Jack the Bodiless

I'd never heard of Sophia until another poster (FranzJoseph) mentioned her, but a Google search on "goddess sophia" throws up a rather large number of links.

(Some background: Sophia is claimed to be the suppressed, censored female component of the Christian Trinity, now referred to as the Holy Ghost, originally a Goddess in her own right, and consort of Yahweh: worshipped by the Gnostics, but claimed by some to predate Judaism, a relic of when proto-Judaism was polytheistic).

Biography of Sophia

I suspect that the Gnostics were the early Christian equivalents of modern Wiccans, developing a new tradition of Goddess-worship based on whatever tales may have survived of the earlier tradition (filling in the gaps from their own imaginations).

How much is known about Sophia, and about polytheistic proto-Judaism?

Toto

Sophia, or Wisdom, is generally identified with the Logos, or Word, as in John 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

There is Greek Orthodox cathedral named after St. Sophia in Los Angeles (modeled in small part on the more famous one in Constantinople). If you take the church tour, the guide explains that St. Sophia is not a female saint, but translates literally to "Holy Wisdom." So Saint Sophia, or Holy Wisdom, is represented as an old man with a grey beard.

I think this shows how Christians have tried to erase the female side of their history, and have generally succeeded.

There is quite a bit known about early Jewish polytheism, which I don't have handy right now. If someone else doesn't post it, I will look it up.

James Still

I have an unpublished reference to Astarte/Sophia available here.

Amos

Sophia is the equivalent to Mary theotokos who is the third person of the trinity as seen from heaven. It is because of our overbearing human nature that She is surpressed which makes her very enigmatic which in turn is why we cannot or seldom can gain conscious knowledge of our subconscious mind. Her reference to the holy ghost just means that She is enigmatic and comes and goes as She pleases. She was O-90 in Zamjatin's "WE."

Amos

Eudaimonist

Jack, that link no longer appears valid. Did the article move somewhere?

Jack the Bodiless

...Hm, I've just tested it and it's working now. Maybe a temporary glitch on their server.

I've since found an interesting link on goddess-worship among the Hebrews: Hebrew Goddesses and the Origin of Judaism