books of wisdom

The Book of Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom, Book of the Wisdom of Solomon), is one of the books of the Bible. It is considered scripture, classified as deuterocanonical (meaning "second canon", "secondary canon", or "of secondary authority") by the Roman Catholic Church and similarly, anagignoskomenon (Gr. ἀναγιγνωσκόμενον, meaning "that which is to be read") by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Protestant churches generally consider it to be non-canonical (apocryphal), and thus not Biblical "scripture". It is one of the seven Sapiential or wisdom books included within the Septuagint, along with Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (Song of Solomon), Job, and Sirach.

Eusebius wrote in his Church History that Bishop Melito of Sardis in the 2nd century AD considered Wisdom of Solomon as part of the Old Testament (without necessarily using the term "canonical"), and that it was considered canonical by Jews and Christians.[1] On the other hand the contrary claim has been made: "In the catalogue of Melito, presented by Eusebius, after Proverbs, the word Wisdom occurs, which nearly all commentators have been of opinion is only another name for the same book, and not the name of the book now called 'The Wisdom of Solomon'."[2] An Aramaic translation of the Wisdom of Solomon is mentioned by Naḥmanides in the preface to his commentary on the Pentateuch.

The Book of Wisdom should not be confused with the Wisdom of Sirach, a work from the 2nd century BC, originally written in Hebrew.