[B-Greek] John--14-15-16
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at juno.com
Wed May 25 14:18:51 EDT 2005
On Wed, 25 May 2005 12:13:27 -0500 Diana L Hayes <dihayes at juno.com>
writes:
> Dear the lists,
> I was wondering if you could help me out on a little dilemma that
> has
> arisen through studying the Greek text about the Holy Spirit.
> Coming
> upon these statements about the Holy Spirit, it surly has been
> surprising
> that I did not find the masculine pronoun really anywhere to
> describe
> exactly that the Holy Spirit is a He or as we can say, a
> person---although surely not to say that He is not, because we know
> that
> the He does have all the characteristics of a person, found from
> other
> passages in the New Testament-- and even in these.
>
> All that I find is the quite ambiguous --EI ending of the verbs that
> can
> mean it or He, (or she). Also there is the demonstrative pronouns
> here
> that keep the Spirit's identity quite generic. It seems as though
> the
> Spirit is address in the 3rd person most of the time when Jesus
> talks of
> Him, and well, he would have to be! It just is making it a little
> hard.
>
> I have heard, and believe made myself the argument that the Spirit
> must
> be a person, because in these passages and others in the English
> translation the word He is used for the Holy Spirit---As if this
> pronoun
> were there and concrete. That is very well if it can be deduced, or
> if
> not that is well, but I was wondering if I could know the truth on
> the
> matter and how the Greek is reading here. Perhaps, and probably some
> have
> had this same little dilemma.
>
> Thank you and will be looking forward to your response.
>
> Sincerely,
> Diana Hayes
> dihayes at juno.com
______________
The gender of pronouns used with regard to the Spirit have nothing to do
with the gender of the Spirit itself but with the gender of the noun used
for it as is ** usually ** always the case in Greek. The demonstrative
EKEINOS which appears in 16.13 & 14 is masculine in agreement with
PARAKLHTOS. The use of AUTON (M) in 16.7 is the same. There are,
however, instances in the 3 chapters you reference of a neuter relative
hO in, e.g. in 14.17. My guess is that this is something of a compromise
since PARAKLHTOS is M but PNEUMA is F. If the relative is to refer to
both nouns then some adjustment would be necessary. In summary, never
assume that the gender of a pronoun reflects the gender of the object to
which it refers but rather that it reflects the gender of the noun which
references it. The exception to this is the ocassional use of
constructio ad sensum (KATA SUNESIN) where there is a definite adjustment
to the gender of the referent.
george
gfsomsel
___________
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list