[B-Greek] Lexical Options for PNEUMA/PNEUMATOS
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Mar 4 21:01:30 EST 2005
At 2:23 PM -0800 3/4/05, Danny Andre' Dixon wrote:
>Please indulge a couple of lexical question for discussion regarding the
>Greek word PNEUMATOS:
>
>1. What is the best English option for the translation of this word?
I'd be leery of any notion of fixing a single English word to do service
for all instances of the word PNEUMA in the GNT. It seems to me that words
as important as this one deserve some careful study: check what Louw & Nida
and what BDAG have to say; check all the instances of the word in the GNT;
most concretely the word means "breath" or "that which is blown." There are
instances where PNEUMA does in fact mean nothing more than "wind" or
"breath," while in far more instances it refers to all that we associate
with what is "spiritual": intelligence, judgment, choice, intuition,
inspiration--both in individual persons and from beyond persons, as in
"Holy Spirit."
>2. Most translations opt for "Spirit/spirit" or "wind" (e.g. both
>appearing in John 3:8). Should "S/spirit" be considered a translation or
>is it merely a transliteration that means little thusly requiring that
>something better be chosen--something that communicates an idea inherent
>in the word? What options would anyone suggest.
Whatever else "spirit" may be understood to be, it is certainly NOT a
transliteration of PNEUMA, although it would be fair to say that English
"spirit" derives from Latin SPIRITUS and that Latin SPIRITUS does range
over most of the same semantic territory as does Greek PNEUMA, inasmuch as
PNEUMA relates to the verb PNEW "breathe" or "blow" and Latin SPIRITUS
relates to the Latin verb SPIRO which means much the same as PNEW in Greek.
>I do not think the answer to this questions should require any foray into
>anything theological. I'm only looking for legitimate options for
>translation that do not result in redundancy.
Again, I would warn against any view of PNEUMA which reduces it to some
single all-purpose English gloss. The extensive usage of the verb needs to
be studied, and that goes beyond looking for some "best equivalent."
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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