Re: Addendum: a holy spirit

On Dec 4, 2004, at 7:01 PM, Ray Brown wrote:
> And a proper discussion of _pneuma hagion_, which seems consistently to
> preserve the Semitic order of noun+adjective, cannot be done without
> considering its Hebrew antecedent. We need to consider how the concept
> of
> God's "holy breath" is used in the Jewish scriptures, beginning with
> the
> the second verse of the very opening chapter of Genesis where we read
> of
> God's breath (_pneuma Theou_ in the Septuagint version - notice lack of
> articles before either noun!) hovered over the waters.
Could "Theou" and the other forms of it without a definite article be
being used as a name, like "God" in English or "E-lohim" in Hebrew?

"holy breath/spirit" in Hebrew is actually a noun+noun construct
compound, not a noun+adjective one - _ruahh haqodesh_, "(the)
wind/spirit of (the) holiness" - or, if you want to interpret it
theologically, "(the) wind/spirit of The Holiness", i.e. God.

It doesn't seem possible to distinguish based on the term whether it
means something like "God's non-corporeal existence" or just "a
wind/spirit that belongs to God".


-Stephen (Steg)
  "verbing weirds language"
      ~ calvin (& hobbes)

Reply