The author reiterates that God is spirit and that the Bible presents God through personification and anthropomorphism which reflects only a likeness to God.[25]. The neuter Greek πνεῦμα is used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew רוּחַ. The basis of this claim was that the Hebrew word for “spirit” (ruach) is feminine. The word’s first use in the Bible appears in the second verse: “The Spirit of God [Ruach Elohim] was hovering over the Person of the Godhead that completes the Holy Trinity: God the Holy Spirit. Answer: The Hebrew ruach means “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” The corresponding Greek word is pneuma. Third, personal pronouns such as “he,” or “who,” are used with it. Second, we also have to remember that God uses human language by analogy. Scripture was written using three languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Today's Posts; Member List; Calendar; Forum; Christ Life; Bible Chat; If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. It is found in earlier writings of Syriac Christianity such as the Odes of Solomon[9] and in the Gnostic early-third-century Acts of Thomas. He is spirit, he is soul, and he is body, the one man. It is up to the translator to determine if the noun in question is a proper noun. Turner, The Holy Spirit, 77-78. It's all Greek to Them The Holy Spirit He, She, or It? d) And so (d) is true in the sense that “man” and “woman” are gendered in what they refer to. HEB: יֹאכְלֶ֑נּוּ בְּמָק֤וֹם קָדוֹשׁ֙ יֵאָכֵ֔ל קֹ֥דֶשׁ NAS:of it. So, we cannot argue ruach is feminine therefore we ought to translate it “she”. He even speaks specifically against such a view in, For example, R.P. (The BBC article referenced above quotes “grammatical gender is very different from biological sex.” This is perhaps too strong. PARAKLETOS: A Greek Word for Holy Spirit. This word is frequently translated as "holy," another abstract word. The expression itself is literally “ your (God’s) Spirit of holiness” (;v=d+q* j^Wr, ruakh qodeshkha), but the Hebrew language often creates adjectival expressions by means of what is known as the construct genitive relationship between words (i.e., the construction “the…of…”; so the “Spirit of holiness” = “the Holy Spirit”). Become a member That brings us nicely to the issues of translating from a gendered language into a less-gendered language. 1:13; 4:30) (Is. Is the Holy Spirit to be referred to as “she”? Who/What is the Ruach HaKodesh? Most of them indicate an aspect of His function in, or ministry through, the Christian’s life. September 2020 An easy-to-use style plus the benefits of the Strong's Dictionary numbering system makes this study Bible one for every student of God's Word, no matter what age. WD24 4AE, About us The grammatical gender of the word for "spirit" is feminine in Hebrew, neuter in Greek and masculine in Latin. There is also a far less common tradition of depicting the Holy Spirit in human form, usually as male. [49] In at least one medieval fresco, however, in the St. Jakobus church in Urschalling, Germany, the Holy Spirit is depicted as a female. In the church they are seeping into our theology and hymnody. Tweets by @ChurchSociety The word’s first use in the Bible appears in the second verse: “The Spirit of God [Ruach Elohim] was hovering over the [46], There was a well established place in liturgy, prayer and doctrine for the Holy Spirit as the Mother amongst the Moravian Brethren, exemplified by Count Zinzendorf especially. In these three instances, therefore, the LXX (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) renders this expression with the same co… That doesn’t necessarily mean the objects themselves have masculine or feminine identities. But we must continue with two careful qualifications. For example, some of these verses declare that souls can die, can touch, can eat, can thirst, can hunger, etc. Nick Gowers is the vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Old Hill, a Church Society parish. 'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Church Society is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England No. What follows are a total of 157 verses in which the Greek and Hebrew words for "soul" and "spirit" are used in ways that do not fit in with this common conception of the nature of man. In Genesis 1:2, the verb for hovered takes on the feminine of the noun. Some may still attempt to argue that the Holy Spirit is a person because the words holy and spirit are capitalized. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of Truth; Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you (Bible, Gospel of John 14:16-17 KJV). Both Hebrew and Greek have gendered nouns. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gender is seen "as an essential characteristic of eternal identity and purpose". Some small Christian groups regard the gender of the Holy Spirit to be female, based on their understanding that the Hebrew word for Spirit, ruach, can be feminine or masculine. When the King James Bible was translated from Greek to English in 1611, it was during a time when blasphemers and heretics were burned at the stake. We will briefly look at the first two and then concentrate on the passage in Mark. ", Susan Ashbrook Harvey, "Feminine Imagery for the Divine: The Holy Spirit, the Odes of Solomon, and Early Syriac Tradition,", Clark H. Pinnock, "The Role of the Spirit in Creation,", "God is not a sexual being, either male or female─something that was considered to be true in ancient Near Eastern religion. A Note about the Hebrew and Greek Texts for the Holy Spirit's Names The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, of course, and that's the starting point for serious exegesis of its writings. The next step, as suggested by the Church of Sweden, will be our liturgy. An obvious example is the beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-10. [31][32][33][34], The Unity Church's co-founder Charles Fillmore considered the Holy Spirit a distinctly feminine aspect of God considering it to be "the love of Jehovah" and "love is always feminine".[35]. But there is a further problem. [3] Most English translations of the New Testament refer to the Holy Spirit as masculine in a number of places where the masculine Greek word "Paraclete" occurs, for "Comforter", most clearly in the Gospel of John, chapters 14 to 16. ; “Man” and “woman” are gendered in what they refer to, but they are not grammatically gendered; He is neither man nor woman. Meaning- As the Third Person in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is recognized … 132 St Albans Road God's breath, His creative power, His Holy Ruach is responsible for all that is created: the universe, the earth, and even the spirit of man. Thus, it is argued that these Greek prepositions teach a twofold relationship of the Holy Spirit with the believer. Whether that is the Holy Spirit or Jesus’ human spirit is not my point here, so much as pointing out that the gender of the greek word pneuma has no indication of the gender-identification of the person whose spirit is being referred to. It has nouns that are masculine and feminine. Donate Now. [citation needed], In 1977, one of their leaders, Lois Roden, began to formally teach that a feminine Holy Spirit is the heavenly pattern of women. The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible combines essential tools for Hebrew and Greek with translations that are accurate and clear. Nick Gowers discusses the linguistic considerations in using the feminine gender for the Holy Spirit, The third person of the Trinity, gender language and translation, I attended an event recently during which we sung a number of songs - as Christians do. December 2020 March 2020 God sovereignly chose to have His Word written in Hebrew (the Old … Hebrew Word of the Day. This expression is also connected with the Hagios Pneuma in Greek (e.g., Luke 11:13; Eph. What Is the Holy Spirit? He sees YHVH redeeming the whole man by beginning at the very heart of man and working outward to make him complete. now, when God created Adam, genesis says He "breathed" into Him, indicating that what He breathed into Adam was His spirit, because breath and spirit translate as the same word. There the Holy Spirit is identified as the Spirit of Jesus. Thus, having a Father and Mother in heaven, they see that the Bible shows that those Parents had a Son born unto them before the creation of the world, by Whom all things were created. The persons of the Trinity are distinguished by the fact that they are Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But this is the spirit of Pharaoh - a man. There are 3 passages that we have to consider. The Holy Spirit is a she. There are some Christian churches (see below) who teach that the Holy Spirit is feminine based on the fact that both feminine nouns and verbs, as well as feminine analogies, are thought to be used by the Bible to describe the Spirit of God in passages such as Genesis 1:1-2, Genesis 2:7, Deut. I find no present way to incorporate the Greek idea of “person” into the Hebrew idea of “identity,” so this is a problem since Christianity is defined by the central doctrine of the Trinity. “ – 2 Corinthians 1:21-22. sphragis- … In Hebrew thinking, it is what man does and not what man thinks or believes. [3] In Aramaic also, the language generally considered to have been spoken by Jesus, the word is feminine. The Hebrew word for "spirit" (ruach) is feminine in Genesis 1:2. We shouldn’t be removing God’s chosen gender language to talk about God. By: Joseph Jacobs ... where the Hebrew and Aramaic had "Shekinah"; for in Greek there is no equivalent to the latter, unless it be δόξα (="gleam of light"), by which "ziw ha-shekinah" may be rendered. It perfectly describes the new man that is born into when we receive Christ as our savior. Wallace concludes that "it is difficult to find any text in which πνευμα is grammatically referred to with the masculine gender".[8]. "[13], For Semitic languages, such as ancient Syriac, the earliest liturgical tradition and established gender usage for referring to the Holy Spirit is feminine. God's breath, His creative power, His Holy Ruach is responsible for all that is created: the universe, the earth, and even the spirit of man. There is an overlap.) a) The Greek uses three types of grammatically gendered nouns and pronouns: masculine, feminine and neuter (Hebrew just has the first two); [10], Historian of religion Susan Ashbrook Harvey considers the grammatical gender to have been significant for early Syriac Christianity: "It seems clear that for the Syrians, the cue from grammar—ruah as a feminine noun—was not entirely gratuitous. Greek Translation. In a strange twist of irony, as our culture leaves the binary gender goal posts and heads onto the vast muddy gender-fluidity playing field it might actually help us with translation. When we use the word holy, as in a holy person, we usually associate this with a righteous or pious person. [22][23][24], Discovering Biblical Equality maintains that viewing God in masculine terms is merely a way in which we speak of God in figurative language. The grammatical gender of the word for "spirit" is feminine in Hebrew (רוּחַ, rūaḥ),[1] neuter in Greek (πνεῦμα, pneûma) and masculine in Latin (spiritus). The Greek Word for Spirit is “Pneuma,” In Hebrew Spirit is “Ruach” The Greek (New Testament) word for spirit is “pneuma” whereas the Hebrew (Old Testament) word for spirit is “ruach.” Both words mean: a current of air, wind, a breath in reference to either a human, demon, or the Holy Spirit of God. Indeed, it usually doesn’t. It is interesting that in each of these three languages, the word translated into English as “Spirit” in “Holy Spirit” means “breath” or “wind” (the term is ruach in Hebrew and Aramaic, and pneuma in Greek). Scholars speculate that the works as such were buried there in response to a letter from Bishop Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) declaring a strict canon of Christian scripture. Our staff Now let’s compare those four statements with English. In Hebrew the word “Ruah” was translated into English as the word Spirit, and it refers to feminine, and the word Spirit in Greek is “Pneuma” which can mean either male or female. Another word for Opposite of Meaning of Rhymes with Sentences with Find word forms … [14], The Syriac language, which was in common use around AD 300, is derived from Aramaic. Instead we need to ask whose spirit is being referred to? When God has unambiguously used masculine language to reveal himself who are we to change God’s self-identification?! [30], They take the Oneness of God to mean the "familial" unity which exists between them, which unity is not seen in any other depiction of the Godhead by the various non-Hebrew peoples. That said, it does raise an important question of whether our human spirit is gendered to match our physical gender. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. 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