This could be the shortest post I've ever needed to write!
It is a short answer to a claim long made by Jehovah's Witnesses about Proverbs 8:22. They attempt to proof-text from this single verse to support their claim that Jesus once upon a time did not exist, and never did until created by Jehovah (YHWH). The text of Proverbs 8:22 simply does not say this.
The verse says: "YHWH possessed me [Wisdom] at the beginning of his journey, before his works at the time."
They focus on the word "beginning". That is the beginning of "his way" or "his journey".
Here's the thing: it doesn't say Wisdom's beginning. It says YHWH's beginning as of YHWH's journey. That is, YHWH's Wisdom was there for as long as YHWH was there.
The verse can't say "the beginning of YHWH" simply because YHWH is without beginning. So it says "the beginning of YHWH's journey." Wisdom was there from the beginning of YHWH's journey. There is no suggestion that Wisdom began after YHWH's journey began. In fact, it emphasises that Wisdom was there "before YHWH's works".
Wisdom was not one of the "works" of creation. Wisdom was there already as of the start of YHWH's journey.
The author didn't have a Hebrew word for eternity. If they had, they would have been able to say YHWH possessed Wisdom from "eternity." Instead, it's from the beginning of YHWH's "journey".
The one thing this doesn't say is that "there was a time when Wisdom was not" (to misquote Arius).
