@courtenay, absolutely. There is no need to spend time arguing and posturing. I suppose I like to get into the nitty-gritty. And certainly, if I hear a different, opposing belief, I like to try it against my own, with the hope that everyone with be edified, and drawn closer to Jesus.

But as you said, once we begin asserting that our opponent is outright wrong (even if they are), we begin to break down possibility for growth; and we begin something which is outside the scope of NarniaWeb.

I will add one more thing which may be of some interest, and is certainly of some relevance the topic at hand. I have stated, in no unclear terms above that I am opposed to calling/suggesting Jesus a woman (in fact, the thought makes me sick), but nevertheless, let me give one argument I have not yet heard for why it might be theologically ok to have a female Aslan at the beginning.

In Proverbs, Solomon says Wisdom, who is personified as a woman, was with God at the beginning, before creation.

Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. Proverbs 8: 1-4

And later:

The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when [there were] no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD. Proverbs 8: 23-35

Certainly, there are similarities between this woman, and Jesus, but I strongly think saying anything beyond that is too much. Additionally, certainly, there was a woman at creation. Note she was there with God at creation, but note also that she was there "when he prepared," and "strengthened," and "established" everything. She did not create or establish, he did. In the gospel of John, we find that Jesus was there in the beginning, as "the Word." 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. John 1: 3-5

And:

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1: 12-14

In contrast to Wisdom, the Word actually created, while wisdom stood by. So I think they are similar, but different. If they were able to make this distinction, a female at the beginning (besides Jadis) might make sense. But then, Lewis was very clearly putting Aslan there as a creator of the world, not just a bystander.

I guess that's not so impressive. I've succeeded in providing an hand picked opposing argument, and disagreeing with it!   But maybe somebody will see something I haven't and can run with it.

Posted by: @lamp-lighter

I will add one more thing which may be of some interest, and is certainly of some relevance the topic at hand. I have stated, in no unclear terms above that I am opposed to calling/suggesting Jesus a woman (in fact, the thought makes me sick), but nevertheless, let me give one argument I have not yet heard for why it might be theologically ok to have a female Aslan at the beginning.

My understanding of Wisdom Christology (i.e. an attempt to understand who Jesus Christ is based on seeing him as the human embodiment of God's wisdom) is pretty weak.  [Warning: rant here!]  Partly I am biased against this approach as my introduction to it was from authors who wanted to explain how the Apostle Paul moved from a "low Christology" (essentially the idea that we begin with the idea that Jesus is human, but not necessarily God and move from there) to affirming that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  The scholars who lent on Wisdom Christology to explain the Apostle Paul's high view of Christ seemed to mostly disregard the "Road to Damascus" [Acts 9] as unhistorical.  From what I could tell, these intellectuals decided, apriori, that miracles could not happen and therefore Paul could not have encountered Jesus.  No proof was offered as to why this event could not occur, it was just assumed that "miracles are irrational" and that was assumed as historical proof.  To then explain how this man could have changed from persecuting Christians to becoming an evangelist for Jesus Christ, they said a 'Wisdom Christology' could bridge the gap.  As soon as one accepts that Paul could really have encountered the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, then it is not difficult to understand that the man who asked "Who are you, LORD?" and received the answer, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" could change his mind and believe that Jesus was none other than the LORD and refer to him as "LORD Jesus Christ" from that point on.

My experience has also been that people who get caught up on Wisdom Christologies, tend to focus on the extra-biblical Jewish wisdom literature (e.g. "The Wisdom of Solomon") in order to understand Jesus and spend less time on reading what is reported in the gospels and the epistles.  I think the account in the canon of scripture carries more weight than extra biblical writings.

Having said that, I think I would affirm that "Jesus is the human embodiment of God's wisdom"; just I would want to start with Jesus (and the gospels) to work out what that means in practice, rather than start with other sources and then project back onto Jesus from them what it means for him to be God's wisdom.  I quoted James B Torrance earlier, where he lamented that some people were referring to God as "Sophia" (the Greek word for wisdom) to worship God in a feminine way:

The contention. Therefore, is that we need new images of God, for example, female images. This was the basic theme of the Minneapolis Conference on "Re-Imagining God, Community and the Church," and behind the proposal that Sophia (the Greek feminine word for wisdom) be used to describe the object of our worship, and prayers be offered to her as our Mother.

The presupposition behind this extreme liberal approach is that God is unknown.

I may be wrong to associate this phenomena with this form of Wisdom Christology, but it does sound rather similar to associating Jesus Christ with Lady Wisdom.  To me, this is not seeking Christ and finding him as the fulfillment of God's wisdom, but projecting an image (where we are first manipulating what we want the metaphor to mean) onto Christ.  I am skeptical if this approach is reading out of the text what is there, it looks to me like reading into the text what we want to find.

However, some scholars have given this extrabiblical literature too much explanatory value in understanding the New Testament's portrayal of Christ.  They argue that the exalted picture of Jesus found in the New Testament was largely the result of the early church's reflection on Lady Wisdom as a divine figure.  The earliest church supposedly came to think of the human Jesus as divine because it gradually came to associate him with this first-century figure.  We reject this approach for the following reasons:

1. While early church fathers, after the close of the New Testament canon, sometimes identified Jesus with the Old Testament personification of Wisdom, the New Testament itself never makes this identification.

2. Wisdom personified is a way of talking about an attribute of God, even in the intertestamental writings; but the New Testament teaches that Jesus is an actual  person - namely, God's Son, who is included in the identity of God.

3. There are references to God's creation of Lady Wisdom in Jewish literature.  The New Testament portrays Jesus in his deity as eternal.  It should be noted that the heretic Arius argued on the basis of the creation of Sophia that Jesus was not fully God.  This was rightly rejected by the church.

4. While Lady Wisdom is described as playing a "saving" role in Israel, this never involves salvation from sin.  To argue that personified Wisdom deepened the New Testament's understanding of the saving role of Jesus is to read the redemptive work of Christ into the earlier Jewish literature.  The redemptive work of Christ is central to the New Testament's message about Jesus; it is absent in any substantive sense in the narratives about Lady Wisdom.

5. Finally, the existence of a well-developed story line about Sophia in Jewish literature is highly suspect.  Scholars tend to read back into these writing elements taken from the gospel story that are foreign to what the Jewish authors in their own contexts intended.  In the Jewish literature, there is no actual personal existence of Wisdom, no incarnation, no redemptive work, and no second coming.

The constellation of ideas related to Lady Wisdom fails to explain the story of Jesus.  At best, the background Wisdom material provided language to express truths about Christ, especially in his revelatory and creative functions.  These Christological concepts were already assumed by the earliest church on other grounds.

(From Wisdom Christology: Jesus as God's Wisdom by Daniel J. Ebert IV)  I should note that this book is, on the whole, in favor of understanding Jesus as God's human embodiment of Wisdom, just they object to much the same abuses of this approach that I do.  I should actually read this book some time - rather than lazily use it as a proof text, like right now.

To quote C. S. Lewis:

All this sort of criticism attempts to reconstruct the genesis of the texts it studies; what vanished documents each author used, when and where he wrote, with what purposes, under what influences—the whole Sitz im Leben of the text. This is done with immense erudition and great ingenuity.

...

What forearms me against all these Reconstructions is the fact that I have seen it all from the other end of the stick. I have watched reviewers reconstructing the genesis of my own books in just this way.

... I have watched with some care similar imaginary histories both of my own books and of books by friends whose real history I knew. Reviewers, both friendly and hostile, will dash you off such histories with great confidence; will tell you what public events had directed the author’s mind to this or that, what other authors had influenced him, what his over-all intention was, what sort of audience he principally addressed, why—and when—he did everything.

Now I must first record my impression; then, distinct from it, what I can say with certainty. My impression is that in the whole of my experience not one of these guesses has on any one point been right; that the method shows a record of 100 per cent failure. ...

... The superiority in judgment and diligence which you are going to attribute to the Biblical critics will have to be almost superhuman if it is to offset the fact that they are everywhere faced with customs, language, race-characteristics, class-characteristics, a religious background, habits of composition, and basic assumptions, which no scholarship will ever enable any man now alive to know as surely and intimately and instinctively as the reviewer can know mine. And for the very same reason, remember, the Biblical critics, whatever reconstructions they de-vise, can never be crudely proved wrong. St. Mark is dead. When they meet St. Peter there will be more pressing matters to discuss.

In my theology degree at a Conservative Evangelical Bible College we looked at the parallels between Jesus, who is The Word (John ch 1.1-14, prologue of John's gospel), and Wisdom who is personified in a poetic way as a wise woman.  I haven't studied Wisdom Books/Literature as such, but it was clear that Wisdom was not an actual person, unlike Jesus. Nor was she a god or goddess. 

But we also learned that the Hebrew word for God in the Creation accounts in Genesis does indicate plurality, a fellowship. ['they', rather than 'he']  God was not lonely, did not need to create humans to be friends with. 

There are several denominations or church groups who teach different things about the Trinity and about Jesus's identity, from what mainstream churches do. As someone else has said here, a theological discussion does not belong here. 

We do have a place to discuss such things. 'Christianity, Religion & Philosophy ' in SPARE OOM forum.

Posted by: @coracle

As someone else has said here, a theological discussion does not belong here. 

We do have a forum to discuss Christianity. 

Apologies - I am certainly guilty of going to far in this respect. Sorry.

@davidd it's easy to get into keen discussion.