Dr. Keith Lloyd Kent State University Stark [email protected] Mythos consists of the stories, Of all the cultural mythos that words, and surround us, the gendered ones images we seem the most prevalent, powerful, use to fit the facts of and “natural.” the world to experience. The Christian faith emerged within a gendered mythos and its theology We often aren’t and philosophy adapted to and aware of shaped them. our own mythos … Then, and now, believers struggle with how gender and theology can I grew up in a home with pretty strict gender boundaries… work positively together. Dad worked long hours and was the enforcer. Mom taught piano, cooked, and All of this is embodied the figures of cleaned. Sophia and Shekinah. My older sister lorded over me and worried about boys and hair. And me, I didn’t seem to fit… Philo “drew on the figure of Wisdom from Judaism’s own intermediary theology… In some biblical and extra-biblical writings, Wisdom, a personified aspect of God, was an agent of creation and salvation, pre-existent with God in heaven. Philo occasionally makes her mother to the Logos. But such language seems to be symbolic only. Certainly, Philo envisioned no incarnation of this “Son” to earth.” Earl Doherty The Jesus Puzzle Supplementary Article No. 5 TRACING THE CHRISTIAN LINEAGE IN ALEXANDRIA The divine Logos is son of God and Wisdom God for father, who is as well Father of all things, and for mother Wisdom, through whom all things came into genesis; De Prof., § 20; M. i. 562, P. 466 (Ri. iii. 133). Earl Doherty The Jesus Puzzle Supplementary Article No. 5 TRACING THE CHRISTIAN LINEAGE IN ALEXANDRIA Proverbs 8:1-36 “By the gate, Wisdom calls aloud: ‘Men, it is to In the Hebrew Bible, you I call . I am wisdom was Wisdom, I bestow personified as shrewdness, and show the “coming to earth, way to knowledge and although there was prudence. never any thought of The Lord created me the her being physically beginning of his works . when he set the heavens incarnated.” in their place I was there . I was at the Lord’s side Proverbs 3:19: By wisdom each day . Happy is the the LORD laid the earth's man who keeps to my foundations, by ways.” understanding he set the Supplementary Article No. 5 heavens in place; EarlEarl Doherty Doherty The The Jesus Jesus Puzzle Puzzle Supplementary Article No. 5 TRACINGTRACING THE THE CHRISTIAN CHRISTIAN LINEAGE LINEAGEININ ALEXANDRIA ALEXANDRIA The Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible used by the early Christians, included Baruch, which in 3:37 “gives us a line which, even though originally intended as a reference to the Torah (the “Law” contained in the five biblical books of Moses which mainstream rabbinic thought identified with Wisdom), may have had a profound influence on the future:” “Thereupon wisdom appeared on earth and lived among men.” Earl Doherty The Jesus Puzzle Supplementary Article No. 5 TRACING THE CHRISTIAN LINEAGE IN ALEXANDRIA “The Epistle to the Hebrews, in a profusion of Platonic imagery (1:2-3), declares the Son to be "the heir to the whole universe, and through whom he [God] created all orders of existence: the Son who is the effulgence of God’s splendor and the stamp of God’s very being, and sustains the universe by his word of power" (NEB). This quotation “is very close to a passage from the most important non-Philonic document to survive from Hellenistic Judaism, one which was almost certainly written in Alexandria during Philo’s lifetime, though it is not by him. This is the Wisdom of Solomon, included in the Apocrypha section of most Old Testaments. The unknown writer of this work came at the end of a long line of Jewish thinking about the figure of divine Wisdom.” Earl Doherty The Jesus Puzzle Supplementary Article No. 5 TRACING THE CHRISTIAN LINEAGE IN ALEXANDRIA Judaism had its own intermediary figure going back centuries, certainly as old as Plato. For the Jews, God never became quite so inaccessible, but among the scribes of the period following the Exile, God was presented as making himself known and working in the world through a part of himself they called “Wisdom.” This was no “Son” of God, however, for the figure of Wisdom was a female. (The grammatical gender of [hokma] “wisdom” in Hebrew is feminine.) Earl Doherty The Jesus Puzzle Supplementary Article No. 5 TRACING THE CHRISTIAN LINEAGE IN ALEXANDRIA Wisdom (Hebrew hokma, a feminine noun) is personified in Proverbs not only as a woman but as a preexistent entity with Yahweh. "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way," says Lady Wisdom, "before his works of old,... and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him“ (Prov. 8:22,30). It was through Wisdom that Yahweh "founded the earth" (Proverbs 3:19), she is "a tree of life" to those who lay hold of her (3:18), and she offers to reward all who seek her: "I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me" (8:17). by Ronald L. Eckerfrom the book ’And Adam Knew Eve’ from Hodge&Braddoc Website In the Apocrypha, Lady Wisdom is identified with the Torah or biblical law (Sirach 24:23; Baruch 4:1). In the New Testament, the preexistent Word (Greek Logos) at the beginning of the Gospel of John is reminiscent of Wisdom. In I Cor. 1:24 Paul calls Christ "the wisdom of God" (Greek Theou Sophia). • There is archeological evidence that at least some It is possible that one of her pre-Exilic ancient Hebrews antecedents was as female consort to perceived of Yahweh, under the influence of Yahweh as surrounding Semitic religions. having a consort Wisdom took on a status and personality or female of her own. Some scholars claim that she companion. • This could be the was never anything more than a poetic origin of the personification of certain activities of God, mysterious Lady but the language used of her speaks more Wisdom found in than this. Proverbs and the Helmer Ringgren, whose seminal book Apocrypha. (She is Word and Wisdom (1947) is widely cited in in some of the this field, says (p.104) that Wisdom was Gnostic texts as not an abstraction but “a concrete being, well.) self-existent beside God.” Earl Doherty The Jesus Puzzle Supplementary Article No. 5 TRACING THE CHRISTIAN LINEAGE IN ALEXANDRIA Graffiti “from the eighth century B.C.E., found on walls and storage jars at two sites, The goddess Asherah was the consort of El ("god"), the supreme god of Canaan and father Khirbet el-Kom of the popular Baal. and Kuntillet Ajrud, in Israel. In the Bible her name often appears as ha (See Dever’s Recent asherah, meaning "the" asherah. In such Archaeological instances the reference is not to the goddess but Discoveries and Biblical to a symbol of her, an object (in the plural Research). asherim) that was apparently a sacred pole, tree, The graffiti or group of trees (hence the translation includes blessings "groves") at Israelite sanctuaries or "high places" such as, as well as by altars of Baal. "I bless you by Yahweh of The erecting of asherim was among the "evil" deeds of kings like Ahab and Manasseh, and Samaria and by his asherah," and cutting the things down was a regular chore of … en.wikipedia.org100 × 276Search by image "right" kings like Hezekiah and Josiah. "I bless you by Asherah Yahweh of Teiman The presence of Asherah or her symbol at places where Yahweh, the biblical God of the Hebrews, and by his was worshipped raises the question of whether asherah." the Canaanite goddess was considered also to be the consort of Yahweh. by Ronald L. Eckerfrom the book ’And Adam Knew Eve’ from Hodge&Braddoc Website An apocryphal book written in Alexandria about the middle of the first century B.C. But by the time we get to the Wisdom of Solomon we can see a clear and exotic blending of Wisdom with the Logos. Wisdom of Solomon 7:22-30: “. she rises from the power Wisdom is now the divine power active in the world, the of God, a pure effluence of the spirit that pervades and glory of the Almighty . She governs all things. is the brightness that streams from everlasting light, the She is the Logos, but flawless mirror of the active without the name. She is power of God and the image God’s “throne-partner,” a step of his goodness . She spans away from Christ sitting at the the world in power from end right hand of God. to end, and orders all things She, too, is pre-existent, an benignly.” agent of creation. Earl Doherty The Jesus Puzzle Supplementary Article No. 5 TRACING THE CHRISTIAN LINEAGE IN ALEXANDRIA 8: 2 Her I loved and sought after from my youth; I sought to take her for my bride and was enamored of her beauty. 8:17 b That immortality lies in 8: 16 Entering my kinship with Wisdom, house, I shall take my 18 great delight in love of her, repose beside her; and unfailing riches in the For association with her works of her hands; involves no bitterness And that in associating with her and living with her no there is prudence,and fair grief, renown in sharing her but rather joy and discourses,I went about seeking gladness… to take her for my own. Personified Wisdom also represents part of a widespread tendency in Near Eastern religions to strip off certain aspects of a deity and turn them into separate divine figures.