Moving Beyond Masculine Metaphors

A great furor has arisen over the Re-imagining Conference—dedicated to reconsidering the ways we “image” or conceptualize God—held in Minneapolis in November 1993. Gathered together from various religious bodies, women were encouraged to reflect on women’s experience and to use feminine imagery when speaking of God. While many participants found the conference stimulating, they have since been accused of ridiculing Christianity and of replacing it with goddess-worship.¹

Appealing to such biblical books as Proverbs, where Wisdom (Hebrew hokmah) is personified as a woman, conference delegates addressed God as Sophia, the Greek word for Wisdom. In the first part of the Book of Proverbs (chapters 1–9), those who seek wisdom are invited to choose between two women: the Strange Woman, who attempts to seduce people to follow her foolish and destructive ways, and the Wisdom Woman, who entices people to pursue ways leading to peace and joy. Wisdom—who is a prophetess like Miriam (Exodus 15:20), Deborah (Judges 4:4) and Huldah (2 Kings 22:14)—is portrayed standing in the marketplace, summoning people to mend their ways or face the consequences (Proverbs 1:20–33).

At first glance the personification of Wisdom as a woman appears to be a breakthrough, reaching beyond the masculinity associated with God in the Scriptures of ancient Israel. But as Kathleen O’Connor observes, this portrayal of wisdom “provides no safe haven for women.” “Both women,” she writes, “the Wisdom Woman and the Strange Woman…are stereotypes of womanhood as men envisioned it.”² Wisdom appeals to young men to “seek and find her” (Proverbs 8:17) to “love” and “embrace” her (Proverbs 4:6–8). These appeals are couched in erotic language, like the love poetry in the Song of Songs.³

The most profound personification of Wisdom is found in Proverbs 8:22–36 (see the sidebar “Wisdom’s Poem”), where she is again portrayed as a prophetess encouraging people to follow her ways. Her appeal takes on great urgency and power here because she is described as preexistent, present with God at the time of creation. The poem has its own literary structure.

The theme is stated in the poem’s initial lines, Proverbs 8:22–23: God created Wisdom “at the beginning of His work, the first of his acts of long ago” (New Revised Standard Version [NRSV]). The verb translated “created” is the same used of Eve’s creative labor, giving birth to Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:1), and of God’s fashioning the fetus in the womb (Psalm 139:13).

This maternal imagery continues in Proverbs 8:24–26, which says that in the beginning Wisdom was “brought forth,” or “given birth to” (the verb is used twice here). The poet speaks negatively of the situation before creation: There were “no depths,” “no springs abounding with water.” In this period, before there were mountains and hills, Wisdom was brought forth.

In the next movement of the poem, Proverbs 8:27–29, the language shifts from negations to positive creative actions. The verbs are verbs of ordering: God “established the heavens,” “made firm the skies above,” “assigned to the sea its limits.” The imagery shifts from the creativity of birth to construction and building, the architectural imagery used by the Voice from the Whirlwind in Job 38:8–11.

At the climax of the poem, Proverbs 8:30–31, Wisdom says that in the beginning she was “beside God, like a master worker” (NRSV) or “with Him as a confidant” (Jewish Publication Society) or “at his side each day, his darling and delight” (Revised English Bible [REB]). Unfortunately, the meaning is not altogether clear because of uncertainty about how to translate the key word ‘amon. Some favor a reading that means “little child, darling” (so REB), which would go well with the maternal imagery at the beginning of the poem; most translators opt for “craftsperson, master craftsman” (so NRSV, New International Version, New American Bible). Depending on which translation one follows, we are given a picture of Wisdom as a child playing before God at the time of creation or as an artisan assisting God in the planning and execution of the work of creation.

Several things should be said about this wonderful poem. First, at least at the start, maternal or womb imagery is boldly used. Wisdom is not explicitly called God’s “daughter,” but the poem verges on this meaning.

Second, Wisdom is portrayed as close to God but not as God in the full sense, and clearly not as a “goddess.” She is not coeternal with God, but is subordinate to God, “the first of God’s works” who preexists all else in creation. The language approaches the view of the Logos (Word) in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel (John 1:1–18). The Logos, however, is described as not only “with God” in the beginning (as was Wisdom according to Proverbs 8), but also as being “God” and thus fully divine.

Finally, Wisdom’s portrayal in the book of Proverbs is metaphorical. All our language about God, especially biblical language, is metaphorical. We say that “God is King” (not just “like a king”), or “God is Father,” or—although the language is not biblical—one might say “God is Mother.” As Gale Yee wisely writes in her essay on the poem in Proverbs 8: “The language used by our author is highly metaphorical, employing analogies from human experience to articulate the essentially incomprehensible nature of God and of God’s relationship with human beings. As the primary linguistic means through which we conceptualize Deity, metaphors by their very nature cannot define God; they cannot and should not be taken literally.”⁴

In conclusion, it should not be said that Sophia (or hokmah) is God or that there is a feminine dimension in the Godhead, for the holy God is beyond all our categories, including gender distinctions of masculine or feminine. The poem in Proverbs 8, however, invites us to break out of the masculine metaphors that have long dominated theology and to explore feminine images of God’s relationship to the world and to humankind.

(This column is an abridgement of a lecture given at the BAS Vacation Seminar, Marylhurst College, Marylhurst, Oregon, July 10–16, 1994).

A great furor has arisen over the Re-imagining Conference—dedicated to reconsidering the ways we “image” or conceptualize God—held in Minneapolis in November 1993. Gathered together from various religious bodies, women were encouraged to reflect on women’s experience and to use feminine imagery when speaking of God. While many participants found the conference stimulating, they have since been accused of ridiculing Christianity and of replacing it with goddess-worship.1 Appealing to such biblical books as Proverbs, where Wisdom (Hebrew hokmah) is personified as a woman, conference delegates addressed God as Sophia, the Greek word for Wisdom. In the first part of the […]