I just want to throw out some ideas.
What is Wisdom in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Testament? Is it the Holy Spirit? Since the words for spirit and wisdom are feminine in Hebrew, should we assume that the Holy Spirit is the feminine side of God?
This question has more to do with biblical book selection. Assuming that one finds a book that is theologically similar to the other books in the bible and yet was excluded from the cannon because it cast women in more favorable light, can we include it in the cannon now? How do we know for sure that there was no human bias in the selection process?
Anyway, have fun.
4 Comments
no one wants to touch this one? You guys are getting soft
I read a book a couple of summers ago called “Four Witnesses” by Dr. Robin Griffith-Jones. It was an interesting book. He argued, I think sucessfully, that Matthew is trying to paint Jesus as Wisdom. He cites several Old Testament texts and Jewish Rabbinic literature and compared it with some of Jesus teaching in Matthew, ie Sermon on the Mount in Matt. 5-7.
As far as the adding on of books to the Bible. There is more to the cannonization of a book to Scripture than just content. Who wrote the book. Many of the so-called “Lost Gospels”/Gnostic Gospels cannot be directly be linked to the Apostles unlike the New Testament texts, except Hebrews. There is no Apostolic authority in these texts. Otherwise I am going to start adding Jonathan Edwards to the Bible because he has good content. FYI: I would never do that because Edwards would come back from the grave and haunt me forever if I did. The point remains. Edwards was not one of the Apostles or cannot be directly linked to one. Therefore he is excluded. So many of these books that many want to add to the Bible aren’t linked to any Apostles. Their content also is very off. I don’t know if you were referencing the Gnostic Texts or not but I just chose them as an examploe because guys like John Dominic Crossan basis most of his knowledge on them and wants them added.
I am not talking about wanting to include Gnostic texts. I just want to someday examine why what was excluded. See if are evidences of certain biases. I don’t know if anything would be found, but just something I want to look into at some point.
When you talk about Edwards and his good content, that is what I want to examine. I want to examine the content of texts that were being used at the time, like the Acts of Theclia (which I have not read, I just know that she was a disciple of Paul’s and a leader in the church).
Anyway, I very anti-gnostic (even though they are fascinating to read) so I don’t want to give that impression; I merely was wondering aloud about whether or not it was possible that there were biases and perhaps errors in the canonization process.
I think that the process of canonization should be heavily scrutinized, even if we don’t think they made mistakes.
After all, we do hinge a lot of our beliefs on the selection that these people made and there was a quite a separation between them and the apostles and Jesus.
So, while I am not asserting a support for Gnostic traditions (far be it!), I do want to take a critical look at the selection process.
but what about the femine Wisdom?