Testament-of-Solomon
Short answer: The Testament of Solomon is an ancient non-canonical writing, not Scripture. It is not in the Hebrew Bible, the Protestant canon, the Catholic canon, or the Orthodox canon, and it was never received as authoritative by the church. Its interest lies in the questions it raises, not in any authority it carries. Deuteronomy 18:9-14 is the passage that actually governs the topic, and it addresses it directly. There Moses tells Israel that when they enter the land they must not learn to imitate the abominations of those nations, and he lists the practices involved: divination, sorcery, interpreting omens, consulting the dead. The command is not merely to avoid those practices but to refuse to learn them in the first place. The Testament of Solomon is worth understanding as background literature, but it must never sit in judgment over Scripture.
What the Testament of Solomon actually is
The Testament of Solomon is a Greek-language writing attributed to King Solomon but not written by him. It is usually dated somewhere between the second and fifth centuries after Christ, though scholars disagree about the precise window and about how much of the text is earlier or later. In it Solomon is given a ring by the archangel Michael and uses it to command demons, interrogating them one by one and forcing them to disclose their names, their activities, and the angel or practice that defeats them. The work reads as a demonological catalogue wrapped in a narrative frame.
That genre matters. It belongs to the wider world of ancient Jewish and Christian writing sometimes called Old Testament pseudepigrapha, a large body of texts that borrowed famous names such as Enoch, Abraham, Moses, and Solomon. These writings were not hidden away as a secret code for later generations; they were simply not received as Scripture. Some of them were read widely and influenced how people talked about angels, demons, and the unseen world, but influence is not the same as canonical authority.
Nothing in the New Testament cites the Testament of Solomon, and no early canon list includes it. Its value today is historical and illustrative. It shows what curious believers in the ancient world found fascinating, and it shows how quickly speculation about demons can grow beyond what God has revealed. It should be read, if at all, with that limitation firmly in view.
Why Deuteronomy 18:9-14 is the passage that governs this topic
When Israel was about to enter Canaan, Moses gave a clear directive about the spiritual environment they were walking into. Deuteronomy 18:9 says, "When you have come into the land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of those nations." The verb is important. It is not only a prohibition on doing certain things; it is a prohibition on learning them, on absorbing the methods and mindset of the surrounding culture. Curiosity itself is being disciplined.
The verses that follow spell out what those abominations include: one who practices divination, a fortune teller, an enchanter, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, a medium, a spiritist, or one who consults the dead. The list overlaps almost entirely with the activities that fill the Testament of Solomon. That is not a coincidence; it shows that the ancient fascination with named spirits and techniques for managing them was exactly what God warned his people against. The command was not framed around whether a technique worked. It was framed around loyalty to Yahweh.
The reason is given in verse 14: these nations listened to fortune tellers and diviners, but Yahweh did not permit his people to do so. The contrast is not between effective and ineffective magic. It is between a people who depend on their God and a people who depend on techniques. Deuteronomy 18:9-14 therefore gives the church a settled principle long before any particular book about Solomon's ring was ever written.
The Testament of Solomon and the temptation of curiosity
The central spiritual danger of writings like the Testament of Solomon is not that they contain a few errors. It is that they offer knowledge God has not given, in a form that feels like mastery. A reader learns the name of a spirit, the angel who opposes it, and the practice that drives it away. That structure appeals to the same instinct Deuteronomy 18:9-14 addresses: the desire to manage the unseen world rather than to trust the God who rules it.
Paul described this pattern in Colossians 2:8, where he wrote, "Be careful that you don't let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ." The danger Paul named is being robbed. Something is taken from the believer who trades the sufficiency of Christ for a system of hidden knowledge. The Testament of Solomon is not the only source of such systems, but it is one historical example of the kind of thing Paul warned about.
Curiosity is not always sin. Studying the ancient world is legitimate and can sharpen our reading of Scripture. But curiosity becomes a snare when it starts to shape our practice, when a non-canonical book begins to inform how we pray, how we think about demons, or how we interpret events. At that point the book has moved from a study object to a functional authority, and that is precisely what Deuteronomy 18:9-14 forbids.
What King Solomon himself was warned about
There is a deep irony in a book named after Solomon. Solomon was the wisest man of his generation, and yet 1 Kings records that his many foreign wives turned his heart away and he built high places for their gods. The man whose name was later attached to a demon-managing manual was himself eventually undone by accommodation to the surrounding nations, the very thing Deuteronomy 18:9-14 warned against.
This pattern appears again in 2 Kings 17:15-17, which describes the northern kingdom's collapse: "They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them." The verse continues by saying they followed the nations around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them. This is Deuteronomy 18 being worked out in history. The warning was given, ignored, and fulfilled.
So the Testament of Solomon is not just an odd piece of ancient literature. It is a reminder that even a wise king can drift. The book borrows a name that once stood for wisdom and attaches it to the very curiosity that wisdom should have restrained. The lesson is not that Solomon was uniquely wicked but that no one, however gifted, is exempt from the command to refuse the practices of the nations.
The Testament of Solomon and the sons of Sceva
Acts 19 gives the closest New Testament parallel to the world the Testament of Solomon describes. Some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to command a demon by the name of Jesus, saying, "We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches," as Acts 19:13 records. They were treating a spiritual power like a technique, a formula to be borrowed. The result was humiliating: the evil spirit answered that he knew Jesus and knew Paul, but asked who they were, and the possessed man overpowered them.
What follows is telling. The account says that fear fell on everyone, the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified, and many who had practiced magic brought their books and burned them publicly. The value of the burned books is given in the text. The point is not merely that magic failed; it is that the encounter with the real power of Christ exposed the whole technique-driven approach as worthless. The Ephesian believers did not keep the books for study. They got rid of them.
That is the posture Deuteronomy 18:9-14 aims at. The problem was never that the magicians used the wrong names. The problem was the entire assumption that the spiritual world is a set of levers to be pulled by those who possess the right information. The Testament of Solomon, read as a manual, reinforces that assumption. Read as a historical curiosity within the light of Scripture, it does the opposite, showing how far the ancient imagination could wander.
How to weigh spiritual claims today
1 John 4:1-3 gives the church a working test: "Beloved, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." The test John supplies is christological. The Spirit of God confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Anything that claims spiritual insight while diminishing or distorting the incarnate Christ fails the test, no matter how ancient or intriguing its pedigree.
This is why the church has historically distinguished between the canonical Scriptures and everything else. The sixty-six books are the rule by which all other claims are measured. The Testament of Solomon is not rejected because it is old, or because it is strange, or because demons are not real. It is rejected as a source of authority because it was never given by God and it does not meet the test. Its material, if used at all, must be sifted through Scripture and then largely set aside.
In practice, that means a believer can read about the Testament of Solomon the way one reads about any ancient document, with interest and caution, without treating it as a guide to spiritual warfare. Prayer, Scripture, the church's teaching, and the sufficiency of Christ are the real resources. The moment a believer starts looking for the right name, the right formula, or the right hidden book, Deuteronomy 18:9-14 is speaking directly into that moment.
Why this matters more than an obscure ancient book
It is tempting to treat the Testament of Solomon as a fringe curiosity and move on. But the impulse behind it is not fringe at all. Every generation finds its own version of the same thing, a system that promises control over the unseen world. Sometimes it looks religious; sometimes it looks like a technique for success or protection. The packaging changes; the underlying desire does not. Deuteronomy 18:9-14 addresses that desire, not just the specific Canaanite practices of the ancient Near East.
The command to refuse to learn the abominations of the nations is a call to a different kind of dependence. Israel was to trust Yahweh, who spoke through Moses and the prophets, rather than consult the dead or read omens. The church is to trust Christ, who is God's final word, rather than accumulate techniques. That contrast runs from Deuteronomy through the prophets, through the Ephesian bonfire in Acts 19, and into the letters of John and Paul.
So the honest answer to the question of the Testament of Solomon is not that it is dangerous in some hidden way. It is that it is unnecessary and unauthorized. It is not Scripture. It solves no problem Scripture has not already addressed and it introduces habits of thought Scripture warns against. The better use of time is to read Deuteronomy 18:9-14 slowly, let its categories shape how we think about spiritual power, and then take up the ordinary means God has given: his word, prayer, and the fellowship of his people.
Biblical fidelity check
Deuteronomy 18:9-14 establishes a settled prohibition: Israel must not learn or imitate the practices of the surrounding nations, and those practices are named specifically. The passage does not establish that every demonic name or every report of the unseen world is accurate, nor does it provide a method for commanding spirits. It forbids the method. It does not tell us that the Testament of Solomon is genuine, inspired, or reliable. It also does not require us to be ignorant of the ancient world; it requires us to refuse its practices. The command is about loyalty and dependence, not about the mechanics of magic.
A common misreading is to treat the Testament of Solomon as a suppressed book that the church removed because it was too revealing, so that reading it gives access to hidden knowledge. That misreading is wrong for two reasons. First, the book was never in the canon to be removed; it was never received as Scripture by any major tradition. Second, the assumption that hidden knowledge gives power is exactly what Deuteronomy 18:9-14 rejects. The passage does not offer a better technique; it calls God's people away from technique altogether. Where faithful Christians differ is on how much value such ancient writings have for historical study; they do not differ on whether those writings carry authority. Scripture alone does.
Other passages that speak to Deuteronomy 18:9-14
The themes of this passage echo across the New Testament and the Old. For the foundational claim about how God has spoken, see What Does 1 John 1:1 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application. For the honest self-assessment that keeps us from self-deception in these matters, see What Does 1 John 1:8 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application. For the promise of forgiveness and cleansing when we turn from sin, see 1 John 1:9 Meaning: Confession, Forgiveness, and Cleansing. And for the warning against loving the world's system, see What Does 1 John 2:15 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Testament of Solomon in the Bible?
No. The Testament of Solomon is not part of the Hebrew Bible, the Protestant canon, the Catholic canon, or the Orthodox canon. It is a pseudepigraphal writing, meaning it was attributed to Solomon but not written by him, and it was composed centuries after his lifetime. No early canon list includes it and no New Testament author cites it. It can be studied as ancient literature, but it carries no scriptural authority and should not be treated as a source for doctrine or practice.
Why does Deuteronomy 18:9-14 forbid learning the practices of the nations?
The command is about loyalty to Yahweh. The nations around Israel relied on divination, sorcery, mediums, and consulting the dead instead of relying on God. Moses tells Israel not to learn those practices, and the reason given is that Yahweh did not permit his people to do what the surrounding nations did. The issue is not whether a technique produces results but who is trusted. Learning the practices would have drawn Israel away from dependence on the God who had brought them out of Egypt.
Should Christians read the Testament of Solomon?
Christians may read about it for historical understanding, but reading it as a spiritual manual would be unwise. Acts 19 shows believers in Ephesus burning their magic books rather than keeping them for reference, and 1 John 4:1 tells believers to test the spirits because many false prophets have gone out. A Christian can study ancient texts with discernment, but the practices those texts describe are exactly what Deuteronomy 18:9-14 tells God's people to refuse to learn.
