According to the Old Testament our true nature--Spirit--is a field of pure consciousness.

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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.

 

www.vatican.va/jubilee_2000/magazine/documents/

 

 

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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

 

 

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" 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) "

 

www.nazarene-friends.org/articles/

 

 

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" 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

www.northernway.org/goddess.html