From a Website: Ecclesiasticus 1:1-4 All wisdom cometh from the Lord, and is with him for ever. The sand of the sea, and the drops of the rain, And the days of eternity who shall number? The height of the heaven and the breadth of the earth And the deep and wisdom, who shall search them out? Wisdom hath been created before all things, And the understanding of prudence from everlasting.
The book of Ecclesiasticus was written by Jesus the son of Sirach in about 100 B.C. It describes Wisdom as having been "created before all things," as being "from everlasting" and as comparable to "the days of eternity." In this we are in harmony with the Trinitarian view of Jesus as created or generated by the Father eternally, that is, finding his source in the Father and having no existence apart from Him, yet also having existed eternally as God does.
Reply: There are several problems with the above. One, Wisdom is not said to be "from everlasting," in Ecclesiasticus, that statement was reserved for Prudence. This is also something we see in the Pseudepigrapha. In a note on the Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers, Edited by James H. Charlesworth, he states,
"Special attention is given to Wisdom (sophia). Wisdom is personified and represented as the instrument of creation (3:19; 4:7, 38; 12:36). Wisdom is not eternal, however, since God is her father (4:38) and creator (5:3)."The Prayers cross-reference Prov 8:22.
Two, even if it was, AIWN(ios)(a)(ion) here does not always mean "everlasting." It actually means "age," or "a long time."
This is can be borne out by considering how other versions treat this. The Revised English Bible has at verse 4, "Wisdom was first of all created things, intelligent purpose has existed from the beginning." The New Jerusalem Bible has, "Wisdom was created before everything, prudent understanding from remotest ages." The website is echoing the same sentiment as Robert Bowman in his Why You Should Believe in the Trinity, p. 61:
"Thus [Proverbs] 8:23 says, 'From everlasting I was established...' (NASB); the phrase from everlasting is the same phrase used of God in Psalm 90:2, where the JW's recognize that God is being described as having no beginning."The problem here is that God is Creator in regards to everlasting [olam] (Isaiah 40:28).
Everlasting/olam is used twice at Ps 90:2, whereas, elsewhere it is used only once for created beings. It is used of the forefathers (Joshua 24:2) and the prophets (Jer 28:8). The NASB tells us how the olam here should be used, if Bowman would only have completed the verse:
"From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth." NASB
Other versions of Proverbs 8:23 bear out the limitations in regards to olam where created beings are concerned:
"From of old" New American Bible
"I was formed in earliest times." Revised English Bible
"Ages ago" NRSV
"I was made in the very beginning." TEV
"In times long past" NEB etc
Three, it is an oxymoron to say something is created, but has existed from all time. We have no Biblical parallel to compare this phenomenal contradiction with. Also ignored is the connection with Wisdom/Sophia and the connection with angels.
Former Priest and author, Tom Harpur writes that Jewish wisdom literature at the time of Christ spoke of the descent and ascent of Wisdom:
"..it is possible to say that the hypostasized Wisdom of late Jewish writing 'is an anonymous heavenly redeemer figure' very similar to those in both Greco-Roman and Christian thought. At the same time, Jewish theologizing about angels also made use of the descending and ascending pattern for figures of redemption. In Isaiah 63 it was the 'angel of [God's] presence' who 'saved' the Israelites-and 'in his love and pity...redeemed them.' Dozens of similar instances can be found throughout the Old Testament. Talbert also cites numerous instances in extra-Biblical writings in which archangels descend in human form. Some of the language used of these angelic redeemers is actually paralleled in the fourth Gospel: in the Testament of Abraham, for example, the archangel comes down and tells the patriarch 'everything which he has heard from the Most High,' while in another work an archangel, the 'firstborn of every creature,' descends to earth and 'tabernacles' among men. In all these writings there is the taking of bodily form, the successful struggle with evil, and the final ascent of the heavenly being. Moreover, in some cases the angel and Wisdom traditions merge with each other and with the concepts of the Logos and the first-born son...the themes of pre-existence, descent and glorious ascent are found in Philippians 2:6-10, and those of descent and exaltation in Romans 1:3-4, while in Galatians 4:4 there is a clear reference to Christ as an angel: 'You have received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.'In teaching about Christ as pre-existent, 'the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature [by whom] all things were created' (Col. 1:15), clearly Paul is describing not the historical Jesus whose profile we can discern, however dimly, in the Gospels, but with a figure cast in the Wisdom literature speculation-that is, with a mythological construct."For Christ's Sake, pp. 108, 109
The mythological construct is in accord with the website's acknowledgement that cultures also had their Wisdom traditions, and the Jews have borrowed this language (as they have with the words hades and tartarus) and made it their own.
The Dictionary of Demons and Deities states, under Wisdom:
"Philosophers such as the author of the Book of Wisdom took great care not to lose the mythological connection which made for good literature, and also attracted those who adopted a view of the divine world which retained its plurality while placing Israel's God at the top. Christians were no doubt indebted to a two-deity system which reckoned with a major god with whom a minor, mediating deity was associated. The minor deity could be identified as Yahweh (with El Elyon being the high god; Deut 32:8, 9 with note in BHS), as the Son of Man (Dan 7:13, 14) or as the archangel Michael (Dan 12:1). The old mythological tradition and the two-deity system helped early Christians in their attempt to define the nature and function of Christ."Even the suggestion that Wisdom is merely God's attribute does not provide a means of escape.
Scholar Frances Young observes in talking of Wisdom,
"Interestingly enough, some of the names of those concretely envisaged beings, the archangels, suggest the personification of divine attributes; Gabriel - might of God, Phanuel - face of God."From Two Roots or a Tangled Mass-The Myth of God Incarnate
In a review of *Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence*, by Gieschen, the following comments are made:
"Gieschen's conclusions are (1) that angelomorphic traditions "were profoundly employed in earliest extant expressions of Christology," (2) that Angel of the Lord traditions in particular were very important in contributing to the linking of angelomorphic figures intimately identified with YHWH (i.e., the Angel, the Glory, the Name, the Word, Wisdom) to the fleshly Jesus who had ascended and was now enthroned," (3) that early Christians combined various antecedent traditions in formulating their Christology, and (4) that traditions about the invisibility of God were important contributors to the development of angelomorphic traditions and to early Christology. Overall, Gieschen contends that angelomorphic traditions "were some of the oldest and most significant traditions that inspired the Christology which we now find in early Christian literature, including the New Testament." Indeed, Gieschen holds that "the central root" from which various early christological traditions developed (e.g., Wisdom/Spirit/Name/Glory/Son of Man/Image/Anthropos Christologies) is "the angelomorphic tradition in which the Angel of the Lord is God appearing in the form of a man.""Metzger makes an interesting point:
http://www.bookreviews.org/Reviews/9004108408.html
"The dividing line between Wisdom the woman and God can grow hazy. Without the introductory verses to Proverbs 1:22-33 one might easily assume that the speaker is not Wisdom but God! Theologians have observed that Wisdom functions as a mediator between God and humanity...Wisdom's mediating role may have answered a spiritual need earlier fulfilled by the king (see Ps. 72:1; 1 Kings 8:22-53)." Oxford Companion to the Bible, (under Wisdom)That Wisdom often looks indistinguishable from God is also echoed in other works that find it hard to tell between God's angel and God Himself. But the language of this use of agency is quite common.
A.R. Johnson in a monograph entitled The One and the Many in the Israelite Conception of God, states the following regarding this form of speech:
"In Hebrew thought a patriarch’s personality extended through his entire household to his wives, his sons and their wives, his daughters, servants in his household and even in some sense his property. The "one" personality was present in the "many" who were with him. In a specialized sense when the patriarch’s as lord of his household deputized his trusted servant as his malak (i.e. his messenger or angel) the man was endowed with the authority and resources of his lord to represent him fully and transact business in his name. In Semitic thought this messenger-representative was conceived of as being personally-and in his very words-the presence of the sender" (Christology and The Angel of the LORD by John Cunningham).
Consider the following few examples:
An angel spoke out of the bush, yet it was God speaking through the angel. In this same event, God gave Moses the law and specifically the Ten Commandments. It says in Exodus 20:1-17:
"I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me." ASV
But, it was actually God speaking through the angel. Stephen again verifies this in Acts 7:53:
"You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it." NAB
The law was given to Moses through the angels. As a matter of fact, the whole episode on Mount Sanai was God speaking through the angels. Act 7:38 states:
"This is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel that spake to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers: who received living oracles to give unto us." ASV
In Deuteronomy 29:1-6 we have Moses is speaking to Israel, but then, he is speaking in the first person as God.
"These are the words of the covenant which Jehovah commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which he made with them in Horeb. And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that Jehovah did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; the great trials which thine eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders: but Jehovah hath not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxed old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxed old upon thy foot. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink; that ye may know that I am Jehovah your God."These verses start off with Moses speaking as himself and ends with Moses speaking as God in the first person. But it is God speaking through Moses to Israel. There are many examples in the Bible of this custom of speech.
"The main point of the Jewish law of agency is expressed in the dictum, "A person's agent is regarded as the person himself." Therefore any act committed by a duly appointed agent is regarded as having been committed by the principle." The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, R.J.Z. Werblowski and Geoffrey WigoderThe idea is that God gives His authority to His representatives. This idea is pivotal in the understanding of Jesus because Jesus will be God’s representative par excellence, and Jesus will speak on behalf of God. To illustrate the point of God giving His authority to His representatives, take note of the following:
"Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Take ye heed before him, and hearken unto his voice; provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgression: for my name is in him. ["He is my representative" NLT; "My power is around him" Fenton; "My authority rests in him" REB; "I am giving him complete authority" CEV]YHWH’s authority resides in this angel. The angel is God’s representative and thus has the authority of God, but the angel is not God. If we apply this concept to our understanding of Jesus, then this will provide some clarification. Jesus represents God on earth and will thus speak for God and have His authority to forgive sins and to judge. "For I spake not from myself; but the Father that sent me, he hath given me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak." (John 12:49).
But if thou shalt indeed hearken unto his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries." (Exodus 23:20-22 ASV).
"and he gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man." (John 5:27).
"And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth." (Matthew 28:18)
"Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ" (Revelation 12:10).
" But that ye may know that the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins...when the multitudes saw it, they were afraid, and glorified God, who had given such authority unto men."(Matthew 9:6-8).
Jesus is representing God to the people. He is speaking on behalf of God. He is God's Word.
This is not a new concept, Moses said exactly this about the future Messiah in Deuteronomy 18:18:
"I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him."He is God's word, like others were before him. Under "word" in the Harper Collins Bible Dictionary:
"Prophets hear and speak what the Lord has spoken to them (Isa. 1:2; 6:8-10), for they are primarily recipients and transmitters of the word of the Lord (Jer. 1:2). The NT...usage can be seen as a development of the OT.Under Word in McKenzie's Bible Dictionary:
"The word of God in the OT refers most frequently to the word of the prophet."Interestingly, Metzger's comments above make mention of 1 Kings 8, which states,
"But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded!" ASVJehovah far transcends containment by anything he has created. The destructive power that results from gazing at God (Ex 33:20) is echoed at 3 Enoch 3 22B:5, 6:
"What does YHWH, the God of Israel, the glorious king, do? The great God, mighty in power, covers his face...otherwise the heaven of Arabot would burst open in the middle, because of the glorious brilliance, beautiful brightness, lovely splendor, and radiant praises of the appearance of the Holy One, blessed be he."We cannot see God, and as a loving result, he is invisible to us. (1 Tim 1:17; John 1:18; Col 1:15)
So he sends a lesser Jehovah, Jesus Christ, whom we can see, just as he has sent his angels in the past.
When we again, through the view of angelic agency, consider the Wisdom literature and the Pseudepigrapha, we are given an insight long ignored:
Wisdom 10:18 "She brought them over the Red Sea, and led them through deep waters" RSVCompare:
Exodus 14:19 "Then the angel of God who went before the host of Israel moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them." See also Num 20:16 RSVWisdom 10:19 "but she [Wisdom] drowned their enemies,and cast them up from the depth of the sea."
Ex 23:20,21 "Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared. Give heed to him and hearken to his voice, do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression; for my name is in him. [Compare 3 Enoch 12:5]
Compare:
Rev 7:1 "After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree."
Wisdom 10:13 "When a righteous man was sold, wisdom did not desert him, but delivered him from sin. She descended with him into the dungeon."Compare:
Daniel 3:25 "He answered, "But I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods...Nebuchadnez'zar said, 'Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed'nego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set at nought the king's command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.'"“Then wisdom went out to dwell with the children of the people, but she found no dwelling-place. So wisdom returned to her place and she settled permanently among the angels.” 1 Enoch 42:1, 2
Dan 6:22 "Then Daniel said to the king, 'O king, live for ever! My God sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths, and they have not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no wrong.'"
Compare:
"So the Logos (Word) became flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1:14)
Even when discussing Philo, many have realized that his writings on Wisdom/Logos can be best understood with an angelology in view.
In her "Logos and Its Function in the Writings of Philo of Alexandria: Greek Interpretation of Hebrew Thought and Foundations of Christianity: Part One," Marian Hillar writes:
"The Angel of the Lord, Revealer of God:From the Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman:
Philo describes the Logos as the revealer of God symbolized in the Scripture (Gen. 31:13; 16:8; etc) by an angel of the Lord (Somn. 1.228-239; Cher. 1-3). The Logos is the first-born and the eldest and chief of the angels.
Intermediary Power:
The fundamental doctrine propounded by Philo is that of Logos as an intermediary power, a messenger and mediator between God and the world.
And the father who created the universe has given to his archangel and most ancient Logos a pre-eminent gift, to stand on the confines of both, and separate that which had been created from the Creator. And this same Logos is continually a suppliant to the immortal God on behalf of the mortal race, which is exposed to affliction and misery; and is also the ambassador, sent by the Ruler of all, to the subject race. And the Logos rejoices.... saying "And I stood in the midst, between the Lord and you" (Num. 16:48); neither being uncreated as God, nor yet created as you, but being in the midst between these two extremities, like a hostage, as it were, to both parties (Her. 205-206)."
"Philo, as far as I know, ascribed no 'condescension' to his Logos, for he considered him a creature, or, at least, an emanation, as well as his companion Angel. He speaks of him as a second God (vid. Euseb. Præp. Ev. vii. 13, p. 323, ed. 1688); as an Archangel between God and man, neither increate nor a creature, an intercessor with God, a messenger from Him (Quis hæres, p. 509), as the first-born Son, His Viceroy (de Agricult. p. 195), the created idea or plan, the [kosmos noetos] on which the visible world was made (de Opif. mund. p. 5, Quis hæres, p. 512). There is nothing then in him which needs explanation when he speaks of the Almighty and His two ministering attendants; but if a writer such as Irenæus uses language of a like character, he must be interpreted, not by Philo, but by other statements of his own and by the doctrine of his brother theologians. Indeed, when closely inspected, the doubtful language of this great Father explains itself."From A Dictionary of Angels, by Gustav Davidson:
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/tracts/arianism/section10.html
"In Enoch II, 33, wisdom is hypostasized. God orders wisdom, on the 6th day of Creation, 'to make man of seven substances.' In Reider, The Book Of Wisdom, wisdom is the 'assessor on God's throne,' the instrument or divine agent (i.e. angel) 'by which all things were created.' [Cf. the Logos of Philo.] According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, 'Angel,' the term 'angel of the Lord' finds a 'counterpart in the personification of wisdom in the Sapiential books, and in at least one passage (Zachariah 3:1) it seems to stand for that Son of Man whom Daniel (Daniel 7:13) saw brought before the Ancient of Days." p. 312,The belief that Michael the Archangel was the same as the Word/Wisdom, was carried over by Philo of Judea who, ‘identified the Logos with the archangel Michael.’ (Formation of Christian Dogma, Professor Martin Werner, page 133)
"The counterpart of this is afforded by an identification of Christ with the archangel Michael, an identification which is made in the Shepherd of Hermas. ... According to the early Christian writing Of The Threefold Fruits, Christ, as one of the seven archangels of God, was created ‘from fire’ and exalted to the status of ‘Son.’" (Formation of Christian Dogma, Professor Martin Werner, page 135)
FIRST OXFORD LECTURE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTOLOGY
by Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis:
"1. Most discussion of the LOGOS has, understandably focused on Philo. I don't want to get embroiled in the highly sophisticated world of Philo, except to say that there is a steadily increasing body of opinion that, in actual fact his ideas are very Jewish in origin if not in expression. His use of LOGOS/LOGOI language is best understood as an adaptation to a Hellenistic idiom of the peculiarly Jewish language of angels."In the 19th century the Berlin Old Testament student, who was also editor of a church newspaper and an ecclesiastical politician, Ernest Wilhelm Hengstenberg, in his many-volumed work on the Christology of the Old Testament, concentrated upon the Early Christian identification of Christ with the angelic figures of the Old Testament, particularly the archangel Michael." (Formation of Christian Dogma, Professor Martin Werner, page 137)
Long before Philo, Greek speaking Jews had used Logos language as an alternative to Angel of LORD. As Jarl Fossum has pointed out, a key passage in this respect in Ezekiel the Tragedian's Exagoge 96-99. In this passage Moses' encounter with the burning bush is retold and where the biblical account (Exodus 3) has the Angel of the LORD in the bush, Ezekiel has a divine Logos. Logos language, then, is Angel of the Lord language, (cf. also Wisdom of Solomon 18:15f, reworking 1Chron 21:16.
2. Similarly, though Wisdom has had her own independent history within Israelite culture, she has already been identified with the Angel of the LORD long before early Christianity. This is clear from Sirach 24:4 where Wisdom takes up the position of the Angel of the LORD in the cloud of Exodus 14:19 and Wisdom of Solomon 9:1-2, 18:15-16 where Wisdom, Logos and Angel of the Lord are equated.
Wisdom and Logos, then, both point to the importance of angelic categories as the common denominator in Jewish mediatorial speculation."
"In the Primitive Christian era there was no sign of any kind of Trinitarian problem or controversy, such as later produced violent conflicts in the Church. The reason for this undoubtedly lay in the fact that, for Primitive Christianity, Christ was . . . a being of the high celestial angel-world, who was created and chosen by God for the task of bringing in, at the end of the ages, . . . the Kingdom of God." The Formation of Christian Dogma, pages 122, 125.
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