This is our fifth and final example of bias in translation. After this episode, we’ll have one more to conclude our class on How We Got the Bible. Today our focus is God’s spirit. Should it have an uppercase ‘S’ or a lowercase ‘s?’ Should pronouns referring back to spirit be masculine (like “he”) or neuter (like “it”)? Is the spirit a “who” or a “which?” In this episode we’ll get into the grammar of holy spirit in an attempt to show how translation bias steers unsuspecting readers in the direction of the traditional teaching about the personality of the spirit.
—— Books & Papers ——
- Truth in Translation by Jason David BeDuhn
- Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics by Daniel Wallace
- “Greek Grammar and the Personality of the Holy Spirit” by Daniel Wallace
- “The Holy Spirit and Translation Bias: A Smoking Gun of Trinity Mischief (1)” by Sean Finnegan
- “The Holy Spirit and Translation Bias: A Smoking Gun of Trinity Mischief (2)” by Sean Finnegan
—— Links ——
- Watch “The Holy Spirit” video by the Bible Project (note the lack of personhood)
- Listen to podcast Theology 14 — The Holy Spirit to hear a biblical theology of the spirit and five biblical reasons why the spirit is not a person apart from either the Father or Jesus
- Listen to podcast Theology 15 — Challenging the Holy Spirit to hear sound biblical explanations of misunderstood verses that defenders of the spirit’s personality point to as evidence of their position
- More posts and podcasts about the holy spirit
- Check out all the lectures in How We Got the Bible
- See what other classes are available here or on the Restitutio Classes podcast (subscribe in Apple, Spotify, RSS feed)
- If you’d like to support Restitutio, you can donate here.
- Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library
We should not appeal to grammatical gender to either prove or disprove personhood.
In other words, we should never confuse grammatical gender with biological sex.
For example, the Greek for a “child” is neuter, yet no one would say “it.”