prem@geomag.fsu.edu (Prem Subramanyan) (07/15/89)
In article <Jul.1.02.59.32.1989.17854@athos.rutgers.edu> mangoe@mimsy.umd.edu (Charley Wingate) writes: >Pat, I think you would save us both a lot of time by not over-interpreting >what I say. I think having the Spirit around is important, but I don't >believe, as you seem to, that She only comes to people locked in their rooms >doing individual bible study. ^^^ After carefully searching through Scripture, I ran across this verse in Romans 7:16 "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God". I think the only way this can be interpreted is that the Holy Spirit is a masculine being, not a feminine one. Albeit, I am sure that since both man and woman were created after God's image, that God possesses what are considered "feminine" qualities "How often I have wanted to gather you children as a hen gathers her chicks", yet God clearly refers to Himself by the divine inspiration of the Paul that the Holy Spirit is clearly masculine as the Father and Jesus are themselves. In other places the Holy Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of Christ. Since Jesus was a man, it is only logical to believe that the Holy Spirit is somehow male in gender (of course, not in human terms of gender). So, Mr. Wingate, you are in error to believe that the Holy Spirit is a She...Scripture stands against you in this, or will you say that some other "truth" or "tradition" reveals otherwise? --- Prem Subrahmanyam [The "Himself" is an artifact of the translation. In Greek, as in many other languages, gender is mostly grammatical, i.e. it comes from the word ending. Table, chairs, and windows all have gender. The gender of the word spirit happens to be neuter. In English gender is based on the actual sex of the thing. We use neuter for inanimate objects, and he and she only for animals. Thus there is no reason to use the same gender in the English translation. References to the Holy Spirit often get translated as "he" in English, because the Spirit is taken to be a person, and "he" is the generic default for persons when no sex is specified. A few people are beginning to use "she" in such cases now. Thus the translation "herself". You can decide whether that's a sensible or not on your own. It is perhaps useful to use both, just to make sure people don't get the impression that the Bible says that the Spirit is one or the other. --clh]