Not Apocrypha

The Canonicity of the 'Deuterocanon'

The question of the so-called “deuterocanonical” or “apocryphal” books of the Old Testament (OT) has been controversial among Christians and Jews for centuries. It has been examined from a multitude of angles, whether by the Church Fathers and ancient rabbis, medieval scholastics, Renaissance humanists and Protestant reformers or by modern biblical scholars, with each perspective viewing them more or less favorably. This essay will attempt to address the question by focusing on one of the books in question, namely the Wisdom of Solomon or Book of Wisdom (henceforth WisSol),[1] and on one specific point of investigation, that which would seem (for Christians) to be most important for determining canonicity: their connection to and use by the New Testament (NT).

To begin, it is necessary first to explain in what sense does use by the NT constitute a proof of canonicity. As Catholic apologist Gary Michuta notes, “The New Testament’s use of the deuterocanonical books provides probative grounds to believe that [its] inspired authors accepted these books as inspired, prophetic, and authentic members of sacred Scripture.”[2] The common argument that WisSol is not directly quoted in the NT is special pleading, since, “even if one combines all the quotations (both formal and informal), there remain a substantial number of Old Testament books that are never quoted at all (Ruth, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Esther, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel) and three of these (Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Esther) do not appear to receive so much as an allusion!”[3]

Moreover, the mere fact that a book is quoted in the NT does not necessarily mean it is inspired Scripture, since many undisputedly-noncanonical works are quoted in the NT: “For example, the New Testament quotes pagan authors such as Menander (1 Corinthians 15:33), Epimenides (Acts 17:28, Titus 1; 12-13), Euripides (Acts 26:14), [as well as] the Book of Enoch (Jude 13-15, 2 Peter 2:4, 3:13), the Assumption of Moses (Jude 6), and so on.”[4] Accordingly, NT proof for the canonicity of WisSol should be based instead on the particular way the NT uses it, especially “to confirm doctrine”,[5] and in fulfillment of prophecy.

Confirmation of Doctrine

One of the most noticeable influences of WisSol on the NT can be seen in the NT’s reliance upon terms which occur only in WisSol, not in any other book of the OT, even its most influential Greek translation the Septuagint (LXX). These include “the kingdom of God” (Gk βασιλείαν θεοῦ - Wis 10:10),[6] “conscience” (Wis 17:11; 1 Tim 1:19)[7] and “Providence” (Gk πρόνοια – Wis 14:3, 17:2), among others.[8]

The hypostatization of divine Wisdom within the Godhead is a development in WisSol which had already begun in the more ancient Wisdom Books of the OT, particularly Proverbs’ personification of Lady Wisdom (e.g. Prov 8). But the much more explicit hypostatization of Wisdom in WisSol points to the NT, where Jesus Christ is identified both as “the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24 DRA) by St. Paul, thus hypostatizing Wisdom in His Person within the life of the Trinity. St. Paul’s great exposition on divine Wisdom in 1 Corinthians 1-2 is replete with allusions to WisSol alone among the books of the OT:

In the course of an argument that begins at 1,18 and continues through 2,16, Paul describes Christ as ‘the power of God [θεού δύναμιν] and the wisdom of God [θεού σοφίαν].’ Significantly, the only instance in the OT and Apocrypha/deuterocanonical literature in which the words δύναμις and σοφία occur in that order and in such close proximity is in WisSol 1,3-4.[9]

For this reason, WisSol’s description of Wisdom as “the brightness of eternal light” (Wis 7:26) would be cited by Gregory of Elvira at the Council of Nicaea to defend the divinity of Christ and would even be incorporated into the Council’s Creed in its description of Christ as “Light from Light”.[10]

Following from this, WisSol is also used by the NT to confirm the doctrines of the hypostatic Word of God and the divine Personhood of the Holy Ghost. The Prologue of St. John’s Gospel applies many of the terms used by WisSol for divine Wisdom to the Logos or Word of God.[11] Additionally, WisSol’s description of the Word reveals His omniscience and thus further clarifies His hypostatization.[12] (Wis 7:23-34 and 18; Heb 4:12-13) In other ways, however, WisSol “virtually identifies her [Wisdom] with the spirit of God: that is, the Holy Spirit” (e.g. Wis 1:6; 7:22-23, 25).

But “most significant of all, by means of poetic parallelism, the figure of ‘Wisdom’ (Greek Sophia) is identified with the figure of the ‘Holy Spirit’ (Greek hagios pneuma)”[13] in Wisdom 9:17: “And who shall know thy thought, except thou give wisdom, and send thy Holy Spirit from above”, thus anticipating the revelation of the hypostatic Third Person of the Trinity in the NT. On a related note, Wisdom 2:23-24 “is the first time in Scripture that the serpent of Gen 3:1-15 is openly identified with the devil, or Satan, a teaching also found in the NT (Jn 8:44; Rom 16:20; Rev 12:9). Paul, who alludes to this verse in Rom 5:12, also traces the origin of spiritual death to the sin of Adam”, like WisSol (Wis 2:23-24).[14]

WisSol’s description of the righteous man, his persecution and fate and his “right to incorruptibility” due to his sinlessness, a right that the first man Adam, “as he came forth from the hand of God”, already possessed but “that he lost through sin”, points to St. Paul’s great hymn in Philippians 11:

This righteousness [of Christ], moreover, was of a different order from that of other men, because Christ never had any need of conversion. He is related to other men as Adam prior to the fall is related to those who became just after him. Seen against the background of Wisdom, therefore, the absolute purity of Christ gave him a right to the incorruptibility which, according to the divine intention, was to be the privilege of man. Here we have a precise parallel to the two elements of condition (sinlessness) and treatment (incorruptibility) which are implied in Phil., II, 6b. Incorruptibility, however, was a divine prerogative... In v. 7, however, the hymn goes beyond the framework provided by Wisdom. The author is using Wisdom as a point of reference to gain an insight into the mystery of Christ, and like any Old Testament category its utility is limited. Whereas the righteous man in Wisdom suffers because there is no alternative, the state in which Christ found himself was freely chosen. ‘He emptied himself’. Radically, it was an act of self-renunciation... Since death had no claim on Christ, the Just Man par excellence, his submission to it (against every natural instinct) could only be the effect of obedience to the will of his Father (Wis., 11, 12-13).[15]

More broadly, WisSol’s profound hymn to divine Wisdom in 7:21-30, which “is the nearest thing in the OT to a revelation of the interpersonal mystery of God, which is not fully disclosed until the NT proclamation of the Trinity (Mt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:14)”,[16] is applied by many passages in the NT to confirm the doctrine of hypostatic Wisdom:

Such things as are hidden I learned and such as are plain; for Wisdom, the artificer of all (John 1:3; Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:2), taught me. For in her [Wisdom] is a spirit (Galatians 4:6), intelligent, holy (John 6:69), unique [Greek “only-begotten”] (John 1:14, 18; 1 John 4:9), Manifold (Hebrews 1:1), subtle (Hebrews 4:12), agile, clear, unstained, certain, Not baneful, loving the good, keen, unhampered, beneficent, kindly, Firm, secure, tranquil, all-powerful (John 5:19-20, Revelation 1:8), all-seeing (John 1:48-50, 16:30-31), And pervading all spirits (Hebrews 4:12), though they be intelligent (Colossians 3:10), pure and very subtle. For Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion, and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity (Hebrews 4:12). For she [Wisdom] is an aura of the might of God (1 Corinthians 1:24) and a pure effusion of the glory of the Almighty (Hebrews 1:3); therefore nought that is sullied enters into her (Revelation 21:22-27, perhaps Hebrews 4:15 and James 4:8). For she is the refulgence of eternal light (Hebrews 1:3), the spotless mirror of the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), the image of his goodness (Mark 10:18, John 14:9, Colossians 1:15). And she [Wisdom], who is one, can do all things (Matthew 19:26, John 5:19-20), and renews everything while herself perduring (Hebrews 13:8, Revelation 21:5); And passing into holy souls from age to age, she produces friends of God and prophets (John 8:58, Hebrews 1:1-3, James 2:23). For there is nought God loves, be it not one who dwells with Wisdom (Romans 8:9-10, Hebrews 13:20-21, 1 John 1:7, 5:12). For she [Wisdom] is fairer than the sun and surpasses every constellation of the stars. Compared to light, she takes precedence (John 1:4, 1 Timothy 6:15-16, 1 John 1:5-7) for that, indeed, night supplants, but wickedness prevails not over Wisdom (John 1:5).[17]

A central theme for WisSol is the evil and foolishness of idolatry, whose “devising” and “invention” the sacred author calls “the beginning of fornication” and “the corruption of life.” (Wis 14:12) Amidst his midrash on the story of the Exodus from Egypt, he offers a long excursus on this subject.[18] Similarly, in St. Paul’s speech in the Areopagus of Athens, he “argues that it is illogical to think that human art (τέχνη) and imagination (ένθύμησις) can manipulate divinity in human form with gold, silver, and stone (because humanity already properly embodies the image of and, hence, metaphysical representation of God).”[19]

In this way, following the exhortation against idolatry in WisSol which was also framed for a Hellenistic audience, St. Paul “recontextualizes the Jewish icon parody to censure images cast in precious materials”,[20] employing many of the same terms from WisSol.[21] St. Paul also “borrows insights from this section of the book to formulate his own polemic against in idolatry” in Romans 1:20, 24-32. Additionally, this passage of Romans, particularly 1:20, echoes WisSol’s “remarkably positive assessment of human reason”, whose natural theology in Wisdom 13:1-9 implies that God can be known by reason from Creation, using the philosophical concept of analogy.[22]

WisSol’s thanatology and eschatology, the most developed in the OT, both point to that of the NT, especially on the particular and final judgment, the survival of human souls after death and the immortality of the just. This development is enabled by the sacred author’s harmonization of “Israel’s view of man as ‘flesh’ or ‘dust’ that is made alive by a divine infusion of ‘breath’ or ‘spirit’” with the soul/body hylomorphism of Greek philosophy, e.g. in Wisdom 1:4, which “anticipates the NT view of the human person (Mt 10:28; 1 Thess 5:23; 1 Pet 2:11)”.[23] WisSol makes it clear that

the reward of righteousness is eternal life (Wis 4:1-9). Indeed, as the sacred author goes on to insist – in a clearer and more direct way than anywhere else in the Old Testament – a day of judgment will come when the righteous will be vindicated in the presence of God and the wicked who taunted and persecuted the righteous man will realize and acknowledge their error (Wis 5:1-14).[24]

WisSol especially acknowledges the reward of martyrs, whom, like the NT, it describes in the sacrificial language of the Temple (Wis 3:5; cf. Eph 5:2; Phil 2:17; Heb 9:11-14; Apoc 6:9-11) and as receiving a “crown of beauty” from the “right hand” of the Lord. (Wis 5:16-17; cf. 2 Tim 4:8; Jas 1:12; Apoc 2:10).[25]

One application in WisSol of this clearer revelation of the afterlife is the corresponding development in ancient Jewish theology wherein Sheol becomes the place of the damned rather than simply the neutral underworld of all the dead, as it was envisioned earlier in Scripture, e.g. by Ecclesiastes (9:3, 10):

Sheol becomes the place for the ungodly, whereas righteous people no longer ‘stay’ there. So, Sheol is conceived as a place of punishment, [an] idea more or less similar to the one that [the] Catholic Church has of Hell. In this sense, righteous people do not go to Sheol but await the resurrection of Christ for participating in God’s divinity... In any case, it is highly probable that the writer’s main concept of Hades was as a place of punishment, that is, as a dwelling of ungodly dead. This idea would come from a developed Jewish traditional notion of Sheol due to Hellenistic influences.[26]

In this way, WisSol’s statement that “there is no poison of destruction in them, nor kingdom of hell [or Hades, ᾅδου] upon the earth” (1:14) does not contradict Christ’s description of the devil as “the prince of this world” in John 12:31 but instead “affirms... that evil-doers will have their punishment in Hades, which is not here! [WisSol’s] idea of Hades is focused more on the afterlife than on the earthly life. Living persons do not suffer the torment of Sheol on earth, except those who opt for an evil lifestyle.”[27] This also echoes Christ’s description of the afterlife in His parable of Lazarus and the rich man. (Lk 16:19-31)

Fulfillment of Prophecy

The most indisputable fulfillment of prophecy from WisSol by the NT is the verbatim enactment of the persecution of the righteous man from Wis 2 in the Passion lead-ups and narratives of the Gospels. Many Church Fathers, such as St. Hilary of Poitiers, saw this passage from WisSol as one “of the most powerful and striking prophecies of the Passion of Jesus in the inspired Scriptures of the Old Testament”, without any reservation about its canonicity.[28] It is worth quoting the full text from WisSol with intertextual references to demonstrate its profound prophetic content:

Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings (Matthew 23:1-4, 13-33), Reproaches us for transgressions of the law (Matthew 15:6, John 7:19, et al.) and charges us with violations of our training (Matthew 12:3, 5, 19:4, 23:31, Mark 12:26, John 7:19, etc.). He professes to have knowledge of God (Matthew 11:27, Luke 10:22, John 10:15, 12:50, et al.) and styles himself a child of the LORD (Mark 14:36, John 5:20). To us he is the censure of our thoughts (Matthew 9:4, Mark 2:8, Luke 5:22, 11:17, et al.); merely to see him is a hardship for us, Because his life is not like other men’s, and different are his ways (Matthew 7:28-29, 15:2, and 22:16; Mark 1:22; Luke 4:32). He judges us debased (Matthew 23:27-28, et al.); he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure (Matthew 23:3). He calls blest the destiny of the just (Matthew 5:10) and boasts that God is his Father (Matthew 11:27, John 5:17, 6:32, 40; 8:19, 49, 54, etc.) Let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him (Matthew 27:40-42, 49). For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him and deliver him from the hand of his foes (Matthew 27:43). With revilement and torture let us put him to the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience. Let us condemn him to a shameful death (Deuteronomy 21:22, Galatians 3:13, Hebrews 12:2); for according to his own words, ‘God will take care of him’ (Matthew 4:11, 26:53). These were their thoughts, but they erred; for their wickedness blinded them, (Matthew 15:14, 23:16-26) And they knew not the hidden counsels of God [μυστήρια θεοῦ] (John 8:55, 1 Corinthians 2:8, 1 John 2:4); neither did they count on a recompense of holiness nor discern the innocent souls’ reward (John 7:49). For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him (1 Corinthians 15:45) But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it (John 8:44). (Wisdom 2:12-24)[29]

The preceding words of the wicked, in Wisdom 2:1-11, add further context. They are explained by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1-2, lived out both in the Passion of Christ and in the persecution of martyrs and definitively disproven by the Resurrection:

Several of the deficiencies in the reasoning of the wicked overlap with some of the ideas Paul combats in 1 Cor. Twice the wicked assert that no one comes back from the dead (WisSol 2,1: ‘And no one is known to have returned from Hades’; 2,5: ‘And there is no return from our end, because it is sealed and no one comes back’). Their views on death lead the wicked to actions fundamentally at odds with Paul’s message. They seek to oppress the ‘righteous poor man’ (πένητα δίκαιον, WisSol 2,10), and they assert, ‘what is weak (το ασθενές) is demonstrated to be useless’ (WisSol 2,11; cf. 1 Cor 1,25-27, esp. the phrase τό ασθενές του θεού).[30]

The wicked, by their persecution of the Just Man, are thus shown to act out of ignorance of the “mysteries of God” (μυστήρια θεοῦ). St. Paul reinterprets this as the singular “mystery” (μυστήριον) of Christ, but his use of this term “strengthens the suggestion that Paul has WisSol 2,22 in mind, since he uses the same verb (εγνωσαν) used in that verse to describe their ignorance in crucifying the ‘Lord of glory.’”[31] Connected to this, the Fathers also applied Wisdom 14:7’s statement, “blessed is the wood, by which justice cometh”, “to the Cross, which the NT describes as the wood/tree (Gk., xylon, as in Acts 5:30) on which Jesus died to bring sinners the gift of righteousness (Rom 5:17).”[32]

Finally, WisSol’s description of the Word of God as the divine Judge of the Egyptians during the Exodus (Wis 18:14-16) points to His similar portrayal by St. John in his Apocalypse (19:11-16), which “shows a marked resemblance to the portrayal of Jesus as the sword-bearing Word who brings judgment”.[33] This passage in WisSol was also seen by the Fathers as a prophecy of the Incarnation, further cementing its aforementioned hypostatization of the Word of God.[34]

The Historical Reception of WisSol

According to a “virtual unanimity among scholars” following “the dominant position, from ancient times until today,” WisSol was most likely written in Greek by an anonymous Jewish author, not by Solomon but in his honor, in Alexandria, Egypt, “sometime in the late Second Temple period (between the third century B.C. and the first century A.D.).”[35] It is “extant in every copy of the Greek Septuagint that we possess”,[36] included in the canon without any added qualification. Since the LXX soon became the standard Bible read or heard by most Jews until at least the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., while knowledge of Hebrew was becoming more and more the privilege of the educated elite, WisSol would have been familiar to Jews in the Holy Land and throughout the diaspora. This is why it could so influence the sacred authors of the NT as has been demonstrated above. Nevertheless, from the second century A.D. forward, the canonicity of WisSol has been attacked on several fronts, most of all because of its Greek language and its late Second Temple composition.

Among the Church Fathers, the canonicity of WisSol, along with the rest of the LXX canon, was held with moral unanimity, with WisSol in particular “functioning almost as a kind of ‘bridge’ between the Old and New Testaments.”[37] One Father, however, famously disputed it. St. Jerome held a principle he called “Hebrew verity,” based on his belief that the Masoretic text (MT) “was a direct descendent of original inspired autograph”[38] and thus only the Hebrew canon was valid. Following this, he called WisSol a “false writing (pseudepigraphon)”[39] and wrote in his “Helmeted Prologue” to Kings,

This prologue to the Scriptures may be appropriate as a helmeted introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so we may be able to know whatever is outside of these is set aside among the apocrypha. Therefore, Wisdom, which is commonly ascribed to Solomon, and the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith and Tobias, and The Shepherd are not in the canon.[40]

This view would become widespread due to the official use of the Vulgate (with its prefaces) in the West. St. Jerome stated his principle this way: “The new testament I have restored to the authoritative form of the Greek original. For as the true text of the old testament can only be tested by a reference to the Hebrew, so the true text of the new requires for its decision an appeal to the Greek.”[41]

St. Jerome’s claim was difficult for contemporaries to dispute because at the time, “there was no hard evidence to demonstrate that Jerome’s ‘Hebrew verity’ was wrong, outside of his deviation from Christian practice. Only one Hebrew text was widely available at that time and the Greek translations certainly seemed to be, more or less, loose translations of the Hebrew MT.”[42] Despite St. Jerome’s mistaken protestations, a long list of Church Fathers, including Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Cyprian, Tertullian, Origen, Methodius, Athanasius, Hilary of Poitiers, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine (who quoted from it “some eight hundred times!”)[43] and many others, including even Jerome himself, explicitly called it inspired Scripture.[44]

Contrary to the views of St. Jerome and many later biblical scholars, the MT was not the only Hebrew version of the OT in use from the 1st century AD back, nor was it a direct descendant of the inspired originals. It was only one of several versions available, as revealed in modern times by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient document findings. “The scrolls revealed that there were several other Hebrew manuscript traditions in circulation in the first century and that the Hebrew MT, although a very good text, was not a direct descendant of the inspired original. It too appears to have undergone some development before reaching its final form at the end of the first Christian century.”[45]

Due to St. Jerome’s persistent influence through his Vulgate prefaces and his “Hebrew verity” principle, a minority of medieval scholars doubted the canonicity of WisSol (and the whole Deuterocanon), with “several medieval theologians and scholars, such as Hugh of St. Victor, Richard of St. Victor, Nicholas of Lyra, and even a popular collection of marginal glosses known as the [glossa] ordinaria echoing and repeating Jerome’s opinions on his ‘Hebrew verity’ based canon.”[46] St. Jerome’s position became even more influential during and after the Reformation: “Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican Protestantism have consistently appealed to Jerome to justify their rejection of the Deuterocanon.”[47]

Even after the Vulgate’s publication, the Magisterium still retained WisSol and the rest of the Deuterocanon in its biblical lists at the Synods of Rome (382 A.D.) and Carthage (397 A.D.) and infallibly defined it as canonical at the Council of Trent (1546 A.D.).[48] Today, both the Catholic and Orthodox churches continue to uphold the inspiration of WisSol and the rest of the Deuterocanon, in continuity with the Tradition of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church across the centuries and even with the most ancient Jewish canon in the historical record: the LXX.

---

[1] Following the example of Rodrigo Jose Morales, “The Spirit, the righteous sufferer, and the mysteries of God: echoes of Wisdom in 1 Corinthians?” Biblische Zeitschrift 54, no. 1 (2010).

[2] Gary Michuta, The Case for the Deuterocanon, 2^nd ed. (Livonia, MI: Nikaria, 2017), 17.

[3] Michuta, Case, 17-18.

[4] Michuta, Case, 18.

[5] Michuta, Case, 47.

[6] John Bergsma and Brant Pitre, The Old Testament, vol. 1 of A Catholic Introduction to the Bible (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2018), 673.

[7] Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testaments (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2024), 1062.

[8] See Bergsma and Pitre, The Old Testament, 679.

[9] Morales, “The Spirit, the righteous sufferer, and the mysteries of God: echoes of Wisdom in 1 Corinthians?”, 66.

[10] Bergsma and Pitre, The Old Testament, 682-683.

[11] Michuta, Case, 38.

[12] Michuta, Case, 41-44.

[13] Bergsma and Pitre, The Old Testament, 680.

[14] Hahn and Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testaments, 1042.

[15] Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Christological anthropology in Phil 2:6-11,” Revue biblique 83, no. 1 (1976), 40-42.

[16] Hahn and Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testaments, 1048.

[17] Michuta, Case, 59-60.

[18] Hahn and Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testaments, 1052, 1056.

[19] Drew Strait, “The Wisdom of Solomon, Ruler Cults, and Paul’s Polemic against Idols in the Areopagus Speech,” Journal of Biblical Literature 136, no. 3 (2017), 630.

[20] Strait, “The Wisdom of Solomon, Ruler Cults, and Paul’s Polemic against Idols in the Areopagus Speech,” 631.

[21] See chart at Strait, “The Wisdom of Solomon, Ruler Cults, and Paul’s Polemic against Idols in the Areopagus Speech,” 620.

[22] Hahn and Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testaments, 1056.

[23] Hahn and Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testaments, 1039.

[24] Bergsma and Pitre, The Old Testament, 672.

[25] Hahn and Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testaments, 1043, 1045.

[26] Manuel Hernández Sigüenza, “Is there a Ruler Over the Earth?: a Relationship Between Wis 1:14 and Jn 12:31,” Annales Theologici 35, no. 1 (2021), 185.

[27] Sigüenza, “Is there a Ruler Over the Earth?: a Relationship Between Wis 1:14 and Jn 12:31,” 191.

[28] Bergsma and Pitre, The Old Testament, 681.

[29] Michuta, Case, 53-54.

[30] Morales, “The Spirit, the righteous sufferer, and the mysteries of God: echoes of Wisdom in 1 Corinthians?”, 69.

[31] Morales, “The Spirit, the righteous sufferer, and the mysteries of God: echoes of Wisdom in 1 Corinthians?”, 69-71.

[32] Hahn and Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testaments, 1057.

[33] Hahn and Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testaments, 1037.

[34] Hahn and Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testaments, 1064.

[35] Bergsma and Pitre, The Old Testament, 677-678.

[36] Bergsma and Pitre, The Old Testament, 668.

[37] Bergsma and Pitre, The Old Testament, 680.

[38] Michuta, Case, 206.

[39] Bergsma and Pitre, The Old Testament, 668.

[40] Jerome, “‘Helmeted’ Prologue to Kings,” trans. Kevin P. Edgecomb, at The Tertullian Project (2006), at www.tertullian.org.

[41] Jerome, Letter 71 to Lucinius, 5, trans. W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, vol. 6, Jerome: Letters and Select Works (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature, 1893), at New Advent, www.newadvent.org.

[42] Michuta, Case, 210.

[43] Bergsma and Pitre, The Old Testament, 668.

[44] Michuta, Case, 115-134.

[45] Michuta, Case, 210.

[46] Michuta, Case, 208.

[47] Michuta, Case, 210.

[48] Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, ed. Peter Hünermann (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012), §179, 186, 1502.