Benjamin McGuire's response to Ch. 2 of TMD was rather long in coming, but it is finally here, and this is our reply. We will limit ourselves to what responds directly to TMD, and therefore skip most of the initial section which uses "spectre of diversity," which is nothing of an answer to what we have written. McGuire should perhaps be aware that even in 150 years, Mormonism itself has plenty of splinter groups, but I very much doubt he'd think that my citation of the existence of everything from the RLDS to Arizona polygamists to the Peyote Way Church of God in any sense affects the truth of anything McGuire himself believes. Similarly, McGuire's sermon on "the plurality of interpretations offered by competent scholars" is a distraction. The usual purpose of such distractions (as I have found over the years when the same is employed by atheists) is to replace the sifting and weighing of the virtues of differing points of view to arrive at which one is correct or best supported by the evidence. It is not sufficient to do as McGuire often does and simply offer alternative interpretations. One must prove the virtues of one's interpretation against all others.

We skip likewise, overall, the well poisoning inherent in the use of the label "anticritical apologist." The irony apparently escapes McGuire that he is quoting Hurtado to this effect to criticize me for having a view which is exactly Hurtado's own. One is left to wonder why Hurtado is not thereby impeached by his own words the way McGuire has used them. Indeed, the irony escapes McGuire that he cannot say that I have "follow[ed] my own pre-determined theological path." Not only is this false - I investigated the Wisdom connection having no idea where it would lead - it also impeaches McGuire himself, for he is thereby claiming to have been able to objectively see my pre-determination in action, and to have been critical himself; yet he denies me this same ability.

I, like Hurtado, am doing no less than saying that there was an "application (and redefinition) of a Jewish belief for the purposes of the new religious movement." My view is not at all "something else altogether" than Hurtado's; it is Hurtado's, precisely. McGuire has inferred a dichotomy between my views and Hurtado's that does not exist in the least. McGuire says:

Along these same lines, Holding on occasion also asserts on a continuous basis the idea that what his followers believed about him, Jesus must also have believed. We have no written text produced by Jesus.

A writer who resorts to this level of conspiracy-mongering has thereby admitted that the data we do have, as it stands, does not support their arguments. The resort to claiming that the Gospels are "more mature reflections on the life and teachings of Jesus written after his death and resurrection" is simply contrived hocus pocus last seen when Bultmann's light bulb was extinguished. It is reasoning that could be applied across the board to documents ranging from Tacitus' Annals to the Book of Mormon itself, provided we can come up as well with some agenda we can imagine in the minds of authors and also require no more evidence than a presupposition that it must all be true or we would not be here discussing it. In context, there is no reason to doubt accurate recollection and transmission of Jesus' words. The social world of the NT offered all the necessary tools for this. The variations we find in verbiage are within the parameters of transmissional apparatuses of the period. If McGuire is suggesting (which he does not, clearly, apparently wishing to leave himself room for plausible deniability) that any particular text or saying was simply invented, he needs to prove it - not simply assert it as a possibility in order to allow himself a handy escape.

Finally, Holding has a tendency to read his proof texts through the lens of his Evangelical theology - even when such readings are not warranted or even fully supported in the text. Holding consistently uses, for example, the notion of "eternal generation" or "eternal creation" - terms that do not occur within either the Jewish or the early Christian corpus.

The only required answer to this is, what of it? The lack of presence of a descriptive term in a text means absolutely nothing as long as it accurately describes what is present. While McGuire goes on to argue this for some texts, the very fact that he erects and then burns this strawman reflects poorly on his ability to provide a sound argument on such points, or at the very least shows that he believes an invalid distraction is a valid one, thus placing his analytical skills seriously into question.

He does so without acknowledging it as a modern term, and without dealing with its apparent self-contradictory meaning.

There is nothing "self-contradictory" save in those who come to the words without their own presuppositions. I have corrected atheists and Unitarians alike on this point and now add a Mormon to the list: The words "generate" and "create" are verbs with NO temporal meaning implicit in them. To test this point, McGuire should ask himself, if indeed the Nicean view is accurate, what possible verb could have been used to express this relationship between the Father and hypostatic Wisdom. By illicitly importing temporal meaning into verbs, one could effectively declare every single one of them off limits.

I propose that this continuity is largely composed of a set of terms and shared phrases that often have very different meaning. In doing so, I don't feel a need to force early Israelite, late Judaistic, or even early Christian ideals into the mold of Mormon theology. And while, from an apologetics standpoint, this can be very, very appealing, for a faith that claims continued (and new) revelation, this approach creates friction in exactly the way that Hurtado suggests. In preferring to re-make older texts into our own image of supposed theological perfection, we deny the notion that God can reveal something new, even as we encourage the notion that change in what or how God reveals His will implies that the either the new or the old was never the revealed will of God in the first place. As a Mormon, I recognize that God can reveal new things, and that in doing so, He is not suggesting that former things were not also the revealed will of God.

I have to ask then: As a Mormon, does McGuire also believe that God can reveal new things which completely contradict old things, and in such a way that eg, progressive revelation cannot accommodate? If he does, then his mindset is beyond all rational discourse and he will make what he wants to believe be true via any contrivance or convenience; an epistemic burning in the bosom, as it were. If he does not, then one wonders how he will explain the discontinuity of what is expressed in the Bible with what is expressed in Mormonism. Some Mormons (or others, like JWs) opt to say that the church corrupted the texts. Others force-anachronize texts to mean what they do not. I do not know what McGuire might say, but it seems that he simply discards the Bible as a source when necessary; in which case, he is not one of those to whom my book was addressed (like Richard Hopkins) who do use it as such to verify Mormon doctrine.

McGuire begins his actual arguments by trying to muddy the waters concerning the meaning of Wisdom. To defuse my definitions of Wisdom:

Holding defines Wisdom as follows: "Jesus, as God's Word and Wisdom, was and is eternally an attribute of God the Father.10" Holding mentions further that Jesus functions as the Word (the memra) of God: We speak of Christ as the "Word" of God, God's "speech" in living form. … Throughout the Old Testament and in the Jewish intertestamental Wisdom literature, the power of God's spoken word is emphasized (Psalm 33:6; 107:20; Isaiah 55:11; Jeremiah 23:29; 2 Esdras 6:38; Wisdom 9:1).

...he must show that there is some variation in meaning that does not fit what I have described. He must also show that the support for this variation comes from texts or statements within the parameters I follow (eg, it would be useless for him to appeal to a text by a Gnostic, just as it would be foolish of me to try to argue against one of his beliefs by appeal to a unique document of the Peyote Church).

Hope is not offered in that he makes an egregious and erroneous nitpick, saying he must "...begin by pointing out that these texts that Holding has listed, with the exception of Wisdom 9:1, do not come from within Jewish Wisdom literature." Can McGuire follow a sentence? Look carefully: "Throughout the Old Testament and in the Jewish intertestamental Wisdom literature, the power of God's spoken word is emphasized (Psalm 33:6; 107:20; Isaiah 55:11; Jeremiah 23:29; 2 Esdras 6:38; Wisdom 9:1)." Beyond this any person of good sense would regard such a listing of citations as follows as representative, not exclusive.

With that nitpick pruned, McGuire proceeds to try to define Wisdom in a way he thinks will defuse my own definition, and in the process does nothing effectual to show that there are indeed "wild" variations in the definition. Perhaps it is too much to expect McGuire to do this much reading of an opponent's work before answering them, but this point:

In the biblical Wisdom Literature, a figure arises that both perplexes and provokes scholars. This figure is personified Wisdom. Most perplexing, perhaps, is that the personification of Wisdom is set in feminine pronouns.

...is one I have dealt with in response to Unitarians, here -- which I find hard to accept McGuire missed, since he is aware of my online version of this chapter, and would surely have seen, in bold, this at the bottom:

Unitary Redux -- some unique Christadelphian arguments; the Christadelphians are Unitarians; also contains an answer to the issue, "Yeah, but Wisdom was female; Jesus was male!"

The femininity of Wisdom is a non-issue. As I said in reply to a Christadelphian (Unitarian) tract:

The tract also says that "unfortunately" Wisdom is "personified as a woman" which is only a problem for our modern, gender-crazed society. Gender for the ancients was a matter of role, not equipment; Wisdom played a "feminine" role (that of maintainer of the universal "household") and this has no bearing on the masculine incarnation of Jesus as Wisdom (whom, as we note in the article linked atop, claimed to be this Wisdom anyway). Indeed, widows were allowed to assume "male" roles to survive and were considered as "male" in role by others.

Mark Smith in The Origins of Biblical Monotheism adds another salient point: "Attribution of female roles to gods was by no means an Israelite invention." [91] Even the OT attributes female imagery to Yahweh (Deut. 32:18, Ps. 22:9-10, Is. 46:3, 66:9, 13) as Jesus applies female imagery to himself (as a mother hen over Jerusalem). Yahweh and other ancient deities were beyond sexuality, but nevertheless expressed themselves in "genderly" ways. The Ugaritic deity Athtar is called in inscriptions both "father" and "mother". The "male" deities Shamash, Istanu, and Gatumdug are called a "mother". Female deities could also be ascribed male qualities. The Christadelphian objection is vastly off the mark and anachronistic. McGuire's lack of knowledge of these points - especially as he is apparently aware of wayward "feminist theologians" - is rather telling. This is not someone who has done a careful survey of the literature but rather one who has simply purloined from whatever texts were at hand whatever he could find that would support his case, by hook or by crook.

Beyond this, his mere citation of differing views without any sort of critical analysis is McGuire's only resort. It perhaps does not occur to McGuire that the view I hold would not have any issue with a "social or political context" for personified Wisdom (which is just as well complimentary). Also, despite McGuire's presumption, I have ample interest in such things as "the personified Dame Wisdom contrasted with Dame Folly". This is all a complement, not a contradiction, to my view. I have no trouble seeing Dame Wisdom as being identified with the pre-existent Christ; Dame Wisdom is as much a moral teacher as Jesus upon the Sermon on the Mount. (This, by the way, would not require that Dame Folly have the same level of existence; especially since Dame Folly or related incarnations do not go on to have other appearances later in such places as Sirach, and the New Testament.) If Jesus ever gave advice to young men on how to conduct their lives, I would doubt it would differ at all from what Proverbs' Dame Wisdom has to offer. In one sense McGuire is correct to say that such a passage has "little value" for a Wisdom Christology as I offer it, because the critical point for my book (with its subject matter) was to explain the difference between Mormon and mainstream Christian views. In that respect, the critical matter is whether the relationship between Christ and the Father is hypostatic, as opposed to tritheistic/Social-Trinitarian. Both sides would have little issue with other aspects of Wisdom, such as its eternality (though we would both disagree with Jehovah's Witnesses, for example). Identification of Jesus with Dame Wisdom neither advances nor contradicts my case for this subject. McGuire is complaining that I failed to mow the lawn while I was doing my job of feeding the dog, and thus falsely pretends that he has invented a troublesome dichotomy for me, when he has not.

McGuire next proceeds to a contextually marginal discussion on "the origins of the personification of Wisdom in early Israelite tradition." I clearly adhere to his option 2, "Wisdom represents an abstract quality (an attribute) possessed by God," as he perceives, though I would be cautious in offering a simple acceptance until McGuire further defines his terms. McGuire claims that the "weakness" of this position is that "earlier texts offering the status of the divine to Wisdom (Proverbs and Job - although how 'early'these texts are is debated) argue against such a reading on contextual grounds," though he fails to explain how this is so. He returns rather to discussion of the verbal forms: and may I say that I would be indifferent to whether "begetting" or "creating" was used, since I do not make the presumption to incorporate temporality into verbs which have none inherent. McGuire also quotes Hadley as claiming that there is "no agreed definition" of the word hypostasis, which is frankly news to me, since I have found no such problem whatsoever, notably among those like Winston with the most complete surveys of the matter. (As an aside to a footnote offered: Hurtado's view and mine work the same whether ancient Israel was monotheistic or monolatrous; here again McGuire apparently failed to inform himself properly about my views on this subject.)

From here, we move to where McGuire professes his goal to be to show that "either Mormon or modern orthodox Christian doctrine is reflected" in the texts I cite. To make the matter clear, let us once again reiterate what must be shown for this. The texts MUST, for McGuire, not only permit the essential tritheism/Social-Trinitarianism of Mormonism, but explicitly state it. To show this, it is first necessary for McGuire to divorce the texts from the contexts of other hypostatic manifestations such as those I list from Egypt - which I did not mention in the book, but which are mentioned in the online expansion of the chapter, which he is obviously aware of since he quotes it. This he does not do; indeed he does not even mention these other manifestations. He must, more importantly, also explain why a word such as "Wisdom" - an attribute of a personal -- was chosen, rather than some word which indicated a fully separate being (eg, "Counselor"). (He ignores what I say about Proverbs 2:6, which indicates God as the source of Wisdom - not Wisdom as an independent deity.) This he will not do, and not even consider, and so his efforts amount to force-reading and speculating meaning that could work with a Mormon view. He has, however, avoided two of the most critical components that destroy his case even from the start. (He also bypasses my point, made in footnote 12, about how Mormons usually identity YHWH with Christ, but perhaps he would not agree with Hopkins' solution.)

A critical issue here, McGuire rightly sees in Prov. 8:22. However, there is no crux in 8:30 for this particular issue, despite McGuire's claim; I am perfectly able to see hypostatic Wisdom fulfilling any of the roles one may choose to read into that verse. More on that shortly. McGuire did, as noted, manage to find my online expansion of this chapter in which I extensively discussed the meaning of qanah, and while he claims that "there are passages which should rightfully be translated 'created' which use the same verb" he neither gives examples nor discusses them, merely referring the reader in a footnote to a specific page of a source. He also lacks specifics in his claim that the Septuagint and the Targums use "an unambiguous 'create'." Of course, if he wishes to argue that these understandings have any bearing on the case, then even if correct, he has shot himself in the foot, because by that reckoning, the mainstream Christian (Nicean) understanding of Christ is one that has a lot more pedigree than the Mormon neo-tritheistic understanding, which never appears in the Christian church.

That said, McGuire isn't telling the entire story about the matter. The Septuagint did choose a word (ktizo) that can mean "create" but it also can mean "ordain" or "found" - it is far from being "unambiguous" as he claims -- and if he wishes to argue from the authority of the LXX and the Targums, then he has again lost the case on how the Christian church read the Septuagint. (Also, ktizo clearly does not mean to create ex nihilo; it is used to refer to such things as the "creation" of a new person in Christ [as in Ephesians 4:24], and is used to refer to the founding of a city.)

Finally, McGuire's view fails inasmuch as qanah is clearly used throughout Proverbs, with respect to Wisdom, as something either acquired or possessed, but not created. Indeed Wisdom cannot be "created". Which leads again to the point that McGuire's essential tritheism cannot accommodate Wisdom except by mauling the concept out of all recognition.

With that, McGuire notes that I have said:

Wisdom is an eternal creation of God and can therefore be spoken of as "created before all things" without any implication that there was a point or time when it did not exist.

McGuire posits an answer to this, claiming first that there is some problem in that "nowhere in the Old or New Testament is Wisdom (or Word) referred to explicitly as an 'eternal creation.' " - a non-problem for several reasons. First, it is a simple fallacy to demand that words appear to describe a concept clearly present. If God is eternal (as McGuire can hardly deny can be derived from the OT, even without the word being used), and Wisdom is God's attribute, then it is a simple step to the conclusion that Wisdom, too, is eternal (unless McGuire wants to argue that the OT thinks God was stupid; eg, without Wisdom, at some point). Second, inasmuch as there is NO word for "eternal" in Hebrews, as McGuire even admits he got from one of my articles (which contains other arguments that refute his, and I have used here, and that he does not address), it is odd to object that the explicit words "eternal creation" are not present. Does McGuire think God the Father is eternal? Well, that word isn't used in the OT of the Father, either, so He must not be!

McGuire has no way, thereby, to meet the challenge of explaining why it is that a word for an attribute ("wisdom") was chosen for an ontologically separate being. The rest of what is found in Proverbs 8:30-1 does not affect this, as I have noted; I am perfectly able to see divine hypostatic Wisdom enacting roles as nursling, advisor, or architect, even as later writers like Philo used birth language and imagery of the eternal Logos/Wisdom. Despite, McGuire, it is not in the least the case that Proverbs "notions of conception, of birth, of growth and maturation, implies very strongly a beginning" - it is McGuire who is forcing a position by ignoring the very simple fact that "wisdom" is, and always is, an attribute of a personal being, period, and that therefore - especially in light of clear hypostatic parallels in Egypt and elsewhere, and the use of wisdom elsewhere in Proverbs - forces rather the language of birth and maturation to accommodate the nature of any attribute of God as eternal. In addition, later writers like Sirach obviously saw the birth language of Proverbs 8, and had no problems ascribing eternality to Wisdom (while also, even as Proverbs 2:6 does, having it comes from God's MOUTH), so by McGuire's logic (as he uses the LXX and the Targums) he again defeats his own argument. And of course, the last straw of all: The God who gives birth to Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is clearly male. Of course, our answer would be that gender (as noted above) is functional in these texts, such that it becomes metaphorical, and hence any claim that it must reflect a beginning, as human birth does, does not carry over without more specifics. I might add that since the Hebrews were fully aware that conception, not birth, was the beginning of a life, the birth language doesn't connote a beginning of existence for Wisdom in the first place! McGuire's house of cards collapses no matter where it is prodded.

One might say that Prov. 8 describes the moment of the creation of the universe, and that, using such as the limited language of the time might describe, Wisdom is here entering the universe for the first time in its hypostatic role. Whatever the case, there is clearly no room for Mormonism's basic tritheism in this passage - and since Proverbs 8 was used to formulate Christological statements in the NT, that means that the NT offers no room for that either. Thus I have succeeded as I intended by the subject of the book - how LDS apologists misinterpret the Bible -- in showing that Mormon attempts to find their Social Trinitariainism in the Bible are a failure. They may resort if they wish to saying the Bible is in error (which is another matter), but they can't use the Bible for their purposes.

I will bypass McGuire's section on Job; it is irrelevant to my case. The NT did not use any passage of Job to formulate a Christological Wisdom statement, so it matters not at all how Wisdom is portrayed in Job with respect to my case. That said, I do find little to no incompatibility in Job with what I have said of the matter. To say, "Wisdom was somehow outside of God, not merely a divine attribute" is a perfect description of what I accept (not MERELY a divine attribute, but it is one). Nor do I have any issue with "the mystery of wisdom, a way to wisdom, and her presence within God's creation" - if McGuire presumes that I do, he is barking up the wrong tree.

McGuire next moves briefly to the subject of "Wisdom and Reformations Within the History of Judaism" and expresses his allegiance to thesis that Wisdom in the OT "is a literary compensation for the eradication of the worship of...goddesses" - a thesis without evidence, though very popular among revisionist feminist theologians who turn to "silenced voices" to create evidence out of whole cloth. That said, even under my rubric, it is feasible that Wisdom was revealed as a one-uppance on female deities like Asherah, just as early Christian art took over pagan themes (eg, Mithra slaying the bull was turned into Samson slaying a lion). Not that any of this changes the essential nature of Wisdom as portrayed in the OT and in the NT.

McGuire finally gets back to my own work with comments on Sirach, and I am amazed to find that he simply ignores reference made to Sir. 1:1-2 (in which it is asked who can number the days of eternity, and Wisdom is the answer; and it is also said that Wisdom has been with the Lord forever) and claims that:

Unless we start with a presumed notion of "eternal creation" or "eternal generation" as a theological presupposition (as Holding does), there is no reason to read this into Sirach (particularly since, as I point out, there isn't any such meaning in Sirach's sources).

I can hardly see what McGuire is about here. Beyond this, I have no beef with identification of Wisdom with Torah (that is, after all, God's WORD!); this neither supports nor harms my case in which - as McGuire still fails to perceive, apparently - my goal is to explore the critical difference between Mormon and mainstream Christian belief on this subject. McGuire does at least quote me when I say:

Sirach says, "[God] searches out both the deep and the heart, and he perceives all their cunning devices. For the Most High knows all, and he sees the signs of the age. He declares changes that occur, and reveals the searching out of hidden things. He does not lack insight, and nothing escapes him. The might of his wisdom he measures out, He is the same from eternity. Nothing is added and nothing is withdrawn, and there is no need for anyone to instruct him." (42:18-21) Wisdom is an attribute of God, and is co-eternal with Him otherwise, Wisdom is a thing "added" to Him, or someone has "instructed" Him.

McGuire's "correction" of me, however, is quite peculiar:

Wisdom was created by God to instruct mankind (specifically YHWH's inheritance, or Israel - the "ones who love Him/His friends"). Even if Wisdom is a creation of God's and not an attribute, this would not mean that someone has "instructed" God.

McGuire's "correction" fails inasmuch as he fails to notice that God's Wisdom is the instrument whereby God searches out all things, declares changes, etc. In other words, if this Wisdom is a separate being, then Sir. 42:18-21 self-contradicts and has wisdom "instructing" God. It must be part of God's divine identity, for otherwise, Sir. 42:18-21 contradicts itself within the space of a sentence.

Once again, it matters little to me whether Sirach is "concerned with identifying Wisdom with Mosaic Law" - if anything, it adds to my case, since one point of NT Wisdom scholarship has also been Jesus' identification of himself with Torah, and his authority to speak on behalf of it. The only other matter is Sirach's alleged embodiment of Wisdom in the High Priest; I shall deal with that later when it is brought up by McGuire again. Continuing on with the matter of Hellenistic speculations, McGuire says:

On page 46 of his text, Holding makes this claim: "Hebrews also says of Jesus what Philo says of the Logos." This remarkable claim seems quite at odds with the texts themselves.

That's awful odd, because according to the scholarship on the matter (particularly Dunn, whom I directly quoted saying this), it isn't with odds at the texts at all. Perhaps McGuire should write Dunn and demand that he turn in his doctorate. The problem with McGuire is that he is quoting the likes of Persons and Tobin to ill effect. Perkins refers not to the simple identification of Wisdom, but a form of spirituality. Tobin's quote AGREES with what I have said, not that Paul read Philo or vice versa, but that both draw from a common interpretive tradition. I am beginning to wonder how closely McGuire pays attention to what he reads. He is at best arguing about developments WITHIN Philo that do not agree with the NT use of Wisdom; I am talking about a more general correspondence of basic identity, as is Dunn.

Other than this, I find it interesting that McGuire completely bypasses my section on the Wisdom of Solomon, wherein lies some of the strongest evidence for this part of my case. We finally move to the NT, and here McGuire professes to be able to create problems out of whole cloth, to wit: The first is that while the different Gospels take advantage of and allude to earlier material, they do not show a consistent use of that material. Particularly, there is often a gap when Jesus is presented as Wisdom in some texts while He is presented as a prophet of Wisdom in others. These two roles are not entirely exclusive - the High Priest Simon is portrayed as both a child of Wisdom and as the embodiment of Wisdom. But, there is enough of a difference to allow us to differentiate between the two.

This frankly qualifies as the most contrived statements in McGuire's text. The two roles, by themselves, are not exclusive in the least. Wisdom would naturally BE a prophet of Wisdom if embodied. McGuire is forcing a completely artificial dichotomy.

McGuire claims the connection that I (and Witherington, who I suppose should turn in his doctorate as well) find here is misdirected. No one disputes that Jesus here "isn't associated directly with Wisdom" ie., it is not said, "I am Wisdom," but I have said clearly that Jesus acts out the part of Wisdom. He then appeals to a "different translation of Matthew 11:18-19" by Gathercole, who says:

In both Matthew and Luke, then, we see the ways in which John and Jesus have come under criticism from their opponents. 'This generation' has not acknowledged that Wisdom has sent John and Jesus, and that she is thus responsible for each of their distinctive ways of life. The 'actions' of Lady Wisdom, then, seems best understood as her sending John and Jesus in their respective lifestyles. Her 'children' are John, Jesus, and those who have responded to them.

How this is shown is not explained. Jesus enacts the role of Wisdom; this reply simply creates a forced dichotomy, adding in the conceptual idea of "Wisdom has sent" when no such message is in the text, either in Gathercole's translation nor in the one I use. That said, having read Gathercole myself, McGuire has obviously misused his work. Gathercole's intention is to show that the opponents of John and Jesus did not connect their ministries to Wisdom. I have no issue with any such conclusion. It fits fine with Jesus acting out Wisdom's role; indeed it makes better sense in light of Jesus acting out Wisdom for opponents to say he has nought to do with Wisdom.

McGuire's error here is most likely in that he assumes that when Jesus speaks of "Wisdom" as though a third person, he is making himself not Wisdom but a prophet of Wisdom. However, McGuire is simply not familiar enough with the social world of the NT to understand what is happening. In an honor and shame society, specific identification of self is not a normal way to assert identity. Allusive third person reference would be a more normal mode, as it would deflect envy as well as honor challenges. Thus the way Jesus refers to himself as Wisdom here is the same as he refers to himself, most often, as the Son of Man: In the third person. McGuire's attempts to separate Jesus from Wisdom in this passage are misguided and misinformed.

McGuire commits the same error in trying to defuse Matthew 23:34/Luke 11:49. His claim that "In Matthew, the text portrays Jesus speaking as Wisdom, while in Luke Jesus is speaking as a prophet of Wisdom" is false. In Luke Jesus speaks of Wisdom as himself, in the third person, properly within an agonistic context.

Turning to John 6:35/Sirach 24:19-21, McGuire correctly notes that "isn't designed to show a parallel but a contrast" - but fails to see that it is only one that supports my case. Jesus ups the ante and reveals himself as the final revelation of Wisdom - people will need to eat and drink no more, as Sirach says of Wisdom there, because Jesus is "it". I can certainly agree that this is a contrast - but it is only one that strengthens the identification I have been making. So likewise in Matthew 11:29-30/Sirach 6:19-31 and Matthew 8:20/Luke 9:58 and Sirach 24:6-11. McGuire is shooting blanks when he makes an issue of this being "two competing Wisdom traditions" - either way, Jesus identifies himself with Wisdom, even as he amplifies the description and rewrites it in light of his role as Wisdom's conclusive, final revelation. I might add that McGuire would need to show -- even if there were two competing traditions -- that the critical point of the hypostatic origin of Wisdom was something the traditions disagreed upon. But he doesn't even try to do this.

Much of what follows is not any sort of answer to anything I have written, but side commentary that fails to serve any rebutting purpose (though it may serve an informing one). McGuire skips over the bulk of the remainder of my chapter, including what I say on John, Colossians, and Hebrews. He nitpicks that when I say "Jesus, as God's Word and Wisdom, was and is eternally an attribute of God the Father," I "cannot really be discussing Jesus (the man) as the creeds affirm that the human nature of Jesus" - that is correct, and that is why I use the phrase, as God's Word and Wisdom. Once again McGuire seems too intent on finding fault to pay attention. Likewise, in a footnote, McGuire shows an elementary confusion in the meaning of hypostasis; he is confusing the use of the term in Chalcedonian terms with the use of the term as offered within Wisdom theology, as well as with reference to other deities (such as the Egyptian one).

After a brief diversion into LDS texts (which is irrelevant to my case), McGuire presumes to add two passages from the Bible to the "positive" case for the Mormon view of Jesus. In so doing, however, exerts clumsiness in use of the text. It should be obvious that Philipians 2:6-8 and 2 Corinthians 8:9 are written retrospectively of the incarnation - the man Jesus would be considered identical now with pre-existent Wisdom, and it is erroneous for McGuire to try to turn these passages into props for a pre-existent Mormon Jesus.

In conclusion, McGuire addresses my concluding points First he asks:

How does Mormonism claim that the Father and Son are both fully God, yet not ontologically equal?

McGuire answers his own question in his footnote:

I note, however, for the purpose of this discussion, that Mormonism does not teach that Jesus was "fully God" at any time prior to his resurrection, and that Mormonism does not require that Jesus be viewed as fully God at any time during the temporal existence of this creation.

Second, he reiterates his claims that there was "development in the Gospels" and that perhaps words of Jesus were invented. These we have refuted. He also burns again the straw man of anti-criticalism. His claim, which we now return to, about the high priest of Sirach:

Finally, there existed within Judaism at the time of Christ a tradition which embodied Wisdom and the Glory of God within a mortal that was not considered an attribute of deity personified or a member of a Trinitarian (or even a Binitarian) godhead. This suggests that despite Holdings assertion here, the notion of Jesus as the embodiment of Wisdom and the Great High Priest could be asserted without also giving Jesus ontological equality with the Father, or even asserting his divine nature (although LDS are more than willing to assert His divinity). Thus the Judaistic roots do not require such a reading as Holding suggests.

….is based on ONE verse in Sirach 24:10, in which it is (supposedly) said of the (human) high priest, that he (as Wisdom) ministered in the tabernacle. Of course, McGuire is nowhere near proving this to be a "tradition" of any sort; one verse, compared with dozens I found with other related terminology (can he find us a place where Simon the priest is called an "effulgence" of God's glory?), hardly makes for a "tradition". Note as well that I said "supposedly" - Simon is not mentioned in Sirach 24; McGuire relies here on an analysis by Fletcher-Louis in which, allegedly, 24:10 looks forward to Ch. 50 (!). Fletcher-Louis leaps thereby to the incredible conclusion that the priest Simon embodies Wisdom (!!); when it is clear that a more modest conclusion - that Simon acts as he does because he is inspired by Wisdom, abd best articulates its principles - is warranted. To make a "tradition" out of this, as McGuire (not Fletcher-Louis) does, is an absurdity.

I have asked Tekton guest writer (and current Harvard theology student) Matt Paulson to offer some comments, since this has become a specia area of study for him. Here are his comments:

At the outset, let me note that my reaction to McGuire's work is not wholly critical. He has clearly attempted to engage a large portion of relevant scholarly literature, and the flow of his argument coheres -- granting, that is, the validity of his presumptions. To cite one instance of commendation, I rather liked his consistent differentiation between 'Jesus', 'the Christ' and 'the Son [of god]'--such demonstrates McGuire's familiarity with relevant scholarship on the point at hand. That said, the overall feeling that I am left with is McGuire has missed the point, and that his critique of Holding lacks substance.

At the outset, I want to make some general, preliminary remarks. Holding was very right to buttress his defense of the classical doctrine of the Trinity with the Wisdom tradition of the Hebrew Bible (and intertestamental, 'apocryphal' literature). The defining age in the history of the development of Trinitarian theology was without doubt the Nicene era, wherein Athanasius faced Arius, and the 'Cappadocian' fathers faced Eunomius. The main point of argument in this era was this: Is the Son--who was incarnate as the human being Jesus the Christ--eternal (and thus intrinsic to the very being of god), or, rather, is the Son a contingent creation created ex nihilo (and, thus extrinsic to the very being of god). (In passing, I mention that the Nicene era also confronted the question of the status of the Holy Spirit. The first substantial treatment was given by Athanasius' To Serapion, and the second by Basil's The Holy Spirit, alongside other works and portions of works from the other 'Cappadocians'. In any event, the question was the same: Is x eternal and intrisic to god's being, or is x not eternal, and, therefore, not intrinsic to god's being?)

The (orthodox) answer given to this question by the Nicene fathers was this: the Son is eternal, and, therefore, intrinsic to the very being of god. Two points need to be mentioned in this regard.

First, in affirming such, the Nicene fathers were affirming a particular PERCEPTION and UNDERSTANDING of god. The god of the orthodox, Nicene faith is intrinsically DYNAMIC (because he eternally begets the Son and pours forth the Spirit) and ECSTATIC (because his very being is defined by diffusive, self-giving love, realized in the Father's generation of the Son, and his consummation of his 'koinonia' with the Son in the Spirit). This perception of god stood AGAINST the ANTI-Nicene perception of god, according to which god is NOT eternally dynamic, and god is NOT eternally communal. (The significance of the Nicene affirmation of god's intrinsic 'koinonia' is most explict in Athanasius' Orations Against the Arians, 1:20, 38; 2:56, 82; 3:61, 65-67.)

Second, the very basis of this affirmation on the part of the Nicenes was the Wisdom tradition. (In this regard, it is not insignificant that the most important recent work on Nicene Trinitarian theology--Lewis Ayres' Nicaea and Its Legacy --BEGINS by citing Heb. 1:1-3 and Wisdom of Solomon 7:24-26, and in the table of contents describes Alexander and Athanasius of Alexandria as 'Theologians of the True Wisdom'. Make no mistake, the basis of orthodox, normative, and classical Trinitarian theology is the Wisdom tradition.) The OT Wisdom tradition affirmed a number of remarkable things about Wisdom -- for example, Wisdom is of divine origin, Wisdom is the agent by whom god has effected creation, and through whom god is radically present to creation throughout salvation history (see esp. Wis. Sol. 7-9).

But the main things that the Wisdom tradition offered to the Nicene fathers were these. First, Wisdom is intrinsic to god's being, just as the sun's SHINE is intrinsic to the being of the sun. (For this reason, the Nicene fathers were able to affirm that the Son is eternal, and, therefore, intrinsic to the very being of god the Father--just as the sun shines at every moment at which the sun exists, so too does god the Father beget the Son at every moment at which god the Father exists.) Second, Wisdom is of the same nature as god, just as radiance is of the same nature as light. (For this reason, the Father and Son are "one in being". Though the sun is distinct from its shine, the relationship between the two is so close that there is no difference between the two IN TERMS OF SUBSTANCE. As Gregory of Nyssa mentioned in his treatise to his brother, Peter, we would do well to think of the Trinitarian persons as though a chain with three links--pull any link, and you bring along the others as well. The point is simply that the divine persons ENTAIL each other, and they are as connected to each other as 'heat' is to 'flame'. The divine persons, therefore, constitute only ONE god.) Third, god is intrinsically dynamic and ecstatic: it is BECAUSE god eternally generates the Son that god has the CAPACITY to create the cosmos; it is BECAUSE the basis of god's eternal generation of the Son is self-giving love that god DID create the cosmos, and that god revealed himself as love through his Son on the cross.

If you 'got' the above points, then you will begin to see why the orthodox Trinity has so much to offer to the world. At the same time, you will begin to see why the Mormon conception of god offers less. For, according to orthodox Christianity, god is INTRINSICALLY dynamic, generative, and ecstatic. These properties of god are realized in the communion of the Trinity: the Father begets the Son, and the RealSymbol of his communion with the Son is the Spirit. The Mormon doctrine of god, however, does not offer us such a coherent synthesis of being, according to which dynamism and ecstasy are resolved into a perfect harmony which is able to comprehend unity and difference.

Thus, my first criticism against McGuire is that Holding was right to buttress his defense of orthodox Trinitarian theology, and that McGuire seems to have been oblivious to the reasons why this is so. The Wisdom tradition WAS foundational to the normative Christian understanding of god, and McGuire's comments on this point rather missed the point.

Second, the pre-existence of the Son/Christ/Jesus is NOT beside the point, and McGuire's comments in this regard--again--seemed to miss the point. McGuire distinguishes between the human 'Jesus', the 'Christ', and the eternal 'Wisdom' of god, but it is obvious to all that Holding did not concern himself with such distinctions--as with most people, he accepted the identity of the referent behind the predicates, just as Paul was able to 'Christ' with the 'Jesus' who died under Pilate, and this WITHOUT bothering with the possible connotation of the former term evoked by the messianic legacy of pre-Jesus Jewish literature. In other words, McGuire notes a confusion in Holding's work, but the confusion is introduced wholly by McGuire himself, and is not at all invoked by any reading of Holding which affords but the least amount of charitable interpretation.

Third, and closely related to the preceding, the Chalcedonian fathers simply wished to affirm the 'hypostatic unity' of Jesus the Christ, i.e., that the personal subject 'in' Jesus of Nazareth was identical with the personal subject who is the eternal Wisdom of god. 'Wisdom', 'the Son', 'Jesus' and 'Christ' was ONE PERSON (the eternal person begotten of the Father) with TWO NATURES (one the one hand, as intrinsic to the Father he is god; on the other hand, as having become flesh, he is human). Yet, McGuire seems confused on this point--he seems to conflate 'nature' with 'person', and it is FROM THIS CONFUSION that he is able to introduce PROBLEMS into Holding's account, whilst simultaneously arguing for the COHERENCE of the Mormon understanding. My point is simply that the McGuire is able to do such only on the basis of a confusion--he has missed the point of Chalcedon, thereby rendering Holding coherent, and Mormonism plausible. (In passing, what could McGuire possibly mean by the "personal, conscious preexistence of all humanity"?? Christ RECALLED his PERSONAL pre-existence in Jn. 17.; outside of an insane asylum, what mere human can do the same?)

Fourth, and finally, I must say that I find McGuire's use of his resources to be questionable. Two examples here. First, McGuire uses Haight to buttress his point. However, it must be noted that Haight was debarred from teaching by the Roman Catholic Church, and that the very work cited by McGuire was denounced by the Vatican for "grave doctrinal errors". Second, McGuire's reliance on Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza was likewise illicit, for her claims--introduced immediately into the context of a debate upon Trinitarian theology by McGuire--are (it could very plausibly be argued) agenda driven, delivered initially in a feminist theological context which is far removed from the subject at hand, the bases of which must be challenged in their own right before they can be introduced into a context which does not concern itself so explicitly with such secondary theological matters. In other words, and, to put it more simply, I think it is plausible that McGuire has to some extent abused his sources, and introduced dormant claims in an attempt to introduce them as awakened into a battle within which they will offer him service.

Thus, in conclusion, I say the following. McGuire is to be commended for his work, in that he has attempted to engage a number of relevant secondary sources, and introduce them into the debate with which he is himself concerned. On the other hand, McGuire's argument is--on the whole--defective. He has missed the fundamental point at hand, and only by doing so was he able to render Holding's argument questionable, and the (or, perhaps more appropriately, 'his') Mormon conception of god plausible--in other words, he failed to direct his sword toward the very heart of orthodox Trinitarian theology, according to which god is intrinsically DYNAMIC and ECSTATIC, with these divine properties being realized in a coherent synthesis of unity and difference. And, more still, McGuire seems to have mis-used his sources--he uses McGuires of questionable theological credentials (for the matter at hand) to substantiate his claims. In the final analysis, therefore, McGuire's claims in his 'the Pre-existence of the Son' section fail.