Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table. She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, ‘You that are simple, turn in here!’ To those without sense she says, ‘Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity,* and live, and walk in the way of insight.’ (Psalm 9:1-6)
Lady Wisdom has set the table in her house, and now she sends out messengers to every high point in town to invite all people to come and eat at her table. She makes sure that everyone can hear her invitation, not only the rich or those close by, not only the locals or the males. Everybody. She displays the same inclusivity here as she does in Proverbs, chapters 1 and 8. She calls out to people, urging them to open up to the wisdom she has to offer on the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads, besides the gates, at the portals, in the streets, on the corners (Proverbs 8: 1-3: 1:20-21). Lady Wisdom is everywhere. She talks to everybody: Wisdom can be learned, and she can teach it! Those who refuse to be taught, they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence (Proverbs 4:17). But those who eat of Wisdom’s bread and drink from her wine, they live, and walk the way of insight (Proverbs 9: 6).
Who is this Lady Wisdom, who invites all of us to her inclusive table? This character takes up the first 8 chapters of the Book of Proverbs. Some scholars call her a Goddess. That seems strange to those of us who are used to viewing the Holy Trinity as an all-male entity. Women are not part of it. But, in Judean prehistory, that was different. Archaeological studies provide material evidence for a Goddess who reigned at God’s side in the 8th century BC. Potsherds and inscriptions from that time witness to Yahweh and his Asherah together, as man and wife.
On an ancient trade route in the south of Israel, in an artistic atelier of the eighth century BC, at a place now called Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, a potsherd was found showing the drawing of a couple, a man and a wife, accompanied in the background by a female lyre player. Above the drawing we read: “… by Yahweh of Somron (Samaria) and his Asherah”, in: Mark Kresel, “Yahweh”, Theological Anthropology, June 19, 2014, http://theologicalanthropology.com/alphabet-of-love/2014/6/18/yahweh.
Asherah was revered in ancient Semitic religions as earth mother and Goddess of fertility and motherhood. The fact that the Deutoronomistic History Books in the Bible (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) mention her so often, shows that the belief in her was widespread in ancient Israel. The authors of those biblical books portray Asherah as a foreign Goddess who needs to be destroyed, just like Baal. As monotheism develops, Asherah is “edited out” of the bible, as one scholar puts it.[1] But there are traces of her and other female Gods all over the bible. Asherah was oftentimes associated with Sacred Trees[2]. One overarching theme in many early Near Eastern Religions features a “trinity” of Earth/Fertility Goddesses represented as tree, serpent and woman. The Earth Goddess tends to a garden, showing her fertility. In the garden are Sacred Trees, which help human beings connect with the divine. The Serpent represents divine energy. That energy can positive and life giving, like for example, with Moses Snake on a Bronze Pole (Numbers 21:8-9), or negative and dangerous, like primordial serpents and dragons bringing chaos into the world. Here is an Egyptian example of the threefold symbols for Goddess:
Arther George, “Yahweh’s Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden”, October 6. 2014, https://mythologymatters.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/yahwehs-divorce-from-the-goddess-asherah-in-the-garden-of-eden/.
In the book of Genesis, the tree of knowledge, the serpent, and Eve, feature prominently in the Garden of Eden. As would be appropriate for a fertility Goddess, Eve is called “mother of all living” (Gen 3:20). But she does not have the power of a Goddess. The garden does not belong to her, it belongs to God. God also controls access to the Sacred Trees. And the Serpent is not successful in reestablishing the power to the Goddess. The interplay between serpent, tree, and Eve leads to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise. God is established as the only God.
Expulsion from paradise – Institute of Material Culture of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, Austria – CC BY-NC-ND. https://www.europeana.eu/item/15501/006206
All the more remarkable is it, that, in the Book of Proverbs, we encounter this entirely positive depiction of the female Goddess Lady Wisdom as a companion and helper of God. In chapter 8, she describes in great detail how she was made by God before everything else was created. She narrates how she witnessed God’s first creative acts and how she worked beside him, as a masterworker (Proverbs 8:30). Lady Wisdom has incredible gifts to give to humankind. She teaches knowledge of God, righteousness, justice, equity, prudence and humility. People who don’t follow her, suffer from panic attacks, distress, and anguish. They delight in arrogance, evil doing, crooked speech, and violence. Their sinful ways ultimately lead to death. But those who follow the straight path of Lady Wisdom, enjoy life. Who is Lady Wisdom? And why is she so lovable and important?
Lady Wisdom was with God before the world was created, and so was Jesus. John’s famous opening words state: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). So, what if Lady Wisdom and Jesus are one and the same? The Wife, the Son, the Companion, maybe our imagination cannot fully capture how God created the world: God created through the Word. The Word contained Wisdom and brought it to Life.
J. Augustus Knapp, rosicruxian Crucifixion, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Spirit was also there, before the world was created. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters (Gen 1:1-2). That wind, or breath, was Spirit. Is Spirit Lady Wisdom? The first spark of inspiration which made the waters move and initiated the creation of the world? The Breath of Life, which God breathed into Adam?
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has revisited one of its most iconic and popular images: the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation. This image shows the pillars as seen in infrared light, allowing it to pierce through obscuring dust and gas and unveil a more unfamiliar — but just as amazing — view of the pillars. In this ethereal view the entire frame is peppered with bright stars and baby stars are revealed being formed within the pillars themselves. The ghostly outlines of the pillars seem much more delicate, and are silhouetted against an eerie blue haze. Hubble also captured the pillars in visible light.
Most interestingly, even though in Genesis, the world is created through Word and Spirit/Wind/Breath, later in the bible, God uses the word womb to describe his creative act. In God’s famous speech to Job, God says: “Where were you, when I laid the foundation of the earth? … Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? …From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven? (Job 38:4,8, 29). All these rhetorical questions by God are to show Job that God, God’s nature and God’s work are beyond Job’s understanding.
The Mother of God Trenousa, National Museum of Serbia, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
I give thanks for Lady Wisdom, mysterious Lady Wisdom, who pushes her way into my Trinitarian thinking. She allows me to view God and Jesus and Spirit in multiple, changing ways. It feels like I am looking through a kaleidoscope. The persons of the Trinity are constantly changing in color and shape, in gender and form. I am in awe and full of wonder, just like I was as a child, when I first looked through a kaleidoscope.
[1] NBC News, “Gods Wife Edited out of the Bible”, by Jennifer Viegas, March 18, 2011, https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna42147912#.
[2] Ackerman, Susan. “Asherah/Asherim: Bible.” Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. 27 February 2009. Jewish Women’s Archive. <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/asherahasherim-bible>.
