We want to say the bible says its so ... but is it the bible or the translator that uses the word it????
Just examining this topic from the translation given to us by the KJV translators is like an art connoisseur trying to analyze the hues and strokes of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa from a black and white print.
Certainly I am not a Greek study. I used to know a little Greek but he died. Other than that, I have to take the word of those who say that they know the difference.
However, I am sure that God is quite competent in the work of delivering to me the Word that He would have me to have. He is the overseer of His own Word. I think he did an excellent job for thousands of years.
In the way Jesus referred to the Spirit ... as HE.
Once again, the ONLY reason why anything is called a "HE" is to modify the MASCULINE noun with a masculine pronoun. The word Church from the greek is a feminine word and if it takes a pronoun that pronoun would be feminine also. Does that mean they intentionally meant to say we are all women?
Of course not. The ONLY time the word Spirit is used with the word HIM, in the greek, is when the masculine pronoun is used to modify the antecedent comforter because comforter is a masculine noun. The authors and speakers were just grammatically correct and this has nothing to do with theology.
In fact never EVER that I can find in the gospels is a pronoun even used with the word pneuma, except in John 14 like we talked about and then it refers to the antecedent comforter. In agreement with that is one of the worlds best known greek scholar Daniel Wallace
Something interesting though that Trinitarians seem to over look. Jesus said "I in my FAther and you in me and I in you"...why does he leave out the third person of the Trinity?
BTW HOW is he in the Father, we in Him and He in us? It's through the Spirit which is what the context is abouit.
__________________ Let it be understood that Apostolic Friends Forum is an Apostolic Forum.
Apostolic is defined on AFF as:
There is One God. This one God reveals Himself distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The Son is God himself in a human form or "God manifested in the flesh" (1Tim 3:16)
Every sinner must repent of their sins.
That Jesus name baptism is the only biblical mode of water baptism.
That the Holy Ghost is for today and is received by faith with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues.
The saint will go on to strive to live a holy life, pleasing to God.
The word ho is there ... my dear Mizpeh ... it languages there are variations of root words ... hate to break to you ... but according to Strong's the word ho ... has variations ... to ... tav etc.
Actually Mizpeh was correct in saying there is a pronoun in the verse. I was just not sure it referred to the Spirit or to the witnesses.
However the article in question is the neuter. It is NOT "ho". Ho is masculine. It's TO and it is NOT being translated "it". It's being translated THE or not translated at all. Very often articles are NOT translated
__________________ Let it be understood that Apostolic Friends Forum is an Apostolic Forum.
Apostolic is defined on AFF as:
There is One God. This one God reveals Himself distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The Son is God himself in a human form or "God manifested in the flesh" (1Tim 3:16)
Every sinner must repent of their sins.
That Jesus name baptism is the only biblical mode of water baptism.
That the Holy Ghost is for today and is received by faith with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues.
The saint will go on to strive to live a holy life, pleasing to God.
Here is John 1:19 parsed in the Greek... please find it as it is connoted in the English language ... if you can ... as to describe an inanimate object, animal or general idea ...
Let's have a roll call here. Who believes Spirit is an inanimate object, animal or general idea?
I know I don't and I did not see anyone else say that either.
__________________ Let it be understood that Apostolic Friends Forum is an Apostolic Forum.
Apostolic is defined on AFF as:
There is One God. This one God reveals Himself distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The Son is God himself in a human form or "God manifested in the flesh" (1Tim 3:16)
Every sinner must repent of their sins.
That Jesus name baptism is the only biblical mode of water baptism.
That the Holy Ghost is for today and is received by faith with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues.
The saint will go on to strive to live a holy life, pleasing to God.
32Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him.
So? They actually leave a pronoun out of the english translation. As I said, the reason other translations have an "it" is because the word for Spirit is neuter gender
__________________ Let it be understood that Apostolic Friends Forum is an Apostolic Forum.
Apostolic is defined on AFF as:
There is One God. This one God reveals Himself distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The Son is God himself in a human form or "God manifested in the flesh" (1Tim 3:16)
Every sinner must repent of their sins.
That Jesus name baptism is the only biblical mode of water baptism.
That the Holy Ghost is for today and is received by faith with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues.
The saint will go on to strive to live a holy life, pleasing to God.
We want to say the bible says its so ... but is it the bible or the translator that uses the word it????
Just examining this topic from the translation given to us by the KJV translators is like an art connoisseur trying to analyze the hues and strokes of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa from a black and white print.
very very few bibles are word for word translations and even then a word is often translated as more than one word which might include an article or a pronoun to help us understand it better in english.
English is not greek. If the greek has a neuter noun and the english translation might require an article or a pronoun, that is going to be neuter too unless the translators are doctrinally biased
__________________ Let it be understood that Apostolic Friends Forum is an Apostolic Forum.
Apostolic is defined on AFF as:
There is One God. This one God reveals Himself distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The Son is God himself in a human form or "God manifested in the flesh" (1Tim 3:16)
Every sinner must repent of their sins.
That Jesus name baptism is the only biblical mode of water baptism.
That the Holy Ghost is for today and is received by faith with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues.
The saint will go on to strive to live a holy life, pleasing to God.
The Jewish believer in OT times would not even dare to pronounce of write the name of God ... it would astonish me ... that the would then turn around and refer to the Spirit of God as an it as we use it today. And apparently after close examination ... of the original texts it is not used ....
The Jewish believer has always referred to God as He.
Uh...it was not until a LONG time later that this superstition became the norm. Yes they did say and write it...we need only look to the OT where we have examples of them saying the name. However they were told NOT to take the NAME in vain and never told NOT to refer to Spirit as a neuter gender it or feminine she. Spirit is generally a neuter gender word, in our language. It's neutral and we are talking about translations INTO our language
__________________ Let it be understood that Apostolic Friends Forum is an Apostolic Forum.
Apostolic is defined on AFF as:
There is One God. This one God reveals Himself distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The Son is God himself in a human form or "God manifested in the flesh" (1Tim 3:16)
Every sinner must repent of their sins.
That Jesus name baptism is the only biblical mode of water baptism.
That the Holy Ghost is for today and is received by faith with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues.
The saint will go on to strive to live a holy life, pleasing to God.
We have the masculinity in the names as Father and Son and, I believe I read that, the"Comforter" as referring to the Holy Ghost is masculine in the Greek.
I also remember reading that the writer used the masculine form of the demonstrative pronoun ekeinos ("that male one"). Thus, breaking the grammatical agreement that was expected by native language readers. It then was a clear indication of the author's intention to unambiguously convey the Holy Spirit as masculine.
I understand the assigning of gender to words, and most words in any language are described as masculine of feminine, but that isn't assigning gender to the word, which is how I'm seeing it done.
I keep asking what purpose does having a gender serve to God, but have not yet received an answer to that.
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