Wisdom Has Built Her House: Studies on the Figure of Sophia in the Bible

Abstract

Has Built Her House: Studies on the Figure of Sophia in the Bible, by Silvia Schroer. Translated by Linda Maloney and William McDonough. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000. Pp. x + 175. $24.95. Has Built Her House is a collection of essays written by Sylvia Schroer over a period of ten years, which are all connected by, the theme of Divine Wisdom, (Hokrui or Sophia) as it appears in the different texts of both the First and Second Testaments and some apocryphal books. The author addresses a rarely treated topic (particularly in feminist circles)-the figure of Divine from a feminist perspective. She aims at showing that there have been moments in the Judeo-Christian tradition when God was appropriated as Female (cf. personified/depicted as a woman or clothed in female imagery), an exercise that, in her view, was not in any way regarded as a threat to Israelite monotheism. In this regard Schroer makes this important remark, which forms the basis of her arguments in the essays of the book: Personified Hokmah is no attack on the ancient Israelite conviction-never fundamentally questioned in the tradition-that YHWH is the God of Israel. Nor do we find any attack on the belief, explicitly formulated since the exile, that absolutely no other gods exist beside YHWH. The writers appear not to have regarded it as in any way necessary to defend a correct monotheistic idea of Hokmah. Personified is instead the completely non-polemical attempt to set a feminine image of God in place of and alongside a masculine image, linking the God of Israel to the experience and the lives especially of the women in Israel, the Most High God to the realm of household religion, and beyond that to the images and roles of the Ancient Near Eastern goddesses. (p. 30; italics added) The author thus explores this mysterious figure-a slippery figure indeed, as Personified is sometimes depicted as a companion of God, and at times is portrayed as God, and at still other times is portrayed as being subject to God (particularly in a misogynist text such as the book of Sirach)-to give us another picture of Israelite religion. Israelites, particularly in moments of crisis (e.g., the exilic and the postexilic eras), could view their God also in female terms and also freely borrowed metaphors from the neighboring religions (cf the similarities with the ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic goddesses) without any embarrassment. Schroer (borrowing from Claudia Camp in her ground-breaking publication and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs [Sheffield: Almond, 1985]) argues that the literary portrayal of the God of Israel in female terms cannot have arisen out of a vacuum, but is an indication of the status of the women of Israel at the time. As in many moments/periods of crisis, the exilic and postexilic periods in Israel witnessed the elevation in the status of women. As builders of houses, women took it upon their shoulders to join the males in the rebuilding of Yehud in the postexilic period. Schroer argues that it is no wonder that it was precisely in this era that the Priestly author portrays both male and female as being created in the image of God (Gen 1:26). It is in this postmonarchic era that the locus of divine revelation had shifted from the king as mediator of the covenant between the people of Israel and YHWH to the family or the household (the sphere of women). Women as managers of households (cf. the eset hayil of Prov 31:10-31), household builders, and meal preparers feature significantly in this period. It is therefore no wonder that it is in this same period that YHWH is personified as a woman-God in female imagery! In her attempt to achieve her main objective, Schroer addresses different topics. In Wisdom on the Path of Righteousness (Proverbs 8:20), she shows that the Israelite faith in the connection between action and consequence (cf. also the African mentality in this regard) is not uniquely Israelite, but ancient Near Eastern. …