The analysis of the Gospel of John 1:1-6 and its comparison with Genesis 1 and 2: 1-3 and Proverbs 8 gives insight into how a Christian text implicitly and explicitly references Jewish texts. In the first chapter, verses 1-6, of the Gospel of John, we not only see explicit references to Genesis and Proverbs, but we also see how different ideas present in the two Jewish texts have been reformulated by the Gospel of John. We see a culmination of this reformulation in the first verse of the Gospel of John, which states: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In this verse, for example, the notion of “The Word” is, one might argue, similar in meaning and connotation to the idea of “Wisdom” found in Proverbs. This idea of wisdom can be found in verses 22 to 30 of Proverbs and states, “The Lord created me in the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Long ago I was constituted, first, before the beginning of the earth…. then I was next to him, like a craftsman; and I was his delight every day, always rejoicing before him” (Proverbs 8:22-30). From the proverb verses we can conclude that Wisdom was the first of God's creations and it was this wisdom that remained with Him in all His creations. Interestingly, this idea is also reinforced in the Gospel of John. The only difference here is that the term used in the Gospel is “Word”, as opposed to the term “Wisdom” used in Proverbs, both, however, aiming to represent virtually similar concepts. So, since there was only the Word/Wisdom in the beginning, it makes sense to say that the “Word was God” and God is Wisdom. Furthermore, the fact that the reference to the term “Word” in the Gospel is a king.. .... in the center of the sheet ...... the caption reads: “The leaders of Lebanon cut down the cedars and ensure their submission to an Egyptian officer of Seti I; in Karnak” (plate no. 89). Table no. 89 appears in an era recognized as the “twilight of the Egyptian empire” (1293-1150 BC) and describes one of Seti I's campaigns in Lebanon. Seti I is the successor of his father Ramesses I. According to legends, it was Seti I who founded the nineteenth dynasty of Egypt. Seti I had his own plans to regain power in Egypt and regain Egyptian territory, as a result he organized several campaigns in Syria and Lebanon. Among many other things, his era is best remembered for his construction efforts, which are reflected in the work he did for the temple of Amun at Karnak, where plate no. 89, the tomb in the Valley of the Kings and, finally, the temple of Osiris at Abydos (Stiebing 218).
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