Did Solomon Pre-Exist (Wisdom of Solomon 8:20)?
According to Protestant scholars, the Wisdom of Solomon teaches the heresy that you pre-existed as an immortal soul before you were born. This is the exact teaching of Mormons and was historically held by Plato and Origen. Thus, the argument goes, the Apocrypha is teaching a strange doctrine that is in conflict with their 66-book canon of scripture. The writer adopts the Platonic theory of the pre-existence of souls (8:20; compare 15:8,11,16), which involves the belief in a kind of predestination, for the previous doings of the soul determine the kind of body into which it enters. Solomon's soul, being good, entered an undefiled body (8:20). (Davies) However, as is always the case, the critics of the Apocrypha have overlooked the truth in their attempts to remove books they don't like from the King James Bible. Let us first read the scripture in dispute in Wisdom of Solomon: 19 For I was a witty child, and had a good spirit. 20 Yea rather, being good, I came into a body undef...
