John’s concept of the Logos, the Word that was God and became flesh (John 1:1-14) was derived from the Old Testament understanding of Wisdom as much, probably more, than from the Greek idea of Logos. And yet Wisdom, the one before whom are riches and honor and righteousness (Proverbs 8:18) and who shared with God in the creation of all things (Proverbs 8:27-31) is consistently given a female gender in Proverbs and by Jesus (Proverbs 1:20; 4:6; 8:1,11; 9:1; 14:33; Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:35). "Jesus and Sophia came to be associated through a process that took place during the first two centuries of our era. The apostle Paul said it clearly: 'We are preaching a crucified Christ . . . who is the Wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:23; see also 1 Corinthians 2:6-8). Others, the author of John 1:1-18, for example, describe Sophia clearly but only imply that the person they are describing is Jesus. Elsewhere, such as in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and Thomas, Jesus speaks the words of Sophia as if he were Sophia. Yet others, among them the authors of Ephesians, Colossians, and James depend heavily on their readers' knowledge of Sophia in communicating who they thought Jesus really was. Finally, the literature that came to be called gnostic includes a wide range of stories in which Jesus and Sophia exchange roles in a variety of earthly settings.
In the Hebrew tradition, Sophia was considered to have been with God from the beginning of Creation. In Proverbs 8:27-51, Sophia says:
When God set the heavens in place, I was present,


Sophia is found throughout the wisdom books of the Bible. She is Wisdom Incarnate, the Goddess of all those who are wise. There are references to Her in the book of Proverbs, and in the apocryphal books of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon (accepted by Catholics and Orthodox, found in the Greek Septuagint of the early Church). Paul explicitly identifies Jesus with Sophia in 1st Corinthians 1:23-25,30 "By God's action, Jesus Christ has become our Sophia." Then following, in 2:6-8, "But still we have a Sophia to offer those who have reached maturity: not a philosophy of our age, it is true....The hidden Sophia of God which we teach in our mysteries is the Sophia that God predestined to be for our glory before the ages began...." John more directly incorporates Sophia scriptures into his description of Jesus. Sophia's statement (Ecc. 24:8) "Then the creator of all things instructed me...'Pitch your tent in Jacob, and make Israel your inheritance'" ... becomes John 1:14, "The Word was made flesh, and pitched his tent among us." Extensive references in Paul, John and the Synoptic Gospels are given.

Is it any wonder that She is constantly associated with wise King Solomon? 1 Kings 4:29-31 tells us that God gave wisdom to Solomon, and that he became wiser than all the kings of the East and all the wise people of Egypt. Wisdom 8:2, 16, 18 tells us that Solomon was seen as married to Sophia. One of the many layers of symbolism attributed to the Song of Songs (also known as Song of Solomon or Canticle of Canticles) is that it speaks of Solomon's marriage to Holy Sophia. Wisdom 9:8-11 even tells us that Sophia instructed Solomon in building the Temple!

Most New Testament (better rendered, new covenant) translations, by naming and renaming of places, people and movements, have changed identity and position to pass distinctly as Christian, and not as another Jewish faction.
The dissociation of the New Covenant as a Jewish book begins with the mutation of Semitic names into Greek names. The messianic (christian) belief itself is not a new concept. Avraham (Abraham) himself was a messianic. He believed in a messiah bringing salvation; he simply looked forward while we look back. In the New Covenant, members of the messianic movement are referred to using largely Greek or seemingly Greek names. The Greek name most often is but a vague reference to the original Hebrew name in sound and association.


James is the New Covenant name for Yeshua's half-brother, who was later head of the church in Jerusalem. English James scarcely echoes Greek Iakobos and Hebrew Ya'akov. So James, wearing a new British costume, is removed from his Semitic connotation. From Ya'akov to James is quite a journey. Such a gap in translation may be shocking -accomplished by translation traditions of removing Christian from Jew -in a book that is entirely Jewish. Though, it should be a pleasure to return and redeem the names once we understand how far we have been led from the Hebrew name.


The "New Testament" is a mistranslation of the Greek title New Covenant based on Jerome's intermediate Latin mistranslation, which he rendered as Novum Testamentum. The title New Covenant itself derives from Luke 22.20, Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:25 and Hebrews 8.8-13.21. The idea of a new covenant, we must remember, comes from Paul who takes it directly from Jeremiah 31:31: "I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel." Paul, a Greek-speaking Jew from Tarsos, who knew the Hebrew texts, used diatheke to convey its meaning in Hebrew, berit , which is covenant, and also a cut or circumcision, as we see when Paul speaks of a "new circumcision of the heart" (Rom. 2.25-29).


The Greeks of the New Covenant texts were largely Greek-speaking Jews. The texts themselves were meant to persuade them that Jesus was not only a Jewish prophet, but was their messiah, hence the name Christian for their sect, Christian meaning "messianic". The probable Aramaic script or oral witness accounts containing the Hebrew biblical names found themselves Hellenized, given to Greek translation or transliteration, from late Hebrew or Aramaic. So, we see, Yeshua or, more fully, Yehoshua the Messiah, Yehoshua and Ha-Mashiach, rendered into Greek as Iesous 0 Hristos. Iesous is a transliteration of Yeshua and Hristos (meaning the "anointed"), being a translation of mashiach. Greek Iesous 0 Hristos is in turn translated into English as Jesus [the] Christ. Similarly, Yochanan becomes Ioannes in Greek, Johannes in Latin, and John in English.

However we are not Greek-speaking Jews and gentiles. We speak English. Why not biblical Yochanan in English rather than Greek John? Why adopt an English transcription of a Hellenized Greek transcription of Hebrew names from the Hebrew Scriptures?

If we have failed to demonstrate the purposeful inconsistency, consider that the Tanakh (Old Testament) is done with minimal change. (Abraham may be written Avraham since the b and v in Hebrew, as in Spanish and other languages, are interchangeable) Why not transcribe biblical names from the New Covenant directly into English without an intermediary Greek transcription? Hellenizing Yeshua the Messiah, into Jesus Christ is comparable to Hellenizing Yahweh (YHWH) into Zeus. If this were acceptable, we would read the story of creation as, "In the beginning Zeus created the heavens and the earth," The Tanakh (Old Testament) would be in harmony with the presently Hellenized New Covenant.
 

The English "God" of Old English and is equivalent to the Dutch god, German Gott, Icelandic godh, and Goth guth. The epithet "god" has no added correlation with Greek or Hebrew than "hell"; also of Germanic origin. In the Greek scriptures "hell" is rendered hades, in the Hebrew it is Sheol or Gehenna (Gei Hinnom).

The Greeks chose to Hellenize the Semitic epithets for God. However, in English there exists no grounds (other than the lethargy of tradition) for the Hellenized, Romanized and Germanized words for God not acquiescing to Elohim, Adonai and Yahweh in the New Covenant. "God", the name of a northern pagan divinity, is standard English. Elohim, Yahweh and Adonai may soon beckon to be embraced by His followers.

The first name for God, we encounter as the third word in the Hebrew Genesis (reading right to left): brereshit bara elohim et ha-shamayim ve-et ha-aaretz. Following the Hebrew word order this reads: "In the beginning | created | Elohim | the skies | and the earth". Elohim a "plural of majesty" with a singular meaning, derived from Eloah , or from El meaning "God" as in El Shaddai. In the second account of creation (Gen. 2.4), (be-yom asot adonai elohim eretz ve-shmayim), our triune God is again called Elohim but also Adonai, meaning, "lord". Genesis has provided thusly, two words for God: Elohim and Adonai early in the text.
Yet since His/Her secret name -or any word signifying that name -is ineffable, the true name cannot be known, written, or sounded. There is however a way to represent God with letters that do not spell or reveal His secret name. The Tetragrammaton (also Tetragram), consists of the four Hebrew consonants YHWH or YHVH (yod, he, waw or vav, he ), normally pronounced Adonai (the Semitic word for "lord"). Some choose to sound out the letters, YHWH giving Yahweh another surrogate name for the nameless one.

Considering these things, it should come as no surprise that in Hebrew writings, God had no singular epithet. S/He was at once, nameless, but with a secret sign that could not be uttered, and so took on one name that meant itself, which was HaShem, which means "The Name".

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