[B-Greek] Absent Definite Article strips Personality from The Holy Spirit (Correction #2)

George F Somsel gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Sat Jun 13 20:41:03 EDT 2009


Then perhaps you already know the answer since you are so certain that it is an abuse.  Or are you simply assuming that it is an abuse and wish proof of your preconceived position?  As I noted in an offlist comment to you, we deal with texts and their understanding.  We sometimes also deal with general principles of Greek grammar or lexicography.  We do not deal with questions of the nature of "Can you prove X wrong?"  If you have a particular text with a question regarding it, I'm sure someone will step into the ring to do battle with the grammatical question in it.  As in real estate there are three things of importance: Location, location, location, so here there are three things with which we deal:  The text, the text, the text.
 george
gfsomsel 


… search for truth, hear truth, 
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, 
defend the truth till death.


- Jan Hus
_________ 




________________________________
From: Robert George <4examp at gmail.com>
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 5:24:32 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] Absent Definite Article strips Personality from The Holy Spirit (Correction #2)

I have worded things VERY poorly.
I totally disagree with the WT's position.
I am NOT looking for opinion on WT propaganda.
I am looking for scholarly comment that Biblical Greek Grammar does
not & cannot be used (abused) in such a way.


On 6/13/09, Robert George <4examp at gmail.com> wrote:
> The Watchtower's 1st Bible "dictionary" (1971), titled "Aid to Bible
> Understanding" was superseded by "Insight on the Scriptures" (1988).
>
> Do you agree that Greek grammar warrants such a conclusion for the
> text I capitalized?
> 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)
>
> Thanks. / Robert George
>
---
B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
B-Greek mailing list
B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek



      


More information about the B-Greek mailing list