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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Is the Holy Spirit ever feminine gender? | 2 Tim 2:15 | Morant61 | 210277 | ||
Greetings SSC! Allow me to repost a section from an older post dealing with this topic. ************ The 'gender' of nouns is more a function of form than anything else. What do I mean by this? Nouns must have a form connected with them, thus some nouns are masculine, some nouns are feminine, while others are neuter. In some cases, the reason for the gender is obvious. For instance, 'man' is masculine, while 'woman' is feminine. :) In other cases, though, the reason is not apparent. 'Spirit' is neuter in form. Thus, grammatically, all of the articles and pronouns which have it as their antecedent must also be neuter in form. However, this does not necessarily mean that the Holy Spirit is not a person. It simply means that the form of the word is neuter. Interestingly, since the form of the word is neuter, grammatical rules require that all of the pronouns that refer to 'spirit' must also be neuter in form. However, in many instances, the pronouns are not neuter, but masculine. Two of the examples you used in your post incorrectly identified the pronoun as neuter when they were in fact masculine in form. The two examples are: John 14:26, and John 16:13-14. In both of these passages, 'ekeinos' is in the masculine form. Why would Scripture break the 'rule' in these cases? I believe it is because the Scripture writers were hesitant to use the neuter form for the Holy Spirit, Whom they certainly viewed as a person and not a thing! p.s. - I wanted to note that my other example (Eph. 1:14) has some textual variants involved, but John 16:13-14 do not. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran *************** There is a move among some to attempt to make the Holy Spirit the feminine part of God. The argument is mostly based on the fact that the Hebrew word for 'spirit' is feminine. However, as I noted in the above repost, gender is more a function of form than anything else. Just because a word is 'feminine' in Hebrew does not make the Holy Spirit a woman. :-) I hope this helps! Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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2 | Is the Holy Spirit ever feminine gender? | 2 Tim 2:15 | DocTrinsograce | 210292 | ||
Dear Tim, I was thinking about this regarding the difference between noun gender in German and in Spanish. In Spanish, the word for sun is masculine and the word for moon is feminine -- the opposite of German. The distinction is interesting, but purely etymological. It would be silly to look for actual gender in the sun and the moon based on such linguistic peculiarities. Does that example capture the sense of what you have instructed us regarding the word spirit in Scripture? In Him, Doc PS I always thought it was odd that the German word "madchen" (little girl) is a neuter word! :-) |
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3 | Is the Holy Spirit ever feminine gender? | 2 Tim 2:15 | Morant61 | 210306 | ||
Greetings Doc! You are dead on! Usually, the gender of a noun makes sense. But, there are cases like you mentioned that don't make sense. :-) Hebrew has a different distinction. It has words that are 'dual' in form and take a plural ending for a singular word. Talk about confusing! Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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