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Term
"Spirit" translates the Hebrew word ruah
“The
term "Spirit" translates the Hebrew word ruah,
which, in its primary sense, means breath, air, wind.
Jesus indeed uses the sensory image of the wind to
suggest to Nicodemus the transcendent newness of him
who is personally God's breath, the divine
Spirit." (Jn 3:5-8.)”
Joseph
Cardinal Ratzinger, Catechism of the Catholic
Church, U.S.C.C. Inc., Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994, p. 182
“The Meaning of the
Word "Spirit"
In English copies of the Bible, the word "spirit" occurs
about 823 times. It’s first occurrence is Genesis 1:2.
"Spirit" occurs most often in the Old Testament book Isaiah
and the New Testament book Acts. The Hebrew word translated
"spirit" or "breath" is ruach. The Greek word is pneuma.
Regarding the English word "spirit" THE ROOTS OF ENGLISH,
page 229 says: "[Latin SPIRARE, to breathe." Thus it equals
both the Hebrew (RUACH) and Greek (PNEUMA) for "breath." The
phrase "spirit of God" is reasonably rendered "Breath of
God" or "Wind of God." The word "spirit" has taken on a
corporeal tone like the word "ghost." Likely, if the word
PNEUMA had been rendered "breath" or "wind" in English the
Holy Spirit would not have developed so strongly in English
as a Person part of the Trinitarian Godhead. Some
translators actually do render RUACH as "wind" in Genesis
1:2. (NJB: a divine wind)”
http://www.nazarene-friends.org/articles/
“There
are several female Deities that can lay claim to the title
Christian goddess. Mary, the Mother of Jesus/Yeshua, first
comes to mind. There is Mary Magdalene the "Goddess in the
Gospels" the Church refused to acknowledge as the wife of
Yeshua and probably co-Messiah. "Mary" is a Greek
pronunciation of the Hebrew name Miriam or Miriamne. There
are many theories about this name, such as Mary might not
even be a name, but a title meaning Priestess of Goddess.
Many theologians and scholars believe the Holy Spirit
written as, Pneuma in Greek everytime it appears in the New
Testament, is a feminine being. Note that Pneuma is a neuter
word in Greek, but in Hebrew the word Ruah (Spirit) and in
Aramaic the word Shekinah (Presence) are feminine words and
imply a feminine divine presence. The Holy Spirit is
possibly a Christian Goddess, not a mysterious invisible
member of an all-male Trinity "club." Or more provocatively,
maybe there is a Feminine Trinity of God-the-Mother (Sophia
and Mary?), God-the-Daughter (Mary Magdalene) and
Goddess-the-Spirit-Presence (Shekinah, Ruah). The Holy
Spirit appears at Yeshua's baptism in the form of a dove.
The dove has long been a symbol of the Goddess in the
Ancient Near East, and was never used to symbolize any male
Being or God.
We must also look in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible,
and consider the Goddess Sophia. Her name means "Wisdom."
She is the Goddess of Wisdom referred to repeatedly in
scripture as the wife of God-the-Father. See Proverbs, Song
of Songs, (also called Song of Solomon) in the Hebrew Bible,
and see the Book of Sirach and the Book of Wisdom in the
Apocrypha found in the center of any Catholic Bible.
Here is an excerpt from The Decline of the Feminine and the
Cult of Mary In Greco-Roman Christianity, probably because
of the dangers of Gnosticism, the biblical images of God as
female were soon suppressed within the doctrine of God. God
as Wisdom, Hokmah in Hebrew, or Sophia in Greek, a feminine
form, was translated by Christianity into the Logos concept
of Philo, which is masculine and was defined as the Son of
God. The Shekinah, the theology of God’s mediating presence
as female, was de-emphasized; and God’s Spirit Ruah, a
feminine noun in Hebrew, took on a neuter form when
translated into Greek as Pneuma. The Vulgate translated Ruah
into Latin as masculine, Spiritus. God’s Spirit, Ruah, which
at the beginning of creation brings forth abundant life in
the waters, makes the womb of Mary fruitful. In spite of the
reality of the caring, consoling, healing aspects of divine
activity, the dominant patriarchal tradition has prevailed,
resulting in seeing the female as the passive recipient of
God’s creation; and the female is expressed in nature,
church, soul, and finally Mary as the prototype of redeemed
humanity. Because God as father has become an over
literalized metaphor, the symbol of God as mother is
eclipsed. The problem lies not in the fact that male
metaphors are used for God, but that they are used
exclusively and literally. Because images of God as female
have been suppressed in official formulations and teaching,
they came to be embodied in the figure of Mary who
functioned to reveal the unfailing love of God.”
The Christian Goddess
http://northernway.org/goddess.html
THE JEWISH ROOTS OF THE HOLY
SPIRIT
Lea Sestieri
“The
"Guide for a correct presentation of Jews and the Jewish
religion in the Preaching and Catechesis of the Catholic
Church"
(1985), encourages Christians to acquire a more respectful
and
adequate knowledge of the common heritage of Christians and
Jews because this knowledge "can help them better understand
certain aspects of the life of the Church" (1,3). This
knowledge also includes the mystery of the Holy Spirit whom
the New Testament and above all Christian tradition profess
to be the third Person of the Holy Trinity, proceeding from
the Father and the Son and who "with the Father and the Son
is worshipped and glorified» (Nicean-Constantinople Creed).
Although in Jewish scripture the Holy Spirit is never
presented as a person but rather as a divine power capable
of transforming the human being and the world, the fact
remains that Christian pneumatological terminology is rooted
in that of the Jewish religion. In preaching and Catechesis
therefore it will be necessary to point out this connection,
underlining the main aspects.
1. The term: "Spirit" translates the Hebrew word "Ruah"
which in its primary sense means breath, air, wind. "Jesus
indeed
uses the sensory image of the wind to suggest to Nicodemus
the
transcendent newness of him who is personally God's breath
the
divine Spirit" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 691). The
spirit
as irruption and as transcendence: working in history but
other than history, who cannot be reduced to history's logic
but who
installs another logic, that of responsibility and love for
others;
2. Ordering power: "In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was
darkness over the deep and God's spirit hovered over the
water» (Gn 1,1). God's spirit came down on the formless
world and this descent produced the miracle of creation: the
transformation of chaos into cosmos, of disorder into order;
3. Vivifying power: "The Lord God fashioned man out of dust
from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath
of life and thus man became a living being» (Gn 2, 7). The
spirit of God is breathed onto the human being of dust and,
because of this breath, the human being is transformed into
a living being: no longer an animal being but a partner with
whom and to whom God speaks and entrusts responsibility for
the world;
4. Guiding power: "On him the spirit of the Lord rests, a
spirit
of wisdom and insight, a spirit of counsel and power, a
spirit of
knowledge and the fear of the Lord" (Is 11,2). The Spirit of
the
Lord takes hold of certain persons (patriarchs, matriarchs,
judges, kings, prophets, wise men etc.,) and by bestowing on
them special powers, enables them to act as guides and
master interpreters in the world, of the will of God;
5. Healing power: "I shall give you a new heart and put a
new
spirit in you… I shall put my spirit in you, and make you
keep my
laws and sincerely respect my observances." (Ez 36,27).
Entering
into the human being, the spirit recreates and heals him,
overcoming his sin and making him once more a partner of God
in the covenant and in the observance of the Torah.
6. Universal dimension: "I will pour out my Spirit on all
mankind.
Their sons and daughters shall prophesy Even on my slaves
men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit» (Jl
3f 1-2). There will come a day when every human being will
be possessed by the spirit and this day will coincide with
the day of the messiah." ”
THE JEWISH ROOTS OF THE HOLY
SPIRIT
http://www.vatican.va/jubilee_2000/magazine/documents/
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