ABSTRACT
In the eleventh century, the Hispano-Arabic scholar Ibn Hazm observed that Wisdom, in Proverbs 8, is not simply the wisdom of the only God-an interpretation, he argued, which violates the canons of sound textual exegesis. He felt that here the Bible refers to a goddess. 1 At the beginning of our century, Hermann Gunkel wrote. 'The sages had a kind of female patron deity of whom they sometimes spoke; Hebrew tradition calls her "Wisdom". For Israel's sages, this figure was perhaps a mere personification. Some of her features, however, betray her former divine nature. '. 2 Gunkel is certainly correct in arguing that, in monotheistic times, some of the sages considered Lady Wisdom-as she appears in the book of Proverbs-a 'mere' personification, not a goddess with an abstract name. However, this paper deals with the entity Gunkel calls the patroness of the sages and her divine nature. For. today, we see more clearly than in Gunkel's days that ancient Israel's religion was not committed to the exclusive worship of one single deity right from the beginning of its history; the 'alone-ist' movement came later, presumably in the eighth century BCE, when the prophet Hosea appears as one of its early promoters. 'You shall have no other gods before me' (Exod. 20. 3) says the biblical God, but the Bible itself suggests that not all ancient Israelites followed this precept. as does archaeological evidence. Along with their national god, they venerated a host of other gods and goddesses. The list of goddesses is particularly impressive. it includes the Queen of Heaven (Jer. 44. 17), Astarte (1 Sam. 7. 4), the (to us, anonymous) Naked Goddess, 3 Asherah (2 Kgs 21. 7) and Lady Wisdom. While scholars disagree about the identity and even existence of some of these-especially about Asherah, who might be a sacred tree rather than a goddess; and Lady Wisdom, whom some consider a mere personification-most of them recognize the fact of polytheistic worship. So, if we wish to gain insight into what it meant for some of the ancient Hebrews to believe in and worship a goddess, we must study the first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs. We know more about Lady Wisdom, the ancient Hebrew goddess who figures prominently in Proverbs 1-9, than about any other goddess mentioned in the Bible or known through archaeological finds. 4
