August
2008
But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts,
always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to
give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness
and reverence - 1 Peter 3:15
Does Proverbs 8:22 teach that Jesus is Created?
At the recent Del Mar fair here in Southern California, I mentioned that I spoke with a man who was a member of a religious organization which embrace many of the Jehovah's Witnesses doctrines. A major one is they reject the deity of Christ. They even use many of the same arguments as the Jehovah's Witnesses. One that I discussed with this man is Proverbs 8:22 which he and the witnesses believe proves Jesus is created. Witnesses will say this is Jesus which is clarified in verse 30.
Lets look at these two passages of scripture carefully and see if in fact these texts prove Jesus is created. The New World Translation says:
"Jehovah himself produced me as the beginning of his way, the earliest of his achievements of long ago.
"then I came to be beside him as a master worker, and I came to be the one he was specially fond of day by day, I being glad before him all the time," (Proverbs 8:22,30 NWT)
If we had nothing else in the Bible to illuminate this passage and we did not consider the context we might tend to agree with them. The first thing we must understand is although the Bible is meant to be read and understood, not every verse is equally understandable. Some passages speak in ways that are not as common but yet still are understandable if interpreted correctly.
Although in some ways one could see a parallel between Jesus and the Father, the passage is NOT speaking of Jesus at all. Jesus is not mentioned anywhere in the context. As a matter of fact the first 9 chapters of Proverbs is speaking of an attribute of God, WISDOM. This attribute is expanded upon by personification (spoken metaphorically as if wisdom were a person).
We can see without any difficulty that Verse one of the chapter 8 clarifies that wisdom is a person. "Does not wisdom keep calling out" NWT. If witnesses insist that wisdom is Jesus then who is "prudence" in verse 12? "I wisdom dwell with prudence,..." (KJV).
Witnesses say that wisdom was "produced" (verse 22). But if this is true then God had no wisdom until there came a time when He created it. A better translation of verse 22 is the New American Translation or KJV which states that "The Lord POSSESSED me in the beginning of his way". The correct thinking is that wisdom is as eternal as God with no beginning.
Verse 22 of Proverbs 8 gives further evidence that wisdom is eternal. "From everlasting [Hebrew owlam] I was established, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth." (NWT)
This word "owlam" translated everlasting here in NWT is the same Hebrew word in Psalm 90:2 "... Even from everlasting [owlam] to everlasting, Thou art God."
If one insists that Proverbs is speaking of Jesus, then Jesus is just as eternal as God and un-created.
Another important issue of the personification of wisdom is that better non-witness translations reveal that this wisdom is feminine. The "me" who is speaking throughout Proverbs 8:1 through 9:12 is identified as "wisdom," and feminine pronouns are used to describe this wisdom.
Wisdom raises her voice in 8:1; she takes her stand in 8:2; she cries out in 8:3; wisdom has built her house in 9:1; she has prepared her table in 9:2--certainly not the language one would expect if Jesus Christ were meant.
The Jehovah's Witnesses translation, the NWT, hides this fact by translating the feminine pronouns as a neuter pronoun "it".
1 Does not wisdom keep calling out, and discernment keep giving forth its voice? 2 On top of the heights, by the way, at the crossing of the roadways it has stationed itself. 3 At the side of the gates, at the mouth of the town, at the going in of the entrances it keeps crying loudly: (chapter 22:1-3)
Strangely, the Watchtower Society has admitted that the Hebrew is in the feminine:
"Our thinking here reminds us of what is said in the 8th chapter of the Book of Proverbs, where divine wisdom is depicted as a person who talks about himself. Of course in the original Hebrew text of Proverbs, the word wisdom is in the feminine and speaks of itself as a female person. Divine wisdom does not have any separate existence apart from God. Wisdom always existed in Him, and so was not created. For this reason it is interesting to hear how wisdom speaks of herself as a feminine person." (God's Eternal Purpose Now Triumphing for Man's Good, p. 28)
Watchtower leaders have deliberately and dishonestly translated this text and distort its meaning to undermine who Jesus truely is.
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