Toto

The Jewish character of Wisdom is portrayed as feminine in Proverbs - e.g.

Proverbs 9
Invitations of Wisdom and of Folly
1 Wisdom has built her house;
she has hewn out its seven pillars.

2 She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;
she has also set her table.

3 She has sent out her maids, and she calls
from the highest point of the city.

But by the time of Philo, wisdom was portrayed as masculine, even while retaining the feminine name Sophia. The icon of St. Sophia used in the Orthodox Churches shows an old man with a grey beard (for wisdom), along with a lamb representing Jesus and a dove representing the Holy Spirit. Image of Saint Sophia, the Holy Wisdom of God

This is an interesting idea, but since the means of impregnation is not specified, it seems a stretch. And by the first century, Hellenistic Jews would view the Holy Spirit as either masculine or a masculine agent, which is probably the early Christian position.

But I should let a modern Christian try to explain it away.

CaliNORML

This is that Abrahmic contrast of a single entity given a single sex. In this case male, there is no balance, no duality in a single gender based view of a "creator" when it is apperant to all who look at the human species in which sex life is "created."

There is no femininity in the maker, this is the view these church's have taken, one of which is led by those I believe held women back the most, mainly those 12 stooges Jesus used to fullfill the prophesy of "False prophets." Although I must say, a few did get it right but should have stopped there; but some of the most cowardly lived to write on, how sad.

My point was,(I do get lost) that this view of a single sex in not mirrored in creation, this was one of the many reasons so many "pagans" convereted. The Virgin Mary is worshipped in some societies as even above her son.

KMS