This week the lectionary switches to the Old Testament book of Wisdom. The Book of Wisdom was written about fifty years before the coming of Christ. Its author, whose name is not known to us, was probably a member of the Jewish community at Alexandria, in Egypt. He wrote in Greek, in a style patterned on that of Hebrew verse. At times he speaks in the person of Solomon, placing his teachings on the lips of the wise king of Hebrew tradition in order to emphasize their value. His profound knowledge of the earlier Old Testament writings is reflected in almost every line of the book, and marks him as an outstanding representative of religious devotion and learning among the sages of postexilic Judaism. Because the book was not written in Hebrew nor in the Holy Land it is not included in the Hebrew Scriptures and, hence, the Protestant Bible. Catholics and Orthodox consider it of one of the seven books in the “second canon,” deuterocanonical.
