Wisdom (of Solomon): Let Us Attend
We’re back with a new series on the Wisdom of Solomon, one of the church fathers’ best-loved, most-quoted books from the so-called Apocrypha
Pop quiz: Which book of the so-called Apocrypha did St. Augustine quote nearly 800 times? Wrong, it’s not 3 Maccabees. 2 Esdras? Nice try, but no. Bel and the Dragon? We won’t even dignify that with a response.
It’s the Wisdom of Solomon, naturally. And we’re excited to start a brand new series on the book! Here’s the first episode:
In this conversation we discuss all the big-picture stuff: the book’s genre, structure, date of composition, original audience, and similar points. We look at its key themes, particularly a number of contrasts:
Wisdom/Folly
Righteousness/Unrighteousness
Immortality/Death
Worship/Idolatry
We also survey some of the uses of the book, both during the New Testament period and later with the church fathers—along with discussing the book’s value today. Give it a listen and let us know what you think.
Plus, we’re excited to announce a new feature on “Bad” Books of the Bible. Fr. Alexis Kouri is recording his reading of the book and has graciously allowed us to share those recordings in our podcast feed. So if you’d like to listen along with the Wisdom of Solomon, we’ll be featuring those readings each week, two chapters of the book at a time. We’ll follow a day later with our commentary on the book.
You can also check this space each week. We’ll feature both Fr. Alexis’ reading and our episode here in the newsletter. Thanks for sticking with us as we work our way through the “bad” books of the Bible!
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