Wisdom, also known as the Wisdom of Solomon, is one of the deuterocanonical books of the Bible that are not translations of Hebrew originals. Although it is written as if by Solomon, its language and ideas alike are entirely of Greek origin. For this reason it is considered the most classical Greek in the Septuagint. It is usually dated to the 1st or 2nd century BC.

It is considered to be a possible source for the gospel of Matthew. Parallels between Wisdom and Matthew include the theme of testing and mocking of a servant of God’s claim to be protected by God. For Matthew, the suffering servant of God is Jesus. The best example may be that Matthew 27:43 (which is connected to Jesus, and which is uniquely Matthian material with no parallels in other gospels) is very similar in language and theme to Wisdom 2:13, which in turn seems to be alluding to the suffering servant of Psalm 22:8.

Matthew 27:43 "He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'"

Wisdom 2:13 "He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord..." 17 "Let us see if his words be true..." 18 "For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him."

Psalm 22:8 "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him."

Note that Matthew's phrase "the Son of God" appears in Wisdom but not in the Psalm.

External links

• The Book of Wisdom Full text from http://St-Takla.org (also avaiable in Arabic)