02-04-2005, 07:25 PM
February 4, 2005
In the U.S. it has become politically correct to use the word "gender" as a substitute for the more appropriate and specific word "sex" when referring to male and female persons. The word gender is much more broad than "sex" in that it can refer to any classification of nouns.
The classification of nouns as male, female and neuter as in German (where the word "the" can be "der", "die" or "das" depending on the gender) includes inanimate things that are classified as feminine or masculine. This does not necessarily have anything to do with sex or the underlying nature. In German spirit (der Spiritus) is masculine and map (die Landkarte) is feminine and book (das Buch) is neuter. But that does not mean that spirit has a masculine nature, that a map has a feminine nature, or that a book is a eunich.
Likewise, the fact the word spirit is feminine in Aramaic has no significance with repect the nature of the Holy Spirit (which will always be masculine in German and neuter in English).
Otto
In the U.S. it has become politically correct to use the word "gender" as a substitute for the more appropriate and specific word "sex" when referring to male and female persons. The word gender is much more broad than "sex" in that it can refer to any classification of nouns.
The classification of nouns as male, female and neuter as in German (where the word "the" can be "der", "die" or "das" depending on the gender) includes inanimate things that are classified as feminine or masculine. This does not necessarily have anything to do with sex or the underlying nature. In German spirit (der Spiritus) is masculine and map (die Landkarte) is feminine and book (das Buch) is neuter. But that does not mean that spirit has a masculine nature, that a map has a feminine nature, or that a book is a eunich.
Likewise, the fact the word spirit is feminine in Aramaic has no significance with repect the nature of the Holy Spirit (which will always be masculine in German and neuter in English).
Otto