Sophia & Jesus mixed

By -

Sophia & Jesus mixed, January 23
Many scripture scholars have noted parallels between the Jesus portrayed in the Fourth Gospel and Sophia in the Books of Wisdom, Proverbs, Baruch, and Sirach.  “Sophia” in Greek means wisdom and is grammatically feminine.

So much do the two figures—male and female—resemble each other that verses about them are interchangeable, as the following list demonstrates.
I challenge readers to discern of each line whether it refers to the Divine Feminine in Wisdom Literature or the Divine Masculine in the Fourth Gospel. Translations are from the NAB and the Inclusive Bible. I changed words that gave away the gender.

Decide whether the original line was talking about Sophia or Jesus. Answers—next week.

. . . was present to God from the beginning.

. . . comes from God; . . .  dwells with God forever.

I came that they might have life.

The one who finds me finds life.

All who hold H__  fast will live, and those who forsake H__ will die.

H__ whom you have sent, . . . . 

No one has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven.

___ is a breath of the power of God, a pure light of the glory of the Most High.

To H__ own ___ came, yet H__ own did not accept H__.

I called and you chose not to listen, . . . I beckoned and you ignored me.

___ showers the earth with insight and intelligence, and rewards those who espouse H__ gifts.

To love H__ is to love life; those who seek H__ win H__ favor.
Those who follow H__ follow the Holy One; the Most High loves those who love H__.
Obey H__ and you will be in a position of supreme authority;
Listen to H__ and you will live in H__ heart of hearts.

Draw close to H__ with all your heart and keep to H__ discipline at all costs.
Pursue H__, look for H__, seek H__, and you will find H__—and once you hold H__, never let go.

We have seen H__ glory . . . filled with enduring love.

___ will be your joy.

Whoever believes in H__ may not die but may have eternal life.  

All who cling to H__ will live, but those will die who forsake H__.

 “ . . . all nations would follow me”

Goddess or god?  January 31, 2013
I hope you had fun sorting out the Bible verses I quoted last week mixing Sophia with Jesus, two parallel personifications of God. I had fun choosing the verses.
Personifications are figurative images; they are poetic ways of referring to what is not human as if it were human. Saying the stars danced, I personify them. Saying the wind howled, I personify it. Saying time flew by, I personify time. Saying God told me something, I personify God. The personifications Sophia and Jesus help us relate to the mystery we call God.

Here are more parallels between the female and male God-images:
  • Both speak in long discourses in first person, and both speak poetically.
  • Both reveal God and give instruction on what pleases God.
  • Both walk the streets, crying out their message and offering their gifts.
  • Both lead people to life and immortality.
  • Both refer to their followers as children and both use metaphors of food and water to describe their spiritual gifts.
  • Both are rejected.
Following are the original Bible verses. Wisdom speaks in the Books of Wisdom, Proverbs, Baruch, and Sirach.  

Jn 1:2:  The Word was present to God from the beginning.
Sir 1:1:  Wisdom comes from YHWH; She dwells with God forever.

Jn 10:10b:  I came that they might have life.
Prov 8:35 The one who finds me finds life.

 Jn 6:57: One who feeds on me will have life because of me.
Bar 4:1b:  All who cling to Her will live, but those will die who forsake Her.
Jn 3:16b: Whoever believes in Him may not die but may have eternal life.  
Baruch 4: 1b All who cling to Her will live, but those will die who forsake Her.
Prov 3:18: She is a tree of life to those who grasp her.

Jn 17:3: ………him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ. 
Wis 9:10: Send her forth from your holy heavens.

Jn 3:13:  No one has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven—the Son of Man.
Wis 7:25:  She is a breath of the power of God, a pure light of the glory of the Most High.

Jn 1: 11 To his own he came, yet his own did not accept him.
Prov 1: 24 I called and you chose not to listen, . . . I beckoned and you ignored me.

 Jn 14: 6: No one comes to the father except through me.
Sir 4:14 - 15: Those who serve Her serve the Holy One . . . One who obeys her judges nations.  
Those who follow Her follow the Holy One; the Most High loves those who love Her.
Obey Her and you will be in a position of supreme authority;

Jn 3: The One whom God has sent speaks the words of God.
Sir 1:17  She showers the earth with insight and intelligence, and rewards those who espouse Her gifts.
Sir 6:27-28  Draw close to Her with all your heart and keep to Her discipline at all costs.
Pursue Her, look for Her, seek Her, and you will find Her—and once you hold Her, never let go.

Sir 6: 29b        She will be your joy.

Sophia and Jesus convey the same wisdom. Both are divine personalities with God before the beginning of creation. Raymond Brown, renowned as the foremost authority on the Fourth Gospel, asserts that the feminine Wisdom and the masculine Logos share divine attributes. Parallel passages from Wisdom literature and the gospel usually attributed to a “John” (more about this to come) illustrate:
John 1: 1-2        In the beginning was the Word
the Word was in God’s presence
and the Word was God.
Proverbs 8: 23   I have been from everlasting,
in the beginning, before the world began.
John 1:3               Through the Word all things came into being.
Proverbs 8: 30  When the foundation of the world was laid
            I was the skilled artisan standing next to the Almighty.

My purpose in this exercise is to provoke realization that exclusive and repetitive HeHimHis God-talk keeps us from distinguishing between male images and the reality of God. It prevents appreciation of the Transcendent Mystery beyond our capacity to comprehend. It directs us toward worship of idols. If we want to advance in understanding of spiritual reality, we must change our habits.
For help in preparing this I used An Introduction to New Testament Christology by the eminent Catholic scholar Raymond Brown.
Theologian Elizabeth Johnson informs us further in She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. She noted the scholarly consensus on the influence of pagan Goddesses on the Jewish Sophia.
The cultural context that made possible a Hebrew personification of God in female form was pagan Goddess worship.
So, following the trail of influences, we see that the Goddess is a prototype of Christ—a fact to mull over if you’re a Christian ready for this.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goddess in the Bible

By -
Linguistic, archaeological, and scriptural studies reveal that the people of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) worshipped the Goddess. Their literature is suffused with female images of the Holy One. This information came to me primarily from Raphael Patai in The Hebrew Goddess , Asphodel Long in The Absent Mother , and Phyllis Trible in God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality . An exclusively male God-image does not meet the psychological needs of humanity, and—here’s the surprise—it does not fully reflect our Judaeo-Christian heritage. According to Patai, "historical scrutiny" shows that for centuries following the Law of Moses, sole worship of Yahweh by the Hebrews "remained a demand rather than a fact," because the people chosen by Yahweh also worshipped Canaanite deities. In light of the thundering Bible prophets, that did not surprise me. What dumbfounded me was the scope, the popularity, and the legitimacy of Goddess worship as revealed by researchers free of ma...
Read more

Grace & spirituality, Part 2 (Guest Post)

By -
Those of you familiar with my conversation with Jeanette know that I'm an atheist; I do not believe in an anthropomorphic, creative entity called "God." I think that all the universe is natural - there is no "supernatural." But I also think that there is spirit, human spirit being part of that. And to me, spirit is tangible, natural, a function of the universal matter, light. I experience it, I can hear it, see it, feel it. It is a matter of attention and perception. Scientists, even atheist scientists, will someday identify how it works. Carl Jung, many years ago, spoke of observing “synchronicity”. He also posited the notion of the “collective unconscious”. I happen to think that there also exists a "collective sub-conscience," a universal knowing of yin and yang that connects us all to each other and everything else. It is in those places, I believe, that we find spirituality. I don't think that believing these things are molecular and sub-atomi...
Read more

Eckhart's Trinity

By -
The nexus of divinity and humanity lies not in one man but in the inner core of all creation . . . The only-through-Jesus stance violates the Nazarene’s message, but the image of Jesus Christ helps our human minds to recognize the divine-human connection. God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky Language about the Trinity confuses people because meanings of words change. “Hypostatic union” is indeed defined as two natures, divine and human, in one person—Florian was correct about that. And “Trinity” refers to three persons in one God. The center of confusion is the word “person.” We moderns envision persons as individuals, but that’s not what the theologians who formulated the doctrine of the Trinity had in mind. When the word "person" first entered the doctrinal debate, it meant a mask or role—what an actor on the Greek stage put on—and it did not mean a distinct personality or a separate "I" as it does today. Persona may be closer to the original meaning than “person.” T...
Read more