The Book of Wisdom is not in Protestant Bibles, but it is in Catholic Bibles. History is the explanation for these different forms of the Bible. The Book of Wisdom was in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible that Paul and the other Greek-speaking Christians of the early church read as their scripture. So, when the New Testament was authorized by the church in the fourth century in Greek, the books of the Septuagint were included in the Christian Bible, as the Old Testament. During the Protestant Reformation, however, the reformers translated the books of the Old Testament into their own languages from the Hebrew version of the Jewish scriptures, which at the same time the early church was forming was codified in a form omitting some of the books in the Septuagint.
The sentiment of this passage from the Book of Wisdom is in no way contrary to teachings in the Protestant Bible. In fact, this text might have been taken from the New Testament. It also reminds us that the first Christians were reading as their scripture the writings of the Old Testament, as it is found today in the Catholic Bible. The church began without the gospels, and only a few churches knew of the letters of Paul. The first Christians were reading the "Old Testament" (including the Book of Wisdom) as the word of God.
Grace and peace . . . Bob
