From: A. Brent Hudson (abhudson@wchat.on.ca)
Date: Wed Feb 07 1996 - 14:35:49 EST
Only Protestantism and (Palestinian) Judaism reject the canonicity of WS. Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Coptic groups accept this text (though their canons are still different from one another). It is always helpful clarifying to which "canon" one is referring.
It is difficult to know why Judaism rejected the text, but many believe the basic reason is related to its being a Greek work. Hebrew manuscripts have been found for some of the rejected texts, but it is unclear whether they reflect original texts or translations. Determining whether a text is a translation or an original composition is extremely difficult and is an area well known to New Testament scholarship (esp. Johannine area)
As to the reason why the Protestant church rejected WS, I cannot say. However, it would be helpful to know if the apocryphal books were rejected as a group or individually. I suspect the former, thus WS's rejection may have been a decision based more on 2Macc and Tobit than on anything in WS itself.
Brent Hudson
----------
From: Jim Beale[SMTP:jbeale@gdeb.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 1996 11:27 AM
To: b-greek@virginia.edu
Subject: Re: Wis of Solomon 7
On Wed, 31 Jan 1996 Edgar M. Krentz wrote:
> I am responding in this fashion because I really want you to love this
> deuterocanonical book. Its first section (1:1-6:11) is one of the great
> passages on the suffering righteous one in Israel, the one who looks to God
> for vindication. And it has much to teach careful readers of the NT Cf. 1
> Cor 8:6 on creation and the references to Sapientia in the margins
> alongside Rom 1:18-32.
>
> What a wonderful blessing to have such a book at hand to illuminate Jesus
> of Nazareth as God's wisdom for us.
I'm curious about the why the Wisdom of Solomon is not in the
canon. Augustin considered that the book should be canonical,
And since these things are so, the judgment of the book of
Wisdom ought not to be repudiated, since for so long a course
of years that book has deserved to be read in the Church of
Christ from the station of the readers of the Church of Christ,
and to be heard by all Christians, from bishops downwards,
even to the lowest lay believers, penitents, and catechumens,
with the veneration paid to divine authority.
(A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints, Chap. 27)
As I have great respect for the opition of Augustin, and do not
have any information available on the subject I wonder if someone
might give the reason why the Wisdom of Solomon is not in the
canon?
-- In Christ, Jim Beale ___________________________________________________________________God does not give heed to the ambitiousness of our prayers, because he is always ready to give to us his light, not a visible light but an intellectual and spiritual one: but we are not always ready to receive it when we turn aside and down to other things out of a desire for temporal things. (Augustine, On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, 2.3.14) _________________________________________________________________
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