[B-Greek] Absent Definite Article strips Personality from The Holy Spirit
Robert George
4examp at gmail.com
Sat Jun 13 16:21:23 EDT 2009
The Watchtower's 1st Bible "dictionary" (1971) was titled "Aid to
Bible Understanding". It was superseded by "Insight on the Scriptures"
(1988).
1. Please provide professional comment on the text that I capitalized.
2. I would like to quote your comments (so please let me know if I may
ALSO include your name & title).
"Lacks personal dentification. ~ Since God himself is a Spirit and is
holy and since all his faithful angelic sons are spirits and are holy,
it is evident that if the "holy spirit" were a person, there should
reasonably be given some means in the Scriptures to distinguish and
identify such spirit person from all these other ‘holy spirits.’ It
would be expected that, at the very least, the definite article would
be used with it in all cases where it is not called "God’s holy
spirit" or is not modified by some similar expression. This would at
least distinguish it as THE Holy Spirit.
But, on the contrary, in a large number of cases THE EXPRESSION "holy
spirit" APPEARS IN THE ORIGINAL GREEK WITHOUT THE ARTICLE, THUS
INDICATING ITS LACK OF PERSONALITY.
-— Compare Ac 6:3, 5; 7:55; 8:15, 17, 19; 9:17; 11:24; 13:9, 52; 19:2;
Ro 9:1; 14:17; 15:13, 16, 19; 1Co 12:3; Heb 2:4; 6:4; 2Pe 1:21; Jude
20, Int and other interlinear translations."
(Insight p.1019 / Aid p.1543)
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list