

Alas, the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon seems not to be part of the Hebrew Bible and so not part of any of my Protestant Bibles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_the_Bible But that’s OK – the Lectionary suggests an alternative reading from Isaiah for Protestant Christians, while our Catholic and Orthodox brethren are reading from Wisdom. Besides, we all can now read Wisdom on line.