Appraising the Case for Wisdom Christology in John's Prologue

(avg. read time: 14–28 mins.)

Today, I would like to share a version of an article that I wrote that ultimately failed to get published when I submitted it to multiple journals back in 2016/2017. But I thought this could be of use to others who are interested in studies on biblical Christology and specifically on the matter of Wisdom Christology, which has drawn a lot of attention over the years. In fact, when this was reviewed, a full century had passed since the publication of J. Rendel Harris’s small but seminal volume on the origins of John 1:1–18, which he traced to a reconstructed hymn to personified Wisdom.¹ While most scholars since then have not necessarily adopted Harris’s source-critical argument, the vast majority of them have agreed—while making cases for associations of varying strengths—that the Johannine Prologue evokes descriptions and qualities of personified Wisdom when referring to the Word.² However, questions remain about the strength (or even validity) of these alleged connections between what John declares about the Word (as well as what it means to use the term to refer to Jesus) and what the OT and Second Temple texts declare about Wisdom. Since I aim to appraise the case for this association of Word and Wisdom, I lay out the purported evidence for this claim, present the key purported evidence and factors against it, and weigh the evidence accordingly.

The Evidence in Favor

Personified Wisdom in the Old Testament and Second Temple Literature

Theological statements about personified Wisdom surely have similarities with theological statements about figures from other cultures, such as Ma’at, as one would expect from wisdom literature.³ Like these figures, she represented the fundamental and proper ordering of the cosmos, the way to the good and righteous life, and insight/understanding necessary for knowing and following the divine will.⁴ But in the context of ancient Jewish theology, descriptions of personified Wisdom often serve the function of describing God and God’s action.⁵ These descriptions often seem to have arisen to address issues associated with the relationship between the transcendence and immanence/providence of the one God.⁶ Similarly, Paul Fiddes observes how personified Wisdom is both, “transcendent and immanent over against the world as its supreme observer, and within the world as its means of coherence and community. Wisdom in this second aspect participates in the world and invites participation in her life, and so in the life of God whose wisdom she personifies.”⁷ As such, Wisdom was an important figure for holding together beliefs that God is both the sovereign Creator who exists beyond creation and the faithful covenant-keeper whose providence the Jews knew in their history and hoped for in their future.

I cannot spell out in full detail the descriptors and narrative elements these texts attached to personified Wisdom.⁸ However, an overview of the functions of Wisdom and the qualities various texts ascribe to her is necessary. Wisdom represents God’s intended order of creation and the guide to that order (hence the close association of wisdom with the fear of God: Job 28:28; Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Wis 6:17–20; Sir 1:14–20; 15:1; 19:20; 4Q525 V, 9–13).⁹ Perhaps the most succinct summary of the conceptual function of personified Wisdom is, to paraphrase James D. G. Dunn, that she is the creative, revelatory, and salvific action of the one God in the initial and continued ordering of creation.¹⁰ Given this definition of Wisdom, she often has roles in doxological, ethical, and eschatological contexts.¹¹ In other words, descriptions about her and admonitions to seek her serve the purposes of glorifying God as the sovereign Creator, calling all who would listen to live a life consistent with the recognition of God’s revealed identity, and, in the later works, articulating Israel’s hopes of renewal and deliverance (Job 28; Prov 1:20–33; 3:13–20; 8 [esp. vv. 22–31]; 9:1–6; Wisdom passim [esp. 7—9]; Sir 1:4–20; 4:11–19; 6:18–31; 14:20–15:10; 24; 51:13–30; Bar 3:9–4:4; 1 En. 42; Hel. Syn. Pr. 3:16, 19; 4:7, 38; 5:1–3; 12:36; 4Q525 2 II + 3; Philo, Leg. 1.63–65; 2.49; Cher. 49; Det. 54, 115–117; Ebr. 31; Conf. 49; Her. 53, 199, 205–206; Congr. 12–13; Fug. 97, 108–109; Somn. 1.75; 2.242; Spec. 1.81; Prob. 13, 117 [cf. Ps 104:24; Sir 42:21–25; 1QHa IX, 7–20]).¹²

Like many figures in the ancient Near East associated with wisdom, Lady Wisdom is a feminine character. On one level, this fact is a result of the Hebrew and Greek languages assigning feminine gender to the nouns translated as “wisdom”–חכמה and σοφία, respectively. On another level, the engendering of Wisdom serves literary/theological functions. To present a feminine figure in terms similar to the wisdom figures of other cultures would be to present her as a contrast and counter to them.¹³ Furthermore, in a patriarchal culture, describing Wisdom in feminine terms makes her desirable as a mother or companion/wife (depending on the context).¹⁴

There has been an ongoing discussion over whether Wisdom functions as a literary personification or as a hypostasis (i.e., a, “quasi-personification of certain attributes proper to God, occupying an intermediate position between personalities and abstract beings”).¹⁵ In many texts, scholars recognize that Wisdom is a personification of an attribute of God or of an attribute God placed into creation. However, in the case of Wisdom of Solomon, for example, it is possible that Wisdom is an uncreated hypostasis. There are many indications in this text that would lead to the identification of Wisdom with God (such as the smooth transition from ch. 10 in terms of the action of Wisdom to chs. 11–19 in terms of the action of God), but the text also indicates that Wisdom is in some degree distinct from being strictly/exhaustively identical to God (7:7, 15, 22–23, 26; 8:3–8, 21; 9:1–3, 6, 9–13, 16–18).¹⁶ In the words of N. T. Wright, this measure of distinction “enabled one to speak of the one god active in his world without committing the solecism of suggesting that this god was somehow contained within this action, or indeed within the world.”¹⁷ Unlike hypostases in polytheistic religions, she is never truly independent from God.

Wisdom also overlaps with, and is sometimes identical to, the Word of God (Wis 1:4; 9:1–2, 4; 18:14–16; Sir 24:3; Philo, Leg. 1.63–65; Her. 191, 205–206; Fug. 97; Somn. 2.242, 245), the Spirit of God (Wis 1:4–10; 9:17–18; 1 En. 49:3), and the Torah (Sir 24; Bar 3:37–4:4; 4Q525 2 II + 3; cf. 2 Bar. 38; 46:4–5; 48:2–9, 24). Wisdom and Word both serve creative, revelatory, and salvific roles. Wisdom, like the Spirit, is the witnessing, salvific, and communing presence of God in creation. The association of Wisdom with Torah demonstrates a belief that God has given an ethical structure to creation and that Israel in particular has received insight into that structure as the people who are to fulfill God’s creative intention for humanity.¹⁸

Also of interest are specific qualities of Wisdom. Wisdom 7–9 represents the most sustained effort at describing her qualities and the section of 7:22–23 alone contains twenty-one such features. For the sake of space, this study focuses on qualities most relevant to the comparison to John’s Prologue. Whether she is the first creation of God (as in Sirach) or more closely linked with God (as in Wisdom of Solomon), Wisdom is preexistent (Prov 8:22–31; Wis 8:3; 9:4, 9; Sir 24:3; Philo, Cher. 49 cf. Sir 1:4–10; 24:9), a companion of God at the beginning of creation (thus providing access to God’s creative intention).¹⁹ She is typically a mediator/messenger for God, but at times she functions more directly as a means of describing God (Wis 7:22–27; 9:10; 10—19). One of her most commonly cited roles is God’s “coworker” or medium in creation (Prov 3:19–20; 8:22–31; Wis 7:22; 8:5–6; 9:1–4; Sir 24:8; Hel. Syn. Pr. 3:16, 19; 4:7, 38; 12:36; Philo, Leg. 2.49; Det. 54; Ebr. 31; Fug. 97, 108–109). In turn, this role provides the grounding of her redemptive power and her ability to give her seeker cosmological and ethical wisdom. She is thus the source of inextinguishable light and unconquerable life for whoever seeks her (Prov 3:16–18; 8:35–36; 9:5–6; Wis 6:17–20; 7:10, 26–30; 8:13, 17; Sir 4:12; 15:3, 6; 24:19–21, 27, 32; Bar 3:14; 4:1–2; Philo, Det. 115–117; Fug. 97, 108–109). She is often the one who comes down into the world to seek whoever will listen to her, but she sometimes experiences rejection (Prov 1:20–33; 8; 9:1–6; Wis 6:12–20; 9:9–18; Sir 24:3–12, 19–22; Bar 3:20–21; 4:1–2; 1 En. 42). Because of her association with God and her redemptive power, she is able to make seekers friends of God (Wis 6:18–20; 7:14, 27–30; 9:17–18; Sir 1:11–13, 19; 4:13–14; cf. Philo, Post. 136–38). She is also the manifestation of God’s glory (Wis 7:10, 25–26; 10:15–21; cf. 9:10; Sir 4:13; 24:1–2), which is fitting if she is a means of expressing God’s dwelling among the chosen people (cf. Exod 40:34–35; Num 14:10; 1 Kgs 8:10–11; Pss 26:8; 102:16; Jer 17:12; Ezek 10:4) She dwells in Israel in the temple and Torah, guiding Israel as she had done in the exodus (Wis 10:15–21; Sir 1:10; 24:8, 10, 23; Bar 3:37–4:4).²⁰ In sum, she has a unique relationship with God and only she can reveal God (Wis 7:22; 8:4–8; 9:9–13, 16–18).

Wisdom and the Word in John

John’s Prologue was perhaps the single most influential biblical text for early Christian articulations of Christology. One manifestation of this influence was in shaping how early Christians read Wisdom texts in light of the Prologue and in turn referred to Jesus as Wisdom while discussing or alluding to the Prologue.²¹ That fact alone should prompt examination of this passage for possible Wisdom Christology and many scholars have undertaken that process of examination. The following summarizes those results.²²

First, the qualities John ascribes to Jesus/the Word certainly seem to echo what his predecessors had proclaimed about Wisdom, though there are Johannine mutations. The Word was preexistent, one who was with God in the beginning (John 1:1–2, 15).²³ The use of πρὸς + the accusative in the first two verses has inspired much discussion on its translation since, if the typical translation of “with” is correct, one might expect a more typical prepositional construction for that function (such as in Prov 8:30 [παρά+ dative] and Wis 9:9 [μετά + genitive]). While some have argued that the πρὸς construction is equivalent to the παρά construction in Koine, they have still suggested that the best translations of this construction would represent both senses of accompaniment and active relationship.²⁴ Rudolf Schnackenburg sees here a development beyond the Wisdom tradition in that there is a more intertwined union and communion than what personified Wisdom has in relation to God.²⁵

If this text is a development of Wisdom theology, it would make sense of the balance between distinction and identification in v. 1, and the Gospel’s overall expression of Jesus as the embodiment of the one God who also identified God as Father and Spirit. On the other side of that balance, the Prologue also differs from previous Wisdom traditions in its explicit and direct statement that the Jesus was God (1:1), applying the state-of-being verb rather than using imagery to hint at identification.²⁶

Like Wisdom, the Word participated in creation and was the one through whom all that exists/happened came to be (1:3–4, 10). If the majority opinion is correct that these statements concern the initial creation (which then move into salvation-history), the potential connection with Wisdom theology is clear. But even if one follows the minority view that these texts concern salvation history, a possible connection exists with the latter half of the Wisdom of Solomon.²⁷ Similarly, the Prologue declares the Word to be the source of unconquerable light and life, the, “existence that acts in accordance with the will and purpose of God” (1:4–5, 9).²⁸ He came to bring this life into the world to his own people, but the world and his own people did not recognize him (1:10–11, 14).²⁹ While Wisdom could make followers friends of God, John states that the Word makes his followers children of God (1:12–13). The disciples have witnessed the glory of Jesus as the manifestation of God’s glory (1:14, 17). He came from the Father to dwell (or “tabernacle”) among his people as human (1:14, 16–18).³⁰ In sum, he had a unique relationship with God, his Father, so that only he could reveal God to others and establish fellowship between God and humans (1:14, 18).³¹

Second, if Jesus is Wisdom incarnate, statements about Jesus naturally overlap with–and sometimes supersede–statements about associated agencies of God. The clearest demonstration of this association is the appellation of “Word” pervading the Prologue, even though many of these descriptions also apply to Wisdom. The plot of the Prologue and its closing verses in particular echo descriptions of Torah and compare Jesus with Torah.³² The Prologue expresses no clear relationship between Jesus and the Spirit, but it appears in chs. 14–16 in language that evokes the relationship between Wisdom and Spirit.³³

Third, the incarnation and engendering of the Word evokes the functions of similar Wisdom language. The femininity of Wisdom has disappeared since the historical Word was a male (so too the linguistic function of the feminine descriptors has disappeared). Still, it seems that the theological and literary functions of the feminine language remain operational in John. Theologically, for all of its resonances within Judaism, the appellation of “Word” also serves as a bridging concept with other cultures of the time, pointing to the true Word about which others spoke but never knew.³⁴ On the literary level, John presents the attractiveness of Jesus in terms of glory, light, and life. Probably the best illustration of this fact is that in John, “Jesus does not so much call disciples as attracts them by a sort of spiritual gravity and they seek him out.”³⁵

Fourth, the aforementioned summary of Wisdom as the creative, revelatory, and salvific action of the one God in the initial and continued ordering of creation also serves as a fitting summary for the Prologue’s description of Jesus. Though, in the Prologue this “continued ordering” seems to be in the forms of salvation history (1:3–13), new creation, and the formation of the community that embodies that new creation through its ties to the one who inaugurates the new creation (1:14–18). The Prologue also resonates the general doxological, ethical, and eschatological functions of Wisdom language. The Prologue is not doxological in form, nor is there explicit doxological language, but in the sense that it it proclaims the Word’s sovereignty, life-giving power, unequaled enlightening revelation, identity as the proper recipient of faith, the glorious presence of God among humans, the enactor of God’s grace and truth, and the one and only exegete of God, it still provides the substance from which declarations of praise and worship are composed. It also has ethical dimensions in that the combination of the elements of light and life entails that there is a proper response of action, namely of faith, to the revelation of the light (1:4–5, 9, 12–13). Finally, it has eschatological resonance in that Jesus is the climactic revelation of God whose coming fulfills expectations of God’s coming (and thus is superior to Moses as covenant mediator) and his work from “the beginning” ultimately leads to his incarnation to redeem and to restore creation (1:14–18).³⁶

The Evidence in Opposition

Though the evidence for this association—and at times identification—of personified Wisdom and John’s Word has received widespread endorsement in scholarship, a minority has emphasized the case against the association. None of these scholars have articulated their case to the same extent as some of the ones who favor the claim of association, so this review section is not as long as the previous one. However, these scholars have highlighted important factors that either undermine the strength of the alleged connection or undercut it altogether, factors which the majority of scholars rarely address. These factors include: 1) specificity/explicitness, 2) the incarnation of Jesus as opposed to the personification of Wisdom, 3) the beginning of Wisdom as opposed to the eternality of the Word, 4) the differences in salvific roles, 5) the diversity of Wisdom traditions, 6) the lack of a clearly developed storyline for Wisdom on par with Jesus, and 7) the possibility that similarities between Jesus and Wisdom may lend themselves to a paradigm of supersession.³⁷

1) The Early Church often described Jesus as Wisdom in reference to this Prologue, but if John meant to evoke the context of Wisdom theology, why did he never refer to Jesus as “Wisdom”? Is not the more consonant Word theology a more fitting context for understanding the Prologue? Andreas Köstenberger, for example, argues that the terminological and imagistic links favor the Old Testament descriptions of the Word of God (especially in Isa 55) as the context for understanding John’s reference to the Word.³⁸ Furthermore, John’s key emphasis in the opening line that Jesus was God is more explicit in terms of identification than any Wisdom text claims.

2) Unlike the Word in the Prologue, Wisdom never became incarnate in any antecedent texts. The closest analogue was the “embodiment” (loosely speaking) of Wisdom in Torah in Sir 24.³⁹ Of course, this kind of statement is without true precedent in Jewish writings, even in the case of the Word of God. But at least in the case of the Word, its connection to Torah—as the previously supreme Word of God—makes it more obviously useful for expressing the theme of Jesus’s revelatory and salvific supremacy.

3) Unlike the Word, the Wisdom texts declare a beginning for Wisdom, even if that beginning was before creation. Sirach expresses this point well enough and the LXX translation of Prov 8:22 proved to be a boon to the case of Arianism and a burden to the case of Trinitarianism centuries later as the patristic theologians made the identification between Jesus and Wisdom.⁴⁰ Once again, the association with Wisdom seems to face an obstacle in the Prologue’s key statements.

4) The salvific role of Wisdom in the history of Israel is that of deliverer from trials and enemies (as in the exodus). Outside of historical considerations, one might describe Wisdom’s salvific work as illumination and ethical guidance. But Jesus’s salvific work has a more distinctly eschatological character, which includes salvation from an individual’s sins, the dispensation of eternal life, and reconstitution of the people of God around himself.

5) Despite the limitations of my own overview, it should be clear enough that there was no unified conception of personified Wisdom by the time John wrote his Gospel. Thus, at the least, one cannot argue simplistically that Jesus embodied and fulfilled beliefs about Wisdom in John’s Prologue. One would have to specify which Wisdom one is referring to or which aspects of the diverse Wisdom tradition might serve as a precedent.

6) Source-critical theories—such as those of Rudolf Bultmann (positing a Gnostic redeemer myth as the ultimate source for the alleged Wisdom connections) and J. Rendel Harris (positing a Wisdom hymn as the source for most of the text as it is)—attempt to identify a pre-existing narrative of Wisdom that John adopts for the Prologue.⁴¹ However, this particular way of connecting the Prologue and Wisdom theology falters by attempting to construct a Gospel-like narrative where there was none by the time of John.⁴² Even in the case of the narrative in Wisdom 10—19, the story is not like the Gospel or the Prologue so much as it is a review of the history of Israel.

7) Karen Jobes in particular argues that John’s refusal to use Wisdom terminology, despite the similarities with Wisdom traditions, may be a deliberate effort on John’s part to identify Jesus as the one superior to Wisdom, the one who supersedes all other forms of Wisdom.⁴³ If true, this claim would be a subtler form of the general Johannine theme of Jesus’s superiority to Jewish institutions as their fulfillment and functional replacement. Yet, a potential problem for this argument would be that John apparently makes this point by implicit reference when he makes a similar point in relation to Torah by explicit reference.

Furthermore, Ed L. Miller in particular has called into question the quest for the origin of the Johannine Word in the various proposed backgrounds.⁴⁴ He questions the methodology of these proposals since one method has led to numerous claimed backgrounds (which can be divergent and incompatible), many of the proposals have endemic problems (such as the dating of the sources), the striking differences that proponents of parallels overlook, and many of the theories are incompatible with John as a whole.⁴⁵ Therefore, he argues for the origin of the Prologue’s concept of the Word in the Fourth Gospel itself. Even so, as a closing note, he does not deny that certain traditions—particularly biblical traditions about the Word and Wisdom of God—may have affected the development of this christological concept.⁴⁶

Appraisal

The evidence for this association is extensive, appealing to multiple kinds of evidence, and the connections are many as well as deep. It is not surprising that the proposed background of Wisdom theology has garnered as many proponents as it has. On the other hand, the case against the association draws attention to factors that undermine less nuanced forms of the case in favor of the association, such as Harris’s source-critical argument. At the least, no version of the case in favor can succeed if it does not take sufficient account of John’s Christian originality and the fact that the similarities have new layers of significance in this Gospel framework. But does some version of the case against the association overwhelm any case for connecting Wisdom in Second Temple Judaism and the Word in John’s Prologue?

In response to Miller’s claim that the search for parallels dilutes and confuses the Johannine concept of the Word, Craig Evans has identified a few problems:

First, these diverse backgrounds are hardly on the same footing.… Secondly, attempts to uncover the pre-Johannine antecedents are hardly “misplaced”, but are prerequisites to any exegesis. By definition exegesis is concerned with full context, and that includes the theological and literary antecedents to any passage.… Thirdly, other than obviously wrong-headed attempts (such as those of Bultmann and his successors), these attempts do not “dilute and confuse the original meaning”.⁴⁷

Evans is one scholar who has done extensive work in his study of backgrounds such as Wisdom and Word theology in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism to address Miller’s methodological concerns. Miller’s only criticism that might be applicable to the Wisdom thesis is the overlooked differences in alleged parallels. While differences do not necessarily undermine the case for a connection, the question remains as to whether the cited differences between John’s Christology and Wisdom theology are so great as to undermine the posited connection.

One should not disregard the consonant Word of God traditions in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism, but one should also not underestimate the strength of influence from the Wisdom traditions. Attempts to advance one thesis over the other by contrasting them too strongly—as Rudolf Bultmann and Andreas Köstenberger do from different angles—fail to account for how closely the traditions can mesh together, such as in Wisdom of Solomon and Philo, and the similar functions Word theology and Wisdom theology had.⁴⁸ Köstenberger in particular provides the way to overcome his critique when he writes, “Yet to say that Isaiah’s theology of the Word of God … is the conceptual background for John’s logos doctrine does not mean that John merely took over this theology without further refinement or development.… Thus John utilizes a concept from Isaiah and applies it to Jesus in constructing his own distinctive Christology.”⁴⁹ This same principle applies in response to most potential criticisms of the Wisdom thesis, if the case for it is strong enough. On the other hand, the attempt to contrast Word and Wisdom by claiming that the latter is a creation of God/part of the created order is a reductive picture of Wisdom traditions, since several texts attest to a notion of Wisdom as being a personified attribute of God (thus being God’s eternal “possession”) and a companion of God in the beginning. The methodological objection of drawing a picture of Wisdom from diverse traditions and treating them as one tradition need not undermine the case as long as scholars in favor of it make an adjustment. The diversity of traditions proves that there were many ideas about Wisdom circulating at the time and the earliest Christians could have found some ideas more fruitful than others in terms of articulating what they believed about Jesus. Furthermore, when critics point to the fact that Wisdom never has an incarnation, this counter is only helpful for noting that John is not simply superimposing Jesus on a Wisdom template, but it is not an effective defeater of other forms of the Wisdom thesis since the Incarnation is an area in which New Testament theology breaks through all Jewish molds of the time. The points where John goes beyond the Wisdom traditions need not count against his usage of those traditions if there are other reasons to think he is using them.

Perhaps the most fundamental obstacle to the case in favor is that John refers to Jesus as “Word,” but simply never refers to him as “Wisdom.” In the end, no case in favor of this connection can succeed without accounting for why all of the apparent similarities between Jesus and Wisdom nevertheless lead John to call him something else. A few possible reasons for this fact present themselves.

First, a simple reason may be that λόγος is a masculine noun while σοφία is a feminine noun, the former seeming more appropriate for Jesus.⁵⁰ Of course, as Jobes observes, John 14:6 stands in the way of this point being a sufficient reason for avoiding σοφία because, “Truth, like Sophia, was a hypostatized female entity in classical Greek thought.”⁵¹ Matthew and Luke similarly attribute Wisdom claims to Jesus, with neither of them seeing his maleness as an obstacle to this usage (Matt 11:19; Luke 11:49).

Second, Masanobu Endo suggests instead that John’s terminological preference relates to the Prologue’s eschatological elements and the God’s eschatological word in Isa 40–55.⁵² This argument is a more extended articulation of Köstenberger’s aforementioned point about the Word of God context, though Endo does not deny the Wisdom context. Rather, “Word” seemingly has a stronger eschatological resonance than “Wisdom,” which would make it a more appropriate appellation if my analysis about the Prologue’s characteristics is correct.

Third, for some traditions—such as Wisdom of Solomon and Philo, with which John may have stronger affinities than most Wisdom traditions—Wisdom and Word were closely connected, sometimes to the point of interchangeability. This point is unsurprising given that Wisdom and Word had several overlapping functions.⁵³ But once again, it cannot in itself explain the exclusive use of “Word” as a reference to Jesus in the Prologue.

Fourth, to call Jesus “Word” rather than “Wisdom” could be more relevant to the theme of John that Jesus is the fulfillment of and the superior functional replacement for the Torah, the previously known Word of God.⁵⁴ This reason in particular creates a strong argument—in combination with the following reason—for why strong similarities exist, but the terminology is different. Jobes’s aforementioned argument is questionable as it is, but it could be strengthened following this path. It would help explain why one term appears and the other does not, despite John apparently expressing the same theme with both explicit reference (in the case of “Word”) and implicit reference (in the case of “Wisdom”).

Fifth, “Word” has more inclusive connotations than “Wisdom” or “Torah” and John seems to evoke associations with both of the latter terms that would fall under the heading of “Word.”⁵⁵ As D. A. Carson has suggests from a different angle, “the lack of Wisdom terminology in John’s Gospel suggests that the parallels between Wisdom and John’s Logos may stem less from direct dependence than from common dependence on Old Testament uses of ‘word’ and Torah, from which both have borrowed.”⁵⁶ John is conveying more about Jesus than he could with Wisdom language and while Word language itself needed retooling for the context of his Gospel, it remains a broader and more useful category for his dense theological claims.

Sixth, the term “Word” has an association with the gospel story and the term conveys speech as well as action. Thus, to call Jesus “the Word” is to communicate that he is both the medium of the message and the embodied message itself. John conveys this point throughout his Gospel with how he juxtaposes events in Jesus’s life—especially the signs—to statements about his identity using the same imagery, such as raising the dead to life and being the resurrection and the life.⁵⁷ Also, many of John’s uses of the word λόγος refer directly to the gospel message or to Jesus’s word being the Father’s word (John 4:41, 50; 5:24, 38; 8:31, 37, 43, 51, 55; 12:48; 14:23–24; 15:3, 20; 17:6, 14, 17, 20). These elements of John’s Gospel comport better with an introduction identifying Jesus as Word than with one identifying Jesus as Wisdom.

Seventh, while σοφία may have a natural association with the notion of the divine plan/purpose (in that the plan is a result or function of God’s wisdom), λόγος has a more direct link with that notion.⁵⁸ After all, “plan” and “purpose” are possible meanings of the Greek term and its Hebrew equivalent. And this notion of Jesus’s coming being a result of God’s plan/purpose is at work throughout the Gospel (John 1:3–4, 6–9, 12–18; 1:45; 2:22; 3:14–17; 5:39, 45–47; 6:14, 32–60; 7:25–43, 52; 8:14–18, 22–24, 42–47; 10:32–38; 12:13–16, 36–41; 13:1–3, 18; 15:25–26; 16:27–30; 17:8, 12, 18–21; 19:24, 28, 36–37; 20:9).

With the multitude of connections between Jewish Wisdom theology and the Prologue’s Christology at the levels of ascribed qualities, associated agencies, functions of Wisdom terminology, and basic conceptual functions of personified Wisdom, the case in favor seems too strong to dismiss. The possible responses to the case against it also seem adequately strong enough to overcome objections. The many proponents of the case in favor have presented plausible reasoning for the belief that Wisdom theology informs the Christology in the Prologue.

Yet, caution and restraint are necessary here because, for all of the possible and probable connections, John never explicitly identifies the Word as Wisdom. While Wisdom theology can make many features of the Prologue more comprehensible, it cannot explain the Prologue as a whole. If John makes the connection between Jesus the Word and personified Wisdom, such is not his ultimate purpose in any case. The case in favor of the association works best when it is less of a theory on the origins of the Prologue’s Christology and more of an analysis of John’s language that understands whatever resonances there may be in terms of John’s purpose in using that language. As such Daniel J. Ebert’s evaluation seems eminently reasonable, “At best, the background Wisdom material provided language to express truths about Christ, especially in his revelatory and creative functions. These Christological concepts were already assumed by the earliest church on other grounds.”⁵⁹ Likewise, Carson suggests that,

The wealth of possible backgrounds to the term logos in John’s Prologue suggests that the determining factor is not this or that background but the church’s experience of Jesus Christ. This is not to say the background is irrelevant. It is to say, rather, that when Christians looked around for suitable categories to express what they had come to know of Jesus Christ, many that they applied to him necessarily enjoyed a plethora of antecedent associations.⁶⁰

The resonances with Wisdom theology are most likely present because John found that language useful to articulate Jesus’s pre-incarnation work, his function as the supreme divine self-revelation, his provision of divine/eschatological life, and his relationship to the world as well as to Israel.

Conclusion

The arguments against the association give scholars reason to exercise due caution when assessing the possible connections between Wisdom theology and Johannine Christology, but the arguments in favor are too strong to deny that some connection exists. The many parallel qualities of Jesus and Wisdom are striking, but one should not lose sight of what John conveys when he moves beyond the parallels. The agencies of God associated with both Jesus and Wisdom indicate that Johannine Christology relates to the constellations of ideas concerning divine agency in the Second Temple period, but the key to the Prologue is the incarnation of Jesus, which extends the salvation-historical role of Jesus in a direction without precedent among these personified divine attributes or hypostases. The parallels in terminological function suggest an undergirding continuity with Wisdom theology, but the difference in gender for Wisdom and the Word is a result of the incarnation, the greatest discontinuity. The similarities in conceptual function reinforce the depth of the connections between Wisdom and the Word, but one must remember that these functions serve different purposes in their different contexts, particularly since the Prologue belongs to a work that is Christocentric in ways that no text is Sophia-centric.

1. J. Rendel Harris, The Origin of the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917).

2. Among many others, see John Ashton, Studying John: Approaches to the Fourth Gospel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 5–35; George R. Beasley-Murray, John, WBC 36 (Waco, TX: Word, 1987), 8–10; Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel of John (I-XII), AB 29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), cxxii–cxxv, 521–23; Rudolf Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes, KEK 2/17 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962), 8–15; James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 240–45; Eldon Jay Epp, “Wisdom, Torah, Word: The Johannine Prologue and the Purpose of the Fourth Gospel,” in Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation: Studies in Honor of Merrill C. Tenney Presented by His Former Students, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 130–37; Craig A. Evans, Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue, JSNTSup 89 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993), 83–94; Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 338–55; Sharon H. Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends: Community and Christology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999), 46–53; Rudolf Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangelium: Einleitung und Kommentar zu Kap. 1—4, HThKNT 4 (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1965), 207–13, 218, 257–69; Martin Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Jesus, JSNTSup 71 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1992); Hermann von Lips, Weisheitliche Traditionen im Neuen Testament, WMANT 64 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1990), 308–17; William C. Weinrich, John 1:1-7:1, ConcC (St. Louis: Concordia, 2015), 128–29, 132, 178, 184–89; Michael E. Willett, Wisdom Christology in the Fourth Gospel (San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992); Ben Witherington III, Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 283–88, 368–80; N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, vol. 1 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 410–17.

3. Beasley-Murray, John, 8–9; Dunn, Christology, 169–70; Keener, John, 348; Scott, Sophia, 37–44, 67–75, 79–80; Alice M. Sinnott, The Personification of Wisdom (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 10–52; David Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon, AB 43 (New York: Doubleday, 1979), 34–35; Witherington, Jesus the Sage, 41, 108.

4. Cf. Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), 154–57.

5. Shannon Burkes, “Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Wisdom of Solomon,” HTR 95 (2002): 36–37; Irmtraud Fischer, Gotteslehrerinnen: Weise Frauen und Frau Weisheit im Alten Testament (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2006), 176–78, 208; Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, 44; Scott, Sophia, 63–64, 76–77; Witherington, Jesus the Sage, 18–19, 22–23, 39, 48.

6. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 16–17; Paul S. Fiddes, “Wisdom and the Spirit: The Loss and Re-making of a Relationship,” PRSt 41 (2014): 159; Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism, 2nd ed. (London: T & T Clark, 1998), 20; Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, 42; Willett, Wisdom, 27–28; Wright, New Testament, 258–59.

7. Fiddes, “Wisdom,” 153.

8. For composite sketches of Wisdom, see Brown, John, cxxii–cxxv; Dunn, Christology, 172–73; Evans, Word, 93; Hurtado, One God, 44; Keener, John, 355; von Lips, Weisheitliche Traditionen, 153; Witherington, Jesus the Sage, 114–15.

9. Hurtado, One God, 49–50; Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, AB 39 (New York: Doubleday, 1987), 171–72.

10. Dunn, Christology, 173, 209–10. Cf. D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, PNTC (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 116; Winston, Wisdom, 42.

11. Cornelis Bennema, “The Strands of Wisdom Tradition in Intertestamental Judaism: Origin, Developments and Characteristics,” TynBul 52 (2001): 61–82, esp. 68–69, 71–73; Maurice Gilbert, Ben Sira: Recueil D’Études – Collected Essays, BETL 264 (Leuven: Peeters, 2014), 281–97; cf. Masanobu Endo, Creation and Christology: A Study on the Johannine Prologue in the Light of Early Jewish Creation Accounts, WUNT 2/149 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002). Wisdom of Solomon (which arguably gives the most significant role to Wisdom of any single book) draws doxological, ethical, and eschatological contexts together.

12. 1 Enoch 49 and Pss. Sol. 17:22–23, 29 do not feature Wisdom in her typical personification, but she is more or less personified in the form of the Son of Man and Messiah. On connections between wisdom traditions and apocalypticism, see Bennema, “Strands,” 74–77; Burkes, “Wisdom,” 21–44.

13. Sinnott, Personified, 152–54, 166–70.

14. Sinnott, Personified, 21; Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends, 31; Scott, Sophia, 74–75. The former image appears in texts such as Sir 4:11–19; Philo, Cher. 49; Ebr. 31; Conf. 49; Her. 53; Fug. 108–109. The latter image appears in Proverbs with its contrast between Lady Wisdom and Dame Folly.

15. Dunn, Christology, 168. On the debate, see Dunn, Christology, 168–76; Keener, John, 353; Sinnott, Personified, 18–24; von Lips, Weisheitliche Traditionen, 153–55, 158–62; von Rad, Wisdom, 147, 170–71; Winston, Wisdom, 34; Witherington, Jesus the Sage, 38, 108–9.

16. Ashton, Studying John, 15, 31; Bauckham, Jesus, 16–17.

17. Wright, New Testament, 259.

18. Beasley-Murray, John, 9; Epp, “Wisdom,” 133–35; Fischer, Gotteslehrerinnen, 204–7; Gilbert, Ben Sira, 161–64; Hurtado, One God, 42–44; Keener, John, 355; Sinnott, Personified, 132–42; von Lips, Weisheitliche Traditionen, 161–62, 310–11; Witherington, Jesus the Sage, 85–86.

19. On the translation of קנה in Prov 8:22 as “possessed” rather than “created,” see Andrew E. Steinmann, Proverbs, ConcC (St. Louis: Concordia, 2009), 206-7, 225-29. In contrast, see Sinnott, Personified, 25–29. Also see Gilbert, Ben Sira, 157–61; Karen H. Jobes, “Sophia Christology: The Way of Wisdom?” in The Way of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Bruce K. Waltke, ed. J. I. Packer and Sven K. Soderlund (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 230–32.

20. On the Baruch text and its connection to Torah, especially by means of Deut 30, see Sinnott, Personification, 91–98.

21. Hel. Syn. Pr. 12:10; Odes Sol. 12:5 (cf. Wis 7:23–24); Justin, Dial. 61; 100 ; 126; 129; Pseudo-Ignatius, Ep. Mary at Neapolis 3 (cf. Prov 8:17); Ep. Tarsians 6 (cf. Prov. 8:22–23, 25); Theophilus, Autol. 2.10, 22; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.1; 7.2; Tertullian, Prax. 6–7; Herm. 18; 20; Origen, Comm. Jo. 1.11, 17, 22, 34, 39; Princ. 1.2; Cyprian, Test. 2.1–3; Victorinus of Pettau, Comm. Apoc. 1.13; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.2.3; Athanasius, Hen. sōm. 12–13; Inc. 16; 19; 31–32; 46; 48; C. Ar. 1.6, 19; 2.18, 36–37; 3.30; Decr. 3.13; Exp. Fid. 3–4; Dion. 15; Hilary of Poitiers, Trin. 1.35; 4.11, 21; 12.44; Basil the Great, Ep. 8.4, 6, 8; Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 30.2; Gregory of Nyssa, Eun. 2.10; 3.2; Ambrose, Fid. 1.15.96; 3.7; Augustine, Tract. Ev. Jo. 1.16–17; Doctr. chr. 1.12, 34; Trin. 1.12; Conf. 7.21; Cyril of Alexandria, Comm. Jo. 1.13, 23–24, 46–47, 52, 53, 97.

22. I continue to identify “John” as the author of the Prologue as a matter of convenience, since none of the analysis requires a specific position on authorship.

23. On the connection with Wisdom and the function of this idea in the rest of the Gospel, see Willett, Wisdom, 50–56.

24. Brown, John, 4-5; Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 27; John F. McHugh, John 1–4, ICC (London: T&T Clark International, 2009), 9; Herman Ridderbos, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 25. In contrast, see Weinrich, John, 132–33.

25. Schnackenburg, Johannesevangelium, 210–11.

26. On the famous article issue associated with this verse, see Beasley-Murray, John, 11; Brown, John, 24–25; Keener, John, 373; McHugh, John, 9; Weinrich, John, 94–95; Ben Witherington III, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament, vol. 1 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 554.

27. On the salvation-historical interpretation, see Ashton, Studying John, 22–25; McHugh, John, 15, 103–7; Ed L. Miller, Salvation-History in the Prologue of John: The Significance of John 1:3/4, NovTSup 60 (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 72–86, 97–103; Weinrich, John, 136-40. On salvation history in wisdom literature, see von Lips, Weisheitliche Traditionen, 41–45, 151–52; Willett, Wisdom, 37.

28. Weinrich, John, 142. Cf. Brown, John, 8; Carson, John, 118–19.

29. Köstenberger, John, 37; von Lips, Weisheitliche Traditionen, 311–13. Unlike in 1 En. 42, the experience of rejection does not cause Jesus to depart. For more on this comparison, see Ashton, Studying John, 16–17.

30. On the background of glory and incarnation, see Thomas H. Tobin, “The Prologue of John and Hellenistic Jewish Speculation,” CBQ 52 (1990): 267; Weinrich, John, 177–80.

31. On the text-critical issues concerning whether v. 18 originally referred to Jesus as μονογενὴς θεὸς (“the one and only God”) rather than as μονγενὴς υἱός (“the one and only Son”), see Brown, John, 17; Keener, John, 425–26; Köstenberger, John, 49–50.

32. Keener, John, 354–55, 360; Wright, New Testament, 414.

33. Witherington, Indelible Image, 588–89.

34. Beasley-Murray, John, 9; Keener, John, 361–62.

35. Witherington, Indelible Image, 558.

36. Cf. Endo, Creation, 206–29.

37. Daniel J. Ebert IV, Wisdom Christology: How Jesus Becomes God’s Wisdom for Us (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011), 11–13, 46, 48; Jobes, “Sophia Christology,” 235–44; Köstenberger, John, 26–27; J. Ramsey Michaels, The Gospel of John, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 66–67; Stanley E. Porter, John, His Gospel, and Jesus: In Pursuit of the Johannine Voice (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2015), 105–7; Ridderbos, John, 31–36.

38. Köstenberger, John, 26–27.

39. Ridderbos (John, 34) identifies this factor as the reason for the preferred reference to Word over Wisdom.

40. Steinmann, Proverbs, 225–28.

41. Bultmann, Evangelium, 9–15; Harris, Origin, passim.

42. Ashton, Studying John, 10; Ebert, Wisdom, 12–13; Evans, Word, 13–76; Porter, John, 103–7; Ridderbos, John, 34–35.

43. Jobes, “Sophia Christology,” 242–43.

44. Ed L. Miller, “The Johannine Origins of the Johannine Logos,” JBL 112 (1993): 445–57, esp. 448–49.

45. Miller, “Johannine Origins,” 449–50.

46. Miller, “Johannine Origins,” 456.

47. Evans, Word, 190.

48. Bultmann, Evangelium, 6–7; Köstenberger, John, 27. Contrast with von Lips, Weisheitliche Traditionen, 310–11.

49. Andreas J. Köstenberger, Encountering John: The Gospel in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective, 2nd ed., EBS (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 43.

50. Brown, John, 523; Harris, Origin, 12–13; Jobes, “Sophia Christology,” 240; Keener, John, 353; Scott, Sophia, 172; Witherington, Indelible Image, 554.

51. Jobes, “Sophia Christology,” 240.

52. Endo, Creation, 212–16. One issue for this argument is that the LXX preference in this text is to use ῥῆμα instead of λόγος. Of course, the response could be that this case is similar to the reference to grace and truth in 1:17 being an allusion to statements of God’s lovingkindness and faithfulness, such as Exod 34:6, despite the LXX term for the former being ἔλεος instead of χάρις.

53. Carson, John, 115; Endo, Creation, 162, 207, 249–50.

54. Brown, John, 15–16; Carson, John, 122, 132–33; Ruth B. Edwards, “Χαριν αντι Xαριτος (John 1.16): Grace and the Law in the Johannine Prologue,” JSNT 32 (1988): 7–10; Epp, “Wisdom,” 139–41; Köstenberger, John, 46–48; Witherington, Indelible Image, 554; idem, Jesus the Sage, 285.

55. C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 278; Epp, “Wisdom,” 137; Keener, John, 354–55, 360–63; Weinrich, John, 128, 130.

56. Carson, John, 115–16, italics original.

57. Beasley-Murray, John, 10; Brown, John, 523; Köstenberger, John, 25; Weinrich, John, 134.

58. Ashton, Studying John, 22; Dodd, Interpretation, 280–81; Hurtado, One God, 42–43; Weinrich, John, 128. Contra Endo, Creation, 207, 250.

59. Ebert, Wisdom, 13.

60. Carson, John, 116. Cf. Porter, John, 107; Tobin, “Prologue,” 268–69; Weinrich, John, 165.