:ehh:
I am in the middle of a spirited debate with a Jehovah’s Witness. He has stated that Proverbs 8 shows that Jesus was created since the Church Fathers called Jesus “Wisdom” I don’t believe this, but I can figure out a way to refute it.
Any ideas would be helpful
In the first line of Genesis, the first word is “Bre
shiyth", consisting of a prepositional prefix -B], meaning "In_", leading into the word "Reshiyth”, meaning “BEGINNING” or “CHIEF”. In the Gospel of John, the opening words are “En ARKHE”, the Greek equivalent to “Bre`shiyth”. The Church Fathers passed down the Tradition that the opening word of Genesis indicated JESUS HIMSELF as the FOUNDATION of the creation of all things.
The Apostle Paul shows signs of having seen it this way, using the Greek word “ARKHE” more than once for CHRIST, saying all things were created not only by HIM and for HIM, but existing in HIM. There are similar comments made about GOD in general as well, and not of the PERSON of JESUS CHRIST alone.
The Proverbs of Solomon speak of a MYSTERIOUS FIGURE called “WISDOM”, or, in Hebrew, “CHAKHMAH”, symbolized as a WOMAN. This is not sexual talk, but partly a play on words, since the word “Chakhmah” possesses the kind of form used for most feminine words, so that the pronouns that substitute it in Hebrew must be the same as would accord with reference to a woman. Originally, there being two forms of substantives, the one that carried an additional ending was assigned to feminine versions of things otherwise neutral, and the shorter form remained neutral with a duel role of masculinity. Many things
remained according with either form, though they were neither male nor female.
This non-sexual “femininity” is the spiritual pattern merely
reflected in the distinction of sexes in our humanity. Male and
female of our race are equal, both being equally human, but one man (a neutral term that remains the same in doubling as a masculine term when paired with the feminine specification) was the first - and because the humanity of the next was derived out of the first, the special derivational word construction was accorded her, reflecting that only in contrast to her was Adam no longer neutral. The person of Eve, however, came into existence directly from the creating act of GOD as Adam’s did, so that an already distinct person recieved a duplication (even an extension) of anothers nature. And so CHAKHMAH is the PERSON
of the TRINITY that derived not HIS PERSON from the FATHER, but, as Paul says, having set aside what HE had possessed from Eternity as the FATHER’s EQUAL, adopted a Role of bearing the same Divine Nature as a SON carrying a duplication of HIS FATHER’s Nature, being in this way, as John’s Gospel calls HIM, the LOGOS (WORD/REASON/EXPRESSION) of GOD. In the Proverbs, in which we see mention of CHRIST as “CHAKHMAH”, that is, “WISDOM”, we are dealing with this PERSON as
expressing to other than GOD the Wisdom essential to GOD that was beforehand concealed from all other Witnesses but GOD, within the TRINITY of GOD’s PERSONS, eternally before anything was created. (Thus WISDOM has no beginning, but HIS Role in expressing HIMSELF to a creation that had never before existed was a newly expressed foundation of all creation, even as a careful reading of the Proverbs passage indicates.) As the SON, the SON-Ship JESUS bears is derived from the FATHER, as the humanity of Eve is derived from Adam. The man Adam, called in Hebrew an
Iysh (Person), is named thus in a non-sexual manner. The same word can desribe any person in Hebrew, if the sexual distinction owned by a human person is not being brought out for relevancy's sake; but, in showing that the nature of the second of our race was derived from the first, Eve is called an Isshah, adding to `Iysh the suffix -ah to express the one proceding from the other.
Therefore, try to understand the ancient use of “feminine” forms for
non-sexual topics, and the use of “CHAKHMAH”, with like ending to that of
Isshah will make sense to you. In HIS SON-Ship did GOD, as the SON of GOD, express in HIMSELF the WISDOM GOD is by Nature from Eternity, known only to GOD. It is as this WISDOM EXPRESSED (the LOGOS) that GOD is first made known to newly created Witnesses, and bears what is described in derivational ("feminine") terms. In this Role is HE the RESHIYTH/ARKHE, the BEGINNING in WHICH all things
recieve their existence.
