trinities 380 - Dr. Dustin Smith on Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John

trinities.org/blog/podcast-38... To understand a book as its author intended, you don’t look to its future, but rather to its past. What has this author read, and what could he presuppose his audience to have read? These other pieces of literature are like tools in the author’s hands.
The biblical book of Proverbs famously features a vivid personification, Lady Wisdom. She pleads with people to seek and find her, and she even appears alongside God when he is creating. As Dr. Dustin Smith explains, this character appears in a number of later ancient Jewish writings in various ways, and can even be described as “incarnate” in certain people. Many of these would have been accessible both to the author of John and his audience.
Paul famously writes that Christ is “the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). But as James Dunn has observed, this idea of Christ as God’s wisdom is more prominent in John than in any other New Testament book. Drawing on an impressive array of recent scholarship, in Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John Dr. Dustin Smith argues that “the Johannine Jesus is incarnate Wisdom and that this christological presentation permeates all twenty-one chapters of the Fourth Gospel” (p. 213).
In this new discussion we focus on the basics of “wisdom christology” and on how that idea sheds light on the famous opening to the fourth gospel, John 1:1-18.
Links for this episode @ trinities.org/blog/podcast-38...
Smith, Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John
Smith, The Son of God: Three Views of the Identity of Jesus
Transfigured: Dr. Dustin Smith - Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John
previous trinities podcast episodes with Dustin Smith
Unitarian Christian Alliance
podcast 301 - Dr. Daniel Boyarin on John 1
podcast 295 - James Martineau on John 1
John A. T. Robinson on “the Word” of John 1
How John 1 was intelligible in the first century
podcast 338 - What John 1 Meant
This week’s thinking music is “Spacedust” by airtone.
Weekly podcast exploring views about the Trinity, and more generally about God and Jesus in Christian theology and philosophy. Debates, interviews, and historical and contemporary perspectives. Hosted by philosopher of religion / analytic theologian Dr. Dale Tuggy.
This week's thinking music is "Spacedust" by airtone. dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone...

[@joachim847]

For the direct opposite intepretation of Lady Wisdom, see Margaret Barker.

[@moosa86]

The Torah/wisdom that comes down to live amongst humans in Baruch 3 & 4 is God’s “shaliah” (messenger/agent/emissary) just as Jesus Christ is in John 1.

[@eew8060]

This is a modern, western view of personification. It's not in line with how the ancients thought of divine persons. I would implore people to go listen to Dr Michael Heiser "Psalm 91 and Demonic Doom" on his Naked Bible Podcast. The "Terror by night" and the "Arrow by Day" were _not_ simply abstract personifications but spirit persons.
This biblical unitarian view of Wisdom is out of harmony and a rejection of the historical data

[@moosa86]

What does Psalm 91 have to do with Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8?

[@eew8060]

@@moosa86
Psalm 91 is poetry literature just like Proverbs 8. And the Jews (per the data that Dr Heiser provides) saw actual spirit entities there. Not just abstracts or phenomena personified. There really no hard distinction between the two. The "stars" of heaven were actually the sons of God in the poetic book of Job. (Job 38:7) That didn't mean they thought stars were persons but that the real sons could be personified as stars without erasing the concept of actual existence. So Wisdom has to be considered with this background data in mind.

[@moosa86]

@eew8060
Okay so then going by this logic why is Wisdom referred to as a female (ie “Lady”)?
Assuming that you’re a Trinitarian, do you believe that this Wisdom being spoken of in Proverbs 8 is the pre-existent Jesus Christ? If so, why would it be referred to as a female when Jesus was male?

[@eew8060]

​@@moosa86
It's because wisdom in Hebrew(chokmah) is feminine in form.
I am not a Trinitarian. I'm JW. And the spirit sons of God are not male nor female and Wisdom can refer to the son in his prehuman form.

[@jerrylclement]

Jesus is a human being with a soul. He is in heaven now and has no knowledge about what is happening on earth.

[@asies2023]

How did Jesus known what Paul was doing, I.e., persecuting Him (His body on earth)?

[@MulunaLewi]

Lol you seem so sure. You been there?