Who is Wisdom?

[Nelka]

Wisdom is mentioned in the Bible, obviously in the book of Wisdom but also appears in the New Testament.

Is this the same Wisdom that we call Wisdom of the Holy Spirit?

Also why is Wisdom referred to as she, grammatical?

Matthew 11:19 The Son of man came, eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.’

Thanks.

 

[DaveBj]

Wisdom is mentioned in the Bible, obviously in the book of Wisdom but also appears in the New Testament.

Is this the same Wisdom that we call Wisdom of the Holy Spirit?

Also why is Wisdom referred to as she, grammatical?

Matthew 11:19 The Son of man came, eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.’

Thanks.

Wisdom is anthropomorphized frequently in the Wisdom literature, meaning that the concept is treated as if it were a person, even tho it is not. (Similarly, some of the Psalms speak of resting under God’s wings, but we are not to take that as proof that God is a chicken.)

The use of “she” is a straight translation of the pronoun from the original languages. In Hebrew, Greek, and Latin the words for “wisdom” are grammatically feminine, so the feminine pronouns are used, and some translators kept the feminine pronoun in English. Using “it” would have been just as accurate; there are other concepts whose words are feminine in the original languages, but for which the pronoun “it” is used in English.