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Timonator348
Guest
Can someone explain why in the book if Wisdom, wisdom is referred to in the female tense as a she?
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GEddie
Guest
The Greek word for wisdom, Sophia (whence we get the female human name) is feminine. The usage in Wis. is a simple personification.
Wis. was originally written in Greek.
I hope this was helpful.
God Bless and ICXC NIKA!
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Link0126
Guest
Is this a reference to the Holy Spirit?
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Edward_Pothier
Guest
It is not only in the Book of Wisdom (originally written in Greek) that “Wisdom” is portrayed as feminine and female. It is also done in books originally written in Hebrew such as Proverbs (and Ben Sira).
In both biblical Hebrew and Greek the words for “wisdom” are grammatically feminine – hochmah and sophia respectively. The Latin “sapientia” is also feminine.
The so-called wisdom literature of the Old Testament has frequent passages about such an entity or divine attribute. Although Israelite monotheism is not violated (perhaps bruised a little), at times she (i.e., Wisdom) is almost a secondary deity, working under, with and for God.
By the way, it is not true that grammatical gender is always constant across languages.
The word for “spirit” in Hebrew is ruach which is grammatically feminine.
The word for “spirit” in Greek is pneuma, a neuter word; it is pneuma (nominative), pneumatos (genitive). I have seen, even in books, the incorrect statement that this word is feminine. Although some Greek words ending in “alpha” are feminine, those which end in -ma (mu alpha) are mostly neuter.
While Latin is not a biblical language itself, i.e. none of the biblical books were written in Latin, Latin is of interest through the Vulgate Latin translation and later continued use in the RCC. In Latin “spiritus” is masculine grammatical gender.
So in going from Hebrew to Greek to Latin, the word for “spirit” goes from feminine to neuter to masculine!
Edward Pothier
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Evan
Guest
The gender of a word, does not necessarily relate to the sexual aspects of a person. Certainly, there is often an agreement. However there are also exceptions.
For example: agricola … from which we get agriculture, has never been though of as an occupation for women. Yet this is the Latin word for farmer. Always a man! So that when a farmer is written of, the adjectives that are associated with agricola (such as big farmer) would be declined as masculine, breaking the usual rules that adjectives must agree with the associated nouns.
Objects (such as wisdom) can have any gender: fauna and flora, both feminine mean animal and plant. Yet some animals are female some male. Some plants female, some male, and some are both!
For example: agricola … from which we get agriculture, has never been though of as an occupation for women. Yet this is the Latin word for farmer. Always a man! So that when a farmer is written of, the adjectives that are associated with agricola (such as big farmer) would be declined as masculine, breaking the usual rules that adjectives must agree with the associated nouns.
Objects (such as wisdom) can have any gender: fauna and flora, both feminine mean animal and plant. Yet some animals are female some male. Some plants female, some male, and some are both!
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DaveBj
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Excellent explanation, Edward. I can add nothing, and I am a card-carrying Language Geek
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Huiou_Theou
Guest
Solomon is considered the seeker of wisdom; In other books, for example, the introduction of the book is addressed to “my son” referring to the kings descendants;
The purpose of the books are to encourage young men to seek wisdom before seeking women. eg: In order for wisdom to be attractive, it is feminized. Men (and kings) chase after wisdom. Solomon, recall, had one downfall – he married 700 wives of foreign nations… (the number is symbolic), and that was something that God asked him not to do. The result was idolatrous practices came in with the extra wives…
At the end of one particular book, is the only reference made to a queen writing about what the properties are of the ideal wife; and if one notices phrases such as “blessed among women” – the perfect wisdom women characterizes what will later be said of the Blssd. virgin Mary. eg: The woman who made the seamless tunic for her son Jesus; who is praised for what she brings. etc.
Ultimately, a Wise woman is what God desires his church to be that his son may find delight in her.
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Sacred_Heart_1
Guest
Yes but the scriptures were written in Hebrew and the Jews were the ones that called Wisdom a woman. In other words, Solomon’s wisdom does not pertain to greece but to Israel. To put it in context, the question is, Why is Solomon, a jew calling wisdom a woman? The answer cannot be greece.
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Spirithound
Guest
Some would say yes, some would say that wisdom is a property of the intellect, and therefore the Logos of God, and so the Wisdom of God is Jesus.
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TimothyH
Guest
Some have perceived the spiritual/alegorical sense of scripture as wisdom pertaining to Mary.
Come to me, all who desire me,
and be filled with my fruits.
You will remember me as sweeter than honey,
better to have than the honeycomb.
Those who eat of me will hunger still,
those who drink of me will thirst for more.
Whoever obeys me will not be put to shame,
and those who serve me will never go astray.”
(Sirach 24:19-22)
For me, “be filled with my fruits” is evocative of the fruit of Mary’s womb, Jesus. Since the Word (logos) of God is Jesus, as you stated, I don’t think this is too far off.
I tend to look for Mary in the Wisdom literature. Then again, I tend to look for Mary everywhere.
-Tim-
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Dave_Noonan
Guest
Interesting (at least to me) is that John 1:1 is a midrash on this idea of personified Wisdom, present alongside God at creation in Proverbs 8 (Prov. 8:21-30, esp. 30). See also, of course, Gen. 1:1. The writer of the Gospel of John makes Wisdom masculine in the logos made flesh.
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GEddie
Guest
The Wisdom of Solomon was definitely written in Greek, and not by King Solomon, but in ca. 200 BC.
Because it was written in Greek, it is no longer used by Jews, having been dropped by the council of Yavneh in AD90. It was, however, in the Jewish Bible in our LORD’s day.
ICXC NIKA
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Huiou_Theou
Guest
In the Greek, words ending in alpha (a) do not always have to be feminine; There is a tendency of to take the alpha ending (eg: Pneum-a) to be considered neuter. The alpha ending, as feminine is part of a group of exceptions; The alpha ending tends to be used for words which are intrinsically collective; eg: where the singular is used to mean an entire group.
Another notable word of the same class is “pet-r-a”; This exception group are word stems/roots ending in epsilon-iota-or -rho; and these kinds of words may add an “a” ending, and these words are sometimes applied to males as well as females;
Take for example Matthew 16:18, where Petra is used to refer to Peter. (And if one takes it to be Jesus, it is still a male… even the heretics will be forced to agree!)
Since the word has a potential collective ending, Jesus used a very special construction to indicate that it meant specifically Peter – and not just any group of people; he said “This the petra;” meaning the rock already spoken about earlier in the sentence (Petr-os) – and not an entirely new group.
Another example is AmEr-a (day); To say “today” and not just any “day” one says, “this the day” (eg: the day already spoken of.)
In English the extra “the” from the Greek often translates as “very” as in “this very day”, or “this very rock.”
Yes, quite true.
That’s the letters Resh, Uav, cHet
(but listed from right to left, resh being the rightmost letter below?)
רוח
Re.Ua.CHe… → Ruach
Again pneuma is in an exception group (mu/nu); Words in the excpetion group e-i-r are typically thought “feminine”, although the word for male/husband “aner” also ends in the “r” letter.
Spirit (pneu-M-a) is in a similar exception group of mu-nu (and t,d,theta) which also tend be unpredictable in their exact masculine or feminine usage. eg: I am not sure the gender classification of exception groups is very strongly related to physical gender.
That would appear to be the case.Although, the body formed by the Holy Spirit to alight upon Jesus (Matth 3:16) is again in the Greek exception group e-i-Rho, ( which is more often than not considered feminine. )
περιστε-ρ-αν
Compared to the Vulgate’s:
“columbam” or columbas;
I hadn’t thought of it, but the Catholic men’s group known as “Knights of Columbas” are then considered “knights of doves” or perhaps peace?
Welcome to the forums, Edward…
–Andrew.
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