[B-Greek] John--14-15-16

Eric Weiss papaweiss1 at yahoo.com
Wed May 25 14:02:12 EDT 2005


I'll keep my answer focused on the Greek text and Greek grammar so as not to stray into 
theology.
 
My reading of John 14-16 shows that Jesus at times refers to the Holy Spirit as TO PNEUMA 
(a neuter noun) and at other times as hO PARAKLHTOS (a masculine noun). When Jesus 
uses a pronoun to refer to the Holy Spirit - either EKEINOS ("that" or "he") or AUTOS ("he" or 
"it") - every instance of EKEINOS or AUTOS that is masculine (and is often translated as "he") 
can be shown to be referring or possibly referring to PARAKLHTOS as the antecedent. There 
is no instance where it can be shown that Jesus is definitely using a masculine pronoun to 
refer to TO PNEUMA.
 
Bibles which translate these pronouns as "he" can be misleading and can imply to the reader 
that Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit as a person because He is supposedly calling the 
Spirit "He." Jesus never calls the Holy Spirit a "he." Jesus does call hO PARAKLHTOS an 
EKEINOS or AUTOS, but that's because Jesus/John is using correct Greek grammar which 
requires that pronouns for masculine nouns also be masculine, and pronouns for neuter nouns 
be neuter. Bible translators sometimes choose to translate these masculine forms of the 
pronouns (i.e., EKEINOS or AUTOS) as "he." It might be better if they translated them as "that 
one," because to translate them as "he" implies something to the English reader (i.e., the 
personhood of the Holy Spirit because a "masculine pronoun" is supposedly being used to 
refer to a neuter Greek noun PNEUMA) that is not what the Greek in fact says.
 
I am not denying the personhood of the Holy Spirit, just pointing out that the Greek text of John 
14-16 does not violate Greek grammar and refer to the Holy Spirit as a "he" or as a person, 
even though some translations have allowed or caused persons at times to preach that such is 
the case.


Eric S. Weiss


		
---------------------------------
Discover Yahoo!
 Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news & more. Check it out!


More information about the B-Greek mailing list