04-10-2010, 06:00 PM
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?
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 SpiritCan you give us an example. The first one I came across was in Matay 1:20.
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.
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.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).
"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
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).