Re: Gender of TO PNEUMA

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Nov 19 1999 - 08:38:33 EST


At 8:16 AM -0500 11/19/99, Jim West wrote:
>At 11:21 AM 11/19/99 +0000, you wrote:
>
>>I'd like to ask a question about the gender used to translate TO PNEUMA. Why
>>do English translations use 'he' for the pronoun referring to the Holy
>>Spirit, rather than 'it'?
>>
>>Thank you
>
>merely convention. it would be hard for folk to read a bible which used
>"it" for a member of the godhead- so "he" is used and often "He".
>
>Its ok though because neuter gender in greek or feminine gender (ekklhsia-
>the word for church is feminine) has nothing to do with sexuality. So fear
>not, the Spirit, like the "father", is gender neutral (and not male or
>female).

I take it (a) that the above was not meant to assert that "father" is
gender neutral; and (b) that this is a grammatical assertion about the
Greek in the text rather than a theological assertion.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu

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