Pneuma [work-in-progress]
Pneuma is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for "spirit" or "soul". Pneuma is also used in Greek translations of ruach in the Hebrew Bible, and in the Greek New Testament (the Septuagint). Like ruach, the Greek word pneuma has many meanings. In the New Testament, pneuma is most often translated as spirit and spiritual, but can also mean breath, wind, and mind. Frequency in the New Testament:
379.
Pneuma (gloss) definition: wind, breath, things which are commonly perceived as having no material substance; by extension: spirit, heart, mind, the immaterial part of the inner person that can respond to God; spirit being: (evil) spirit, ghost, the spirit of God, holy spirit.
Introduction. The issue with pneuma is over the phrases the "spirit of God" and the "holy spirit." Did the writers of the New Testament refer to the spirit of God or holy spirit as a person ("he") or a thing ("it"). A careful study of the Greek New Testament can easily answer this question as we attempt to do below.
With and without the article "the". When used alone pneuma is either found with or without the article "the". In the gospels "the" is absent approximately 40% of the time. However, Greek scholars have confessed that no satisfactory principle can be laid down for the use or non-use of the article with proper names. It may be nothing more than a matter of writing style.
With the word "holy". When employed with hagion ("holy") it is used in four ways:
- pneuma hagion - "spirit holy"
- hagion pneuma - "holy spirit"
- the pneuma hagion - "the spirit holy"
- the hagion pneuma- "the holy spirit"
Gender and the article "the". The article always has the same gender, case, and number as the word it modifies. This agreement can be helpful in identifying the case, gender and number of unfamiliar nouns. There are 17 different ways to spell "the" in Greek. However, with respect to the "Holy Spirit" we can simplify things. We can ignore all plural forms since there is only one Holy Spirit. We can also ignore all feminine forms since none of the apostles ever referred to the Holy Spirit as a "she." This leaves us with the following eight (8) possible forms:
"The" |
| Case |
Abbr. |
Masculine |
Neuter |
| Nominative - subject of the sentence |
nom |
ὁ |
τό |
| Accusative - direct object |
acc |
τόν |
τό |
| Genitive - of, from the |
gen |
τοῦ |
τοῦ |
| Dative - in, to, by the |
dat |
τῷ |
τῷ |
It simplifies further given that the genitive and dative cases (the last two rows in the above table) have identical masculine and neuter forms (i.e. τοῦ and τῷ). This means that when you see these forms in the Greek text, you can ignore the gender since you cannot know whether it is masculine or neuter. This leaves us with only the nominative and accusative cases to determine whether the authors intended a masculine or neuter meaning to the "Holy Spirit." A full word study of pneuma in the New Testament of the nominative and accusative forms reveals that only the neuter form "τό" is used and never the masculine form (i.e. ὁ and τόν). You can see for yourself in the links below..
Gender usage in New Testament Greek. The authors of the New Testament often changed the gender of articles, adjectives, and pronouns that referred to a neuter word—if that neuter word referred to a person. However,
- Although there were many opportunities to do so, and although it was allowed by the rules of Greek grammar, New Testament writers never changed from neuter to masculine when referring to the Spirit of God. They always referred to the holy spirit as “it” or “which”, never “he” or “whom”. —John David Clark, Sr., Pneuma Study.
Thus, the only reasonable conclusions, based on an assessment of the Greek words used in the books of the New Testament are:
- "Spirit of God" is not a person. The authors of the New Testament did not think of the Spirit of God as a person.
- Translation bias. Many modern translations contain intentional mistranslations of certain words found in the Greek text because the translators sought to promote their trinitarian faith.
Miscellaneous notes
Pneuma (spirit, breath), psyche (soul, mind), sarx (flesh, material) or soma (body).
Notes
