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Feminine Holy Spirit?
#1
I was told that in Aramaic Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit in feminine terms. Doesn't Jesus use masculine Aramaic pronouns for the Holy Spirit? Does Jesus leave any wiggle room for confusion on this?
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#2
The word for spirit in Aramaic is grammatically feminine. When using verbs and adjectives around gramatically feminine nouns they must also be in the feminine form. That doesn't mean the Holy Spririt is feminine. Other non-English languages like French have similar features.

Posted with TouchBB on my iPhone
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#3
That???s what I thought, but could you clear up for me something. I did just a little research yesterday and it seems that Jesus even in the Aramaic uses a masculine pronoun only (huw) for the Holy Spirit just like the Greek (ekeinos) does. Here is the point I wanted to know. Does Jesus 100% of the time in the New Testament only use masculine pronouns and phrases concerning the Holy Spirit? My understanding is that He never uses the feminine when the language has an option between masculine and feminine. Could you or anyone else confirm for me if I am no the right track here?
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#4
Quote:I did just a little research yesterday and it seems that Jesus even in the Aramaic uses a masculine pronoun only (huw) for the Holy Spirit
Can you give us an example. The first one I came across was in Matay 1:20.

HuW D'QuwD:Sho`

In this case, the personal pronoun HuW is referring back to Yeshua, and is not referring to the Holy Spirit. The translation for HuW is more complex than just "he", which most assume it to be.

But admittedly, Matay 1:20 is not a direct quote from Yeshua, if that is the intent of your query.
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#5
crosswayokc Wrote:Does Jesus 100% of the time in the New Testament only use masculine pronouns and phrases concerning the Holy Spirit?
He's basically answered your question here; the noun and it's modifiers must agree in gender.

Paul Younan Wrote:The word for spirit in Aramaic is grammatically feminine. When using verbs and adjectives around gramatically feminine nouns they must also be in the feminine form.


crosswayokc Wrote:I did just a little research yesterday and it seems that Jesus even in the Aramaic uses a masculine pronoun only (huw) for the Holy Spirit just like the Greek (ekeinos) does.

Also keep in mind in the Greek, eikenos is modifying parakletos/comforter, a masculine noun not the word spirit.

It does not mean the HOLY SPIRIT is "male" or "neuter" only that is a principle of the language and it's grammar. Pairing eikenos with Spirit is incorrect pronoun antecedent agreement. The pronoun is eikenos and the correct antecedent is parakletos, the incorrect antecedent is pneuma/spirit.

Similarly, in the example that Jerry gives (Matay 1:20), the Aramaic "he" pronoun is properly paired with YAHSHUA as it's antecedent, not Rukha.
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#6
ShabbatSealed, I already know that you don't know Aramaic, Greek, or Hebrew so stop pretending. I already looked up what the Peshitta is it has "huw" for the Holy Spirit in John 16. I already looked up the English translation from the Peshitta and it is all masculine pronouns for the Holy Spirit. You can read it for youself on this website. If you don't watch it the guys on here who actually know Aramiac might give you a stomping.
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#7
After looking at the example of John 16:13 and a few others, it appears to me that the Holy Spirit is either "masculine" or "common" grammatically, and not likely to be "feminine".

However, I don't share in your critique of those who may have come upon a different conclusion, or perhaps had not fully looked at the issue yet.
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#8
crossway, you obviously have no problem making assumptions because you have no idea to what languages I know or don't know. FYI I don't claim to speak Greek or Aramaic.

You have preconceived ideas and it shows. The Scriptures in the original languages certainly don't read as having a grammatically masculine HOLY SPIRIT.

Apart from that since you don't believe the NT Scriptures were first penned in Semetic languages: regarding Greek - I know enough to say that the word Spirit will always have neuter modifiers --perceived masculine modifiers of a neuter noun are mismatched. That is basic.

Also, Bible texts in any language certainly don't have the HOLY SPIRIT in a masculine role. There is a reason why Jews consider the HOLY SPIRIT to be feminine and/or having a female role apart from just grammar. Don't insult me.

You wrote, "I was told that in Aramaic, Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit in feminine terms". What you were "told" is TRUE and that's not easy on Western ears.

And as for this question you asked, "Does Jesus 100% of the time in the New Testament only use masculine pronouns and phrases concerning the Holy Spirit?"

The answer is absolutely NO. Jesus did NOT ?100% of the time in the New Testament use ONLY masculine pronouns AND PHRASES concerning the HOLY SPIRIT?. Just read Paul Younan's first post again.
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#9
Thanks guys. The reason I asked is because there is a new cult out there called "amightywind.com" and they claim that the Holy Spirit is the Father's girlfriend who gave spiritual birth to Jesus before he came to earth. They claim that if we had the "original "Hebrew" or "Aramaic" (they are not sure which) version of John that Jesus would be calling the Holy Spirit "She", because that is his mom. ShabbatSealed is one of their followers.

"The word for spirit in Aramaic is grammatically feminine. When using verbs and adjectives around gramatically feminine nouns they must also be in the feminine form. That doesn't mean the Holy Spririt is feminine. Other non-English languages like French have similar features. "
Paul Younan

"After looking at the example of John 16:13 and a few others, it appears to me that the Holy Spirit is either "masculine" or "common" grammatically, and not likely to be "feminine".
Jerry
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#10
crosswayokc Wrote:Thanks guys. The reason I asked is because there is a new cult out there called "amightywind.com" and they claim that the Holy Spirit is the Father's girlfriend who gave spiritual birth to Jesus before he came to earth. They claim that if we had the "original "Hebrew" or "Aramaic" (they are not sure which) version of John that Jesus would be calling the Holy Spirit "She", because that is his mom. ShabbatSealed is one of their followers.

"The word for spirit in Aramaic is grammatically feminine. When using verbs and adjectives around gramatically feminine nouns they must also be in the feminine form. That doesn't mean the Holy Spririt is feminine. Other non-English languages like French have similar features. "
Paul Younan

"After looking at the example of John 16:13 and a few others, it appears to me that the Holy Spirit is either "masculine" or "common" grammatically, and not likely to be "feminine".
Jerry
If I may make so bold, I think everyone is right. I would like to point out to begin with that the definite article in Aramaic makes this a more complicated question than it is in Hebrew. In Hebrew, "spirit" is decidedly feminine, and is always given feminine pronouns after such was created (note that in the Pentateuch there was no feminine pronoun, so "hu" served both genders). However, according to the grammar I have here, in Biblical Aramaic, rukha is treated as decidedly feminine. See, for instance, Daniel 2:35, where it does not make sense for the alef suffix to be making the word definite, and the verb is (nesa') is feminine, as well. Note also Daniel 6:4 (6:3 in most English versions).
In Greek, it is decidedly neuter. No way around it. In Aramaic, on the other hand, I'm a bit confused. I was under the impression that the masculine personal pronoun was spelled hey-waw-alef. In places like John 16:13 the word accused of being a masculine pronoun is spelled hey-waw. I don't claim to speak Aramaic, and I have no idea what this word is all about.
Now, I've just looked it up, and hey-waw is used as an alternate form of the 3ms personal pronoun. Handy things, reference grammars. Alright, so in the New Testament, a masculine pronoun is certainly used to refer to the Spirit. Unfortunately, using my software I can't find a feminine pronoun anywhere. At least, not the ones that my grammar lists as the Aramaic pronouns (it's a grammar of Biblical Aramaic, so it could very well be using the wrong ones. If anyone knows of a 3fs personal pronoun appearing in the Peshitta, feel free to point it out to me).
Now, I can see clearly that in Judean Aramaic, Rukha is also treated as feminine. I'm looking at 1QapGenB, colum 20, line 29 if anyone is interested in looking it up. Here, rukha is clearly treated as feminine.

Now, I've just done another search in the Peshitta. I wanted to see where all huw is used. I think matthew 1:20 is very telling. Mary is referred to using the pronoun "huw" in the same sentence that rukha is referred to using the pronoun "huw." Here's going to be my guess, without having a morphological resource handy: by the time the Peshitta was written, hey-waw had replaced hey-yod-alef as the 3fs pronoun. It was not exclusive, though, since we can also see Yeshua referred to as "huw" hey-waw. So this pronoun doesn't actually seem to have a gender in the Peshitta.

Now, I haven't checked out the ideas of the website about the spirit being God's wife or whatever it is, and those are certainly unfounded. However, they are not unfounded because Spirit is not feminine. It is feminine in Hebrew, and in just about every Aramaic source I have found any conclusive evidence in rukha is treated as feminine. The pronouns of the Peshitta don't really seem to be admissible as evidence, either. So we may need to find a different approach, such as verbal suffixes, to establish the gender of rukha in the Peshitta. What these people must realise is that it is not only God's spirit that is treated as feminine. In Daniel and in all of the Judean Aramaic documents I looked through the wind and various spirits of people are referred to in the feminine. It is not so much that God's spirit is feminine as that the word is grammatically feminine. The two are not the same. If we were to talk about my spirit in Hebrew we would talk about it as though it were feminine. does that mean that I am a woman? No.

Anyway, I'm sorry it's late, and I'm very disorganized because I'm in the process of moving and I'm not entirely sure where some of my books are. I've had to dig two of them out of boxes to look things up for this post. Hopefully my ramblings were helpful to somebody.
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#11
Shlama,

Payne Smith's A compendious Syriac Dictionary has this to say about rukha:

"... usually fem. except when used of the Holy Spirit. ... " (p. 533)
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://dukhrana.com/lexicon/PayneSmith/page.php?p=533">http://dukhrana.com/lexicon/PayneSmith/page.php?p=533</a><!-- m -->

I've quickly skimmed through some Peshitta verses containing rukha, and in all occurrences I have so far seen then rukha is treated as a masculine word when it is used of the Holy Spirit, and as a feminine word when it deals with other kinds of spirits and winds, etc.

Femenine examples: Matthew 7:27, 12:45, Mark 1:12 & Luke 6:18.

Masculine examples: Matthew 1:18, 13:11, Luke 12:12 & Acts 2:33.

//Lars
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#12
Quote:I think matthew 1:20 is very telling. Mary is referred to using the pronoun "huw" in the same sentence that rukha is referred to using the pronoun "huw."
If you look more closely, it is actually a (HaW) and a (HuW). I'm pretty convinced that both are referring to Yeshua. In short, the feminine singular pronouns are (HY), and the masculine singular pronouns (HW).

Syriac has a dizzying array of inflections to its pronouns. A whole thread could probably be devoted to just the three inflections of (HuW). Which are (HuW), (-uW), and (-W).
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#13
The feminine counterpart to (HuW) is (HiY). Matthew 15:25:

And she came, and worshipped him, and said: Help me, my Lord. - Murdock
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