The Wisdom Who Did Not Fall

A retelling of the Sophia myth from canonical Scripture. It answers the Gnostic story told in The Fall of Sophia, and it picks up where Wisdom’s Arc left off.

The principle

In the Gnostic myth, Wisdom falls and creation is the wound. In Scripture, Wisdom never falls. Creation is her delight, the fall belongs to creatures who grasped at wisdom apart from God, and Wisdom herself comes down to heal it, not by falling but by stooping.

Every movement below is built from canonical texts, with references at the end of each. The narrative draws only on the 66-book Protestant canon. Echoes from Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, and Baruch appear in the notes. The phrasing is my own, often echoing the King James Version. Where the story adds color, the color is borrowed from elsewhere in Scripture.

Proverbs pictures Wisdom as a woman, and the New Testament applies her role to Christ (1 Corinthians 1:24). The retelling follows that move: Wisdom speaks as “she” until movement VII, where she is revealed in the Son.

Part One: Wisdom and the World

I. Before the Beginning

Before the mountains were settled in their places, before the hills were brought forth, before there were any depths or any fountains brimming with water, before God had made the earth or its fields or the first dust of the world, there was God.

He inhabits eternity. He is light, and in him is no darkness at all. He dwells in light no one can approach, and no eye has seen him. From everlasting to everlasting he is God. His judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out, and the riches of his wisdom have a depth no mind can sound. Only his Spirit searches the deep things of God.

Yet he was never alone. With him was his Wisdom, possessed at the beginning of his way, set up from everlasting, brought forth before his works of old. She stood beside him as a master craftsman. She was his delight, day after day, rejoicing always before him.

And with him was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Father loved him before the foundation of the world. Between them was a glory that existed before anything else existed.

There was no deficiency in that fullness and no emptiness at its edges. Nothing in it strained toward a God who was hidden from it. There was only love, given and returned. And when that love chose to make a world, it made one for its own pleasure.

Proverbs 8:22-30 · Isaiah 57:15 · 1 John 1:5 · 1 Timothy 6:16 · Psalm 90:2 · Romans 11:33 · 1 Corinthians 2:10 · John 1:1-2 · 17:5, 24 · Revelation 4:11

II. The Delight of Creation

Then God spoke, and Wisdom set to work.

He stretched out the heavens like a curtain and wrapped himself in light as in a garment. He measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the sky with the span of his fingers. He weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. He laid the beams of his chambers on the waters, made the clouds his chariot, and walked on the wings of the wind.

When he prepared the heavens, Wisdom was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above and strengthened the fountains below, Wisdom was there. When he laid the earth’s foundations and set its cornerstone, when he shut up the sea behind doors and told it, “This far you may come, and no farther. Here your proud waves must stop,” Wisdom was there.

Over the dark waters the Spirit of God hovered. It was not the trembling of a lost and grieving power. It was the hovering of an eagle over her nest, stirring her young so they will learn to fly. God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. It shone in the darkness, and the darkness has never overcome it.

Evening came, and morning came, day after day. By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth. All things came into being through the Word: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones and dominions, rulers and authorities. Nothing was shaped by a lesser hand. Nothing was made in ignorance or by mistake. All things were made through him and for him, and in him all things hold together.

When the foundations were laid, the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. God looked at everything he had made, and it was very good.

And Wisdom played before him in the inhabited world. Her delight was with the children of men.

Genesis 1:1-31 · Deuteronomy 32:11 · Psalm 33:6 · 104:2-5 · Isaiah 40:12 · Proverbs 3:19-20 · 8:27-31 · Job 38:4-11 · John 1:3-5 · Colossians 1:16-17

III. The Breath in the Dust

The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden. He made every tree grow there that was pleasant to the sight and good for food. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden and parted into four, running toward lands where the gold was good and the onyx stone lay waiting in the ground.

Then God stooped to the earth. He formed the man from its dust, as a potter shapes the clay, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became a living soul.

The dust was not a prison, and the breath was not a captive. God knit the body together and made it fearfully and wonderfully. He made the man in his own image, a little lower than the heavenly beings, and crowned him with glory and honor. He brought him the beasts of the field and the birds of the air to see what he would call them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

But it was not good for the man to be alone. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on him, took from his side, closed up the flesh, and built a woman. He brought her to the man, and the man sang the first song: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” They were both naked, and they were not ashamed. God blessed them and told them to be fruitful and fill the earth.

In the middle of the garden stood two trees. One was the tree of life, and Wisdom herself is a tree of life to all who take hold of her. Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

The other was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “Of it you shall not eat,” God said, “for on the day you eat of it you shall surely die.” He did not withhold it out of envy. He withheld it because the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge seized apart from him is death. He set before them life and death, as he would one day set them before their children, and he called them to choose life.

Genesis 1:26-28 · 2:7-25 · Isaiah 64:8 · Psalm 8:5-6 · 139:13-14 · Proverbs 3:13-18 · 9:10 · Deuteronomy 30:19

IV. The Grasping

There was one in Eden, the garden of God, who was full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Every precious stone was his covering: sardius, topaz, diamond, beryl, onyx, jasper, sapphire, emerald, and gold. He was the anointed cherub who covered, set on the holy mountain of God, walking up and down among the stones of fire. He was blameless in his ways from the day he was created, until unrighteousness was found in him.

His heart was lifted up because of his beauty, and he corrupted his wisdom for the sake of his splendor. He said in his heart: “I will ascend into heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the Most High.”

So the Day Star, son of the morning, fell from heaven. And that ancient serpent came into the garden, more cunning than any beast of the field. He began with a question: “Has God really said?” Then he offered a counterfeit wisdom: “You will not surely die. God knows that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The woman saw that the tree was good for food, a delight to the eyes, and desirable for making one wise. She took of its fruit and ate, and gave some to her husband with her, and he ate. Their eyes were opened, and all they saw was their own nakedness. They sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

In the cool of the day they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden, and they hid among the trees. And God called to the man, “Where are you?” He did not come with fire. He came looking for them.

Then came the curses: on the serpent, on the ground, sorrow for the woman and sweat for the man. But inside the curse a promise was hidden. The woman’s seed would crush the serpent’s head, though the serpent would bruise his heel. And the LORD God made garments of skin and clothed them with his own hands.

So the fall did not happen to Wisdom. It happened when creatures reached for wisdom apart from the One who gives it. Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin. God sent the man out of the garden, and at its east gate he placed cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

Ezekiel 28:12-17 · Isaiah 14:12-14 · Revelation 12:9 · Genesis 3:1-24 · Romans 5:12

Part Two: The Wound and the Remedy

V. The Boast and the Bondage

The usurper did not make the world, but he claimed it. Scripture calls him the god of this age, who blinds the minds of those who do not believe, and the prince of the power of the air, the spirit now at work in the sons of disobedience. Under him the rulers and authorities, the world-powers of this present darkness, took their places. The whole world came to lie in the power of the evil one.

His grasping spread through the children of Adam. Cain rose up against his brother in the field, and Abel’s blood cried out from the ground. Every intention of the human heart turned only to evil, continually. On the plain of Shinar the people said, “Come, let us build a city and a tower whose top reaches into heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves.”

The kings of the earth learned his boast. Nebuchadnezzar walked on the roof of his royal palace and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” Babylon sat as a queen and said in her heart, “I am, and there is none beside me.” Her wisdom and her knowledge led her astray.

But the true “I am” belongs to another: “I am the LORD, and there is no other. Besides me there is no God. I form the light and create the darkness.”

Meanwhile the creation itself was subjected to futility. Thorns and thistles sprang up from the cursed ground. “Vanity of vanities,” said the Preacher, “all is vanity.” The eye was never satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. All their lives, people were held in slavery by the fear of death.

Yet the creation was subjected not by its own will, but in hope. Ever since, the whole creation has groaned together like a woman in the pains of labor. It is not a prison. It is a womb.

2 Corinthians 4:4 · Ephesians 2:2 · 6:12 · 1 John 5:19 · Genesis 3:17-18 · 4:8-10 · 6:5 · 11:1-4 · Daniel 4:29-30 · Isaiah 45:5-7 · 47:7-10 · Ecclesiastes 1:2, 8 · Hebrews 2:15 · Romans 8:20-22

VI. Two Voices in the Street

Wisdom did not abandon the world. She went out into the streets and cried aloud in the open squares. She stood on the heights beside the road, where the paths meet, beside the gates at the entrance of the city. “To you, O people, I call,” she said, “and my voice is to the children of men. I love those who love me, and those who seek me early will find me. Whoever finds me finds life. All who hate me love death.”

“How long, simple ones, will you love being simple?” she cried. “Turn at my rebuke, and I will pour out my spirit on you.” She rose up early and sent her servants the prophets, day after day. But they would not listen. They stiffened their necks.

Still she built her house and hewed out its seven pillars. She prepared her meat, mixed her wine, and set her table. She sent out her young women to call from the highest places of the city: “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here. Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your foolishness and live, and walk in the way of understanding.”

But there was another woman. Folly sat at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, calling to those who passed by. She was loud and undisciplined, and she knew nothing. “Stolen waters are sweet,” she said, “and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” At twilight, in the black of night, the young man without sense turned down the road to her house and followed her, as an ox goes to the slaughter. He did not know that the dead were there, that her guests were in the depths of Sheol.

There were never two Wisdoms, one higher and one fallen. There was Wisdom, and there was her counterfeit. Every person stood in the street between their two voices.

And people searched. They searched for wisdom the way miners search for silver and gold, sinking shafts far from where anyone walks, cutting channels through the rock, bringing hidden things into the light. But her path is one no bird of prey knows, and the falcon’s eye has never seen it. The deep said, “She is not in me,” and the sea said, “She is not with me.” She could not be bought with the gold of Ophir, nor with onyx or sapphire. Destruction and Death said, “We have heard only a rumor of her.”

God alone understood her way and knew her place, for he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under heaven. And he said to humanity: “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”

The word was not far off. It was not in heaven, that someone would have to go up and bring it down, nor beyond the sea, that someone would have to cross over for it. It was very near, in their mouth and in their heart. But no one had yet seen its face.

Proverbs 1:20-33 · 7:6-27 · 8:1-5, 17, 35-36 · 9:1-6, 13-18 · Jeremiah 7:25-26 · Job 28:1-28 · Deuteronomy 30:11-14

VII. Wisdom Comes Down

When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman. Wisdom came down, not as one falling, but as one stooping.

The word that had always been near now took a face. The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us, as the glory of the LORD once filled the tabernacle in the wilderness. And we beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. He is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of his being. He is the power of God and the wisdom of God. In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

He did not come in splendor. He was wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger, because there was no room at the inn. Shepherds came in from the fields, while the night sky filled with the heavenly host: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.” The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him. At twelve he sat in the temple among the teachers, listening and asking questions, and all who heard him were astonished at his understanding. He increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.

On him rested the Spirit of the LORD, as the prophet had promised: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might, of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. His own townspeople asked, “Where did this man get this wisdom?” He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.

Like Wisdom in the streets, he stood and cried out: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” He spoke as Wisdom speaks: “The Wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles.” He said, “Something greater than Solomon is here.” And he thanked his Father for hiding these things from the wise and understanding and revealing them to little children.

Like a mother, he wept over the city that killed the prophets: “How often I would have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”

Yet Wisdom is vindicated by all her children.

Galatians 4:4 · Deuteronomy 30:14 · Romans 10:6-8 · John 1:9-14 · Exodus 40:34 · Hebrews 1:3 · 1 Corinthians 1:24 · Colossians 2:3 · Luke 2:7-14, 40-52 · Isaiah 11:2 · Matthew 13:54 · 11:19, 25-30 · 12:42 · 23:37 · Luke 7:35 · 11:49

VIII. The Hidden Wisdom of the Cross

In the first garden, a man reached for what had not been given. In another garden, across the brook Kidron, the last Adam fell on his face and prayed: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” His sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

Where the first creatures grasped, he let go. Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be seized. He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. Being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.

He had no form or majesty that anyone should look at him. He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. The soldiers twisted thorns into a crown and pressed it onto his head, thorns like those the cursed ground had brought forth. They hung him on a tree, and it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” He became a curse for us. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree.

The rulers of this age did not understand. They looked at him and saw only weakness and defeat. But God’s wisdom was hidden in a mystery, decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

From noon until the ninth hour, darkness covered the whole land. Then he cried out with a loud voice. He said, “It is finished,” bowed his head, and gave up his spirit. And the curtain of the temple, the curtain woven with cherubim, was torn in two from top to bottom. The way into the holiest place lay open, through his flesh.

The cross looked like foolishness. But the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. There he canceled the record of debt that stood against us, nailing it to the cross. There he disarmed the rulers and authorities, made a public spectacle of them, and triumphed over them.

He truly suffered, and he truly died. They took his body down, wound it in linen with spices, and laid it in a new tomb cut in the rock, in a garden near the place where he was crucified. A great stone was rolled against the door.

Genesis 3:6, 18 · John 18:1 · Matthew 26:39 · Luke 22:44 · Philippians 2:5-8 · Isaiah 53:2-3 · Matthew 27:29, 45-51, 60 · Deuteronomy 21:23 · Galatians 3:13 · 1 Peter 2:24 · 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 · John 19:30, 38-42 · Exodus 26:31 · Hebrews 10:19-20 · 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 · Colossians 2:14-15

Part Three: The Restoration

IX. Firstfruits

On the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away. She stood outside, weeping. When she turned around, she saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know him. Supposing him to be the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him.” He said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said, “Rabboni,” which means Teacher.

It was the first day of the week, and it was a garden, and the Gardener had come back.

He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve, then to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom were still living when the apostle wrote. He walked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. Their hearts burned within them on the road, and they knew him in the breaking of the bread.

He did not shed his body like a worn-out garment. “Look at my hands and my feet,” he said. “It is I myself. Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he ate it in front of them. To Thomas he said, “Put your finger here, and see my hands, and put out your hand, and place it in my side.” On the shore of Galilee he built a charcoal fire and cooked his friends breakfast.

Yet his body was transformed. What is sown is not the body that will be, but a bare grain, and God gives it a body as he has chosen. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. It is sown perishable and raised imperishable, sown in dishonor and raised in glory, sown in weakness and raised in power, sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body. The first Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.

As the first sheaf of the harvest was waved before the LORD on the day after the Sabbath, so he is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. What happened to him will happen to all who belong to him. And as they watched, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

John 20:1-29 · 21:9-13 · Luke 24:13-43 · 1 Corinthians 15:4-8, 20-23, 35-45 · Leviticus 23:10-11 · Acts 1:9

X. Wisdom Poured Out

On the evening of that first day, he came and stood among his disciples behind locked doors. And as God had once breathed into the dust of Eden, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound came from heaven like a rushing mighty wind and filled the whole house. Tongues as of fire rested on each of them, and they began to speak in other languages. At Babel, one language had been confused and the nations scattered across the earth. Now people from every nation under heaven heard, each in their own tongue, the mighty works of God.

This was what the prophet had spoken: “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit.” Not on a few. Not on a hidden seed. On all flesh.

Consider who was called. Not many were wise by human standards, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. The rulers looked at Peter and John and marveled, because they were unschooled, ordinary men, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and what is weak to shame the strong. Christ became for them wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.

If any of them lacked wisdom, they had only to ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach. And the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits.

The God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” shone in their hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ. He gave them a new heart and took away the heart of stone. Beholding his glory as in a mirror, they are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another.

This is the true knowledge: “that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Yet it is not chiefly their knowing. Now they see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now they know in part, but then they will know fully, even as they have been fully known. To be saved is to be known by God.

And through the church, a gathering of the lowly, the manifold wisdom of God is now made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

John 20:19-22 · Genesis 2:7 · 11:1-9 · Acts 2:1-21 · 4:13 · Joel 2:28-29 · 1 Corinthians 1:26-30 · James 1:5 · 3:17 · 2 Corinthians 3:18 · 4:6 · Ezekiel 36:26 · John 17:3 · 1 Corinthians 8:3 · 13:12 · Galatians 4:9 · Ephesians 3:10

XI. The Wedding and the Fullness

In the beginning, the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, took from his side, and built the woman, and the two became one flesh. “This mystery is profound,” the apostle wrote, “and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” The last Adam also slept the sleep of death upon the cross, and a soldier pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

At the end, a voice like the roar of many waters cries out: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.” She is clothed in fine linen, bright and pure. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Then a new heaven and a new earth appear. The holy city, the new Jerusalem, comes down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. A loud voice from the throne says: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. He will swallow up death forever. There will be no more mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things have passed away. And the One who sits on the throne says, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

The city has no temple, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. It has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. Its gates are never shut, for there is no night there.

The creation that groaned is set free from its bondage to corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God. All things in heaven and on earth are gathered together in Christ. The church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all, and its people are filled with all the fullness of God.

Through the middle of the street flows the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, from the throne of God and of the Lamb. On either side of the river grows the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and its leaves are for the healing of the nations. The way the flaming sword once guarded stands open. There is no more curse. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

Then comes the end. The Son delivers the kingdom to the Father, and the Son himself is subjected to the One who put all things under him, so that God may be all in all.

And Wisdom rejoices, as she rejoiced in the beginning, in the inhabited world. Her delight is with the children of men.

Genesis 2:21-24 · Ephesians 5:31-32 · John 19:34 · Revelation 19:6-9 · 21:1-5, 22-25 · 22:1-5 · Isaiah 25:8 · Romans 8:19-21 · Ephesians 1:10, 22-23 · 3:19 · Colossians 1:19-20 · 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 · Proverbs 8:31

How it answers the Gnostic myth

Each movement uses the same vocabulary as the Gnostic myth but restores the canonical meaning of those words.

Notes on sources

A handful of verses carry most of the retelling’s weight, because they reclaim words the Gnostic myth borrowed.

Key hinges

• Deuteronomy 32:11. It uses the same rare Hebrew verb (rachaph) as Genesis 1:2 for an eagle hovering over her young. It reclaims the verse the Apocryphon of John read as Sophia’s distress.
• Isaiah 47:8-10. The boast “I am, and none else beside me” belongs to Babylon, and the same passage says her wisdom and knowledge led her astray. The Gnostics put this boast in the Creator’s mouth.
• Philippians 2:6. The word harpagmos, “a thing to be grasped,” is the center of the retelling. Christ’s refusal to grasp reverses the grasping of Eden and of the Gnostic Sophia.
• 1 Corinthians 1:30. “Redemption” here is apolytrōsis, the name some Valentinians gave their secret second rite (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.21). Paul says Christ himself is the redemption, given to all.
• Romans 11:33. Paul speaks of the “depth” (bathos) of God’s riches. Valentinians named the highest God Bythos, “Depth,” and made him remote from creation.
• Colossians 1:16. Thrones, dominions, rulers, and powers were all created through Christ. They are creatures, not creators.
• 1 Corinthians 2:6-3:4. This passage supplied the Gnostics’ archons, the “mature,” and the pneumatikos and psychikos categories. In context, Paul uses that language to rebuke the Corinthians for elitism, not to sort humanity into fixed natures.

Interpretive choices

• Wisdom as Christ. Identifying Wisdom with the Son follows 1 Corinthians 1:24 and Colossians 2:3, and most church fathers, including Justin Martyr, Origen, and Athanasius. Theophilus of Antioch and Irenaeus identified Wisdom with the Holy Spirit instead. Irenaeus called the Word and Wisdom God’s “two hands” (Against Heresies 4.20.1). The retelling lets Wisdom and Spirit overlap at Genesis 1:2 and Pentecost, which fits either reading.
• Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. These address the kings of Tyre and Babylon. Reading them as the fall of Satan is an old tradition, found in Tertullian and Origen, but it goes beyond their plain historical sense. Revelation 12:9 supplies the explicit link between the serpent and the devil.
• Wisdom as a woman. In Proverbs, Wisdom is a poetic personification, not a separate goddess. The retelling treats her as the New Testament does: a portrait of the divine Wisdom that becomes flesh in Christ.

Connections drawn in the literary version

Some links are stated by Scripture itself. Others are traditional readings that Scripture allows but does not spell out.

Stated or built into the text

• The breath (John 20:22). John uses the same rare Greek verb, emphysaō, that the Septuagint uses for God breathing into Adam in Genesis 2:7.
• Futility (Romans 8:20). Paul’s word mataiotēs is the same word the Septuagint uses for “vanity” throughout Ecclesiastes.
• The torn curtain (Hebrews 10:19-20). Hebrews identifies the temple curtain with Christ’s flesh, and Exodus 26:31 says the curtain was woven with cherubim.
• Wisdom at play (Proverbs 8:30-31). The Hebrew verb behind “rejoicing” also means “playing,” and several translations render it that way.
• The near word (Romans 10:6-8). Paul applies Deuteronomy 30’s “the word is near you” to Christ, which links movements VI and VII.

Traditional readings

• The cherubim at Eden and on the curtain. Linking the torn curtain to the cherubim guarding Eden (Genesis 3:24) is an interpretive step.
• The thorns. Connecting the crown of thorns to the thorns of the curse (Genesis 3:18) is a common reading, but the Gospels do not draw the link.
• The gardener. Mary’s mistaking Jesus for the gardener (John 20:15) is often read as a new-Adam image. John records the detail without explaining it.
• Pentecost and Babel. Reading Pentecost as the reversal of Babel is widespread, but Acts does not mention Babel.
• The side of Adam and the side of Christ. The bride drawn from the sleeping Adam’s side, and the church born from the pierced side of Christ, is a reading from Tertullian and Augustine. John records the blood and water without that interpretation.

Deuterocanonical echoes

These books are scripture for Catholic and Orthodox Christians and would strengthen several movements.

• Wisdom of Solomon 7:25-26. Wisdom is the breath of God’s power and a reflection of eternal light. Compare Hebrews 1:3.
• Wisdom of Solomon 10:1. Wisdom protected the first-formed father and brought him out of his transgression. Here Wisdom rescues Adam rather than causing the fall.
• Sirach 24:3-12. Wisdom comes from the mouth of the Most High, covers the earth like a mist, seeks a resting place, and is told to pitch her tent in Jacob. Compare John 1:14.
• Baruch 3:37. Wisdom appears on earth and lives among humankind.