Real fun study with Proverbs & Ecclesiastes pre~Xmas. Lo but we find the one who was with God before creation, at very beginning, was 'She". Goddess wisdom. These fellows were borrowing & culturally appropriating these literary images as fast as their little quills could scribe!
Can we just call her Athena or the Egyptian ISIS & be done with it? ;0)
Proverbs Chapter 8 usccb.org
(but she comes in prominently prior in chapts 4-6 also )
[ 8:22– 31] Wisdom is of divine origin.
She is represented as existing before all things (vv. 22– 26), when God planned and created
the universe, adorning it with beauty and variety, and establishing its
wonderful order (vv.
A SAMPLE:
(Prov 8:1 NIV) Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice?
(Prov 8:2 NIV) On the heights along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand;
(Prov 8:3 NIV) beside the gates leading into the city, at the entrances, she cries aloud:
(Prov 8:4 NIV) "To you, O men, I call out; I raise my voice to all mankind.
27When he established the heavens, there was I,h
when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
28When he made firm the skies above,
when he fixed fast the springs of the deep;
29When he set for the sea its limit,
so that the waters should not transgress his command;
When he fixed the foundations of earth,
30then was I beside him as artisan;* i
I was his delight day by day,
playing before him all the while,
31Playing over the whole of his earth,
having my delight with human beings.
* [ 8:22– 31] Wisdom is of divine origin. She is represented as existing before all things (vv. 22– 26), when God planned and created the universe, adorning it with beauty and variety, and establishing its wonderful order (vv.
27– 30). The purpose of the two cosmogonies (vv. 22– 26 and 27– 31) is to ground Wisdom’s claims. The first cosmogony emphasizes that she was born before all else (and so deserving of honor) and the second underscores that she was with the Lord during the creation
of the universe. The pre-existence of Woman Wisdom with God is developed in Sir
24 and in New Testament hymns to Christ, especially in Jn 1 and Col 1:15– 20.
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