Proverbs 8:1-3 -- is Wisdom personified as a female?

by sd-7 16 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  sd-7

  I was reading Proverbs chapter 8 last night, and I just happened to be using the NASB, and I noticed that wisdom is personified as a female in verses 1-3, calling out to people to listen. I noticed that in the NWT, wisdom is not personified in these verses, but rather referred to as "it".

  Eerie coincidence was that this morning on the subway train, a woman was reading Proverbs 8 in her KJV as I was standing over her. Again, wisdom is referred to as "her". I got to work and check my NIV Bible, and again, wisdom is referred to as "her".

  Is there some reason why these other translations call wisdom "her" and yet the NWT refers to wisdom as "it"? My first obvious guess was that if people considered the context of Proverbs 8 and realized wisdom was being personified as a female in this chapter, it would undercut the use of Proverbs 8:22-31 as referring to Jesus Christ, who obviously is not female.

  (Of course, I think it's clear that Proverbs 8:22-31 is not referring to Jesus Christ, as the notion of wisdom being 'created' by a being who has always existed seems like a paradox. Unless this is the Bible's way of suggesting that God was originally just pure energy and somehow became conscious energy at some unspecified point in whatever was the equivalent of time back then, but that's a bit too 'pro-evo', I would imagine...)

  Is it possible that the NWT was more loyal to the original text in its rendering and that these other translations are in error? Or is this a case of translation bias on the part of the NWT? I'm curious to hear some thoughts.

  I hope somebody comments on this, but I'll see if I can locate anything on my own in the meantime.

  --sd-7
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  Mad Sweeney

  The NWT was written by misogynists.
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  BurnTheShips

  Yes, the Divine Wisdom is frequently personified as female, both in the Bible, and outside it. In greek, the word is "sofia" which is a common girls name.

  BTS
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  ProdigalSon

  Congratulations! You've discovered yin in a world of yan. The Jews had "Shikinah", the female aspect of God. Somehow it turned into the "Holy Spirit", and we were flim-flammed into believing it was "God's active force". Think about it: Nothing comes into this world without male and female. The same goes for spirits. The reason why 70 percent of men are Narcissists is because the God of this world (Jehovah) is one. The story in Genesis was twisted. Woman wasn't taken from man. Man comes out of a woman's womb. Just ask the Freemasons.... "As above, so below."

  According to the Kabbalists who wrote the Bible, the true meaning of "Jehovah" is Iod-Havah, Iod being the Hebrew letter that represents the phallus, and Havah the female, compassionate, sensitive side.... according to Jesus in the Gnostic gospels, when we learn to properly balance the two we will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

  Ever wonder why a wise dude such as Solomon could get sucked into worshiping Astarte? You'd think he knew better. Well, maybe he did!

  Interestingly, in Fritz Springmeier's book, "Be Wise As Serpents", there's a whole chapter in there called "The Cult of the Double-Sexed God Jehovah", where he shows that Fred Franz certainly knew about this and believed it.

  This is the true meaning of the cross, with the upright part symbolizing the phallus and the crossbeam representing the "yoni" or vagina. There is the same symbolism in the Star of David, two intersecting triangles. Additionally, everything from church steeples to the Washington Monument is a phallic symbol.

  The Catholic Church has actually brought back a twisted form of the Divine Feminine with Mary worship.

  Google "Return of the Divine Feminine"... you can even join up on Facebook....
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  Ding

  The Hebrew word for wisdom -- hokma or hokmah -- has a feminine ending.

  So every English translation I've look at (except the NWT) uses the feminine pronoun in Proverbs 8.

  This includes the New International Version, New Living Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard, King James, New King James, Webster, Revised Webster, Douay-Rheims, Darby, Bible in Basic English, and Young's Literal Translation.

  Was there ever a time when Jehovah was without his wisdom and had to create it?

  The NWT's use of the pronoun "it" undercuts its own claim that Proverbs 8 is referring to Jesus.
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  BurnTheShips

  The NWT's use of the pronoun "it" undercuts its own claim that Proverbs 8 is referring to Jesus.

  The association of that passage as an allusion to Jesus goes back to the very early times of Christianity.

  1 Corinthians 1:30

  And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God,

  Colossians 2:2-3

  My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

  The Logos is also used as name for the divine wisdom.

  John 1:

  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

  BTS
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  peacefulpete

  Said in simplest terms Wisdom, and other similar personified nouns, reflect a long heritage of henotheism. Many of these characters are vestiges of dieties now eclipsed by Yahweh. Wisdom has extensive and abundant connections to goddess worship , however by the time the magority of OT writers adapted the language they did not intend to express worship of a goddess. Intertestimental literature has many such demigod characters drawn from much earlier traditions or then current mythology. Logos and Light for example, both have quasi-deity aspects without necessitating a literal interpretataion that the writer was polytheistic. The study of the origins of these personifications is facinating but frustrating research.
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  Terry

  Nothing comes into this world without male and female.

  That may be overstating things a bit!

  Transgender is not unknown. Hermaphrodites may be more common than we think. The occasional chimera is out there as well.

  The case of LANGUAGE gender is moot.

  In Spanish things have gender and it has nothing to do with genitalia!

  Giving Wisdom gender in a primitve ancient language indicates nothing to me I'd want to call information or knowledge. But, heck--that's just me.
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  mrsjones5

  Google "Return of the Divine Feminine"... you can even join up on Facebook....

  Thank you
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  Leolaia

  The Hebrew chkmh "wisdom" is a noun in the feminine gender but the book of Proverbs (ch. 1-9 particularly) goes further and refers to personified Wisdom as a she (cf. 7:4: "Say to Wisdom, 'You are my sister' "); she is juxtaposed between the adulterous woman of ch. 7 and the foolish woman (personifying folly) of ch. 9, and the young man addressed by the author is asked to choose between them, and the pursuit of wisdom is described with erotic overtones (cf. 4:5-6, 8:17; compare Proverbs 18:22, 31:10, Canticles 3:1-4, 5:6). In the later Greek wisdom literature, the femininity of Wisdom is stressed quite explicitly (cf. "Wisdom is their leader, though I had not known that she is the mother of these", Wisdom 7:12), and Jesus himself in the gospels is depicted as using feminine imagery as well ("How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings", Matthew 23:33-38, Luke 11:49-51, 13:34-35).

  There is a legitimate question here of whether this is purely a matter of personification, or whether the imagery and motifs have their origin in pre-Yahwist mythology. The reference to Wisdom building a palace and inviting guests to her banquet in ch. 9 has strong ANE parallels. Leading scholars of ANE religion, such as John Day and Mark Smith, suggest that the figure of Wisdom draws on older motifs pertaining to the goddess Asherah, consort to El in Canaanite religion and (probably) consort to Yahweh in pre-exilic henotheist Yahwism (see P on the identification of Yahweh with El, the god worshipped by the patriarchs). Under monotheism, she became hypostasized as an aspect of Yahweh in a similar way that Tannit became the feminine side of El in Carthaginian Phoenician religion (and this has implications for later trinitarian theology, especially since Wisdom texts became primary source material for later theologizing). Asherah was iconicized as a tree or a pole cult object and she was closely associated with the tree of life (cf. Asherah iconography at Ta'anach and Kuntillet 'Ajrud), as Asherah was a goddess of procreation (she is the mother of the gods, consort of the creator of the universe), health, nurturing, and healing. Wisdom is explicitly identified with the tree of life in Proverbs 3:13-18 and there is a possible pun here between the word "happy" ('shr) and the name Asherah. Wisdom is also depicted as seated at the "high places" of the city (9:3); cult objects representing Asherah were erected in the high places (1 Kings 14:23, 2 Kings 17:10, 18:4, 21:3, 23:15), removed during the aniconic reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah. Similar overtones relevant to the goddess Asherah can be found in the Eden narrative in Genesis (e.g. the abode at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, the name "Eve", the reference to her being the mother of all living, the tree of life, the tree of wisdom, the serpent, the theme of clothing, the metaphorical connection between the garden and the Temple, the eviction of Eve from the garden, and possibly the prohibition against eating the fruit of sacred trees).