With the risk of repeating myself, I just wanted to remind you that mwh isn’t the first authority to hold this opinion (I don’t consider myself an authority ): Grosvenor & Zerwick also thought that we’re not talking about the Holy Spirit here. I recommend the book, which I think is a solid and concise piece of writing.
An Amazon reviewer accuses the book of disseminating Catholic propaganda, but having checked now out of curiosity the passages he cites I think the accusations are misguided. (Matthew 1:25, Mark 10:11-12)
Joel was jesting, or so I hope. I wasn’t claiming originality, more backing up what you’d said. Not that I consider myself an authority either. I’ve never used the Zerwick book. I suppose I should take a look at it some time, but NT grammars tend to annoy me (like NT scholarship in general). The only ones I’ve seen that are any good are Blass(-Debrunner-Funk) and an old groundbreaking monster by A.T. Robertson, a preacher who actually knew Greek.
Joel, Shouldn’t you count Lk.12.10 (blasphemed against) as “personal”? Handy to have “the impure spirit” included. You’ll want to cover the other surviving gospels and Acts too. The situation may be different with Paul (the Turk, not the Finn), who may have felt free to dispense with the article for his “Holy Spirit.” I haven’t looked into it.
Again, pulling together the raw data is very helpful.
Now, really two questions here have been merged 1) whether the anarthrous usages of the πνεῦμα can be viewed as definite and 2) whether or not Luke is presenting πνεῦμα in these contexts as personal or not, i.e., as an entity or as a force. My summary response for the latter is that it’s pretty much a false dichotomy – Luke may certainly do both, and it is simply a matter of emphasis contextually. Each usage that you listed also has to be examined with attention to context to indicate if your category assignment is really valid. I think a number of them are disputable. Before getting to this, a thought occurred while looking at the following from Luke and Acts:
Luke 3:16 αὐτὸς ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρί
Could these be understood as hendiadyses? The “Holy Spirit of fire” and “joy of the Holy Spirit?” If so that would indicate to me that these should really be personal and definite references.
Now, specifically to some of your examples. I don’t have time to analyze each one, so have to be selective.
Luke 1:17 προελεύσεται ἐν πνεύματι καὶ δυνάμει Ἠλίου… You include this as impersonal, and I think this is right, since it’s not a literal reference to Elijah’s spirit, but refers to his personality (could this also be a hendiadys, “spiritual power”?). However, it has to be definite, and requires the article in English to make good sense out of it. This supports the common wisdom (cited earlier from Smyth and other sources) that the lack of the article does not mean that the noun is indefinite in English. In fact, the anarthrous usage here could simply be because it’s a prepositional phrase.
Luke 1:35 πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐπελεύσεται ἐπὶ σέ (parallel δύναμις ὑψίστου). Let’s look at the whole verse:
By your own standard, it strikes me ἐπέρχομαι would expect a personal subject, whereas ἐπισκιάζω would expect an impersonal subject based on its usage elsewhere. I actually think that δύναμις ὑψίστου here is a metonymy for the presence of God himself, a probable glory-cloud reference, but that’s a matter of interpretation well beyond our discussion of the narrow grammatical issue. Otherwise, while there is certainly parallelism here, πνεῦμα ἅγιον and δύναμις should be treated as separate concepts, πνεῦμα can certainly be personal and definite even if δύναμις is not.
Luke 1:46 ἠγαλλίασεν τὸ πνεῦμά μου… You mean 1:47 of course. Obviously definite here, but is it impersonal? Notice the parallelism here:
I think it’s fair to say the Jewish/Christian theology at at this time viewed ψυχή and πνεῦμα as semi-independent parts of the human constitution which animated the physical body and even survived death (cf. Job 4:15; Ecc. 12:7; 1 Cor 1:11). I think personal is a better designation here.
Luke 4:33 ἔχων πνεῦμα δαιμονίου ἀκαθάρτου… δαιμονίου looks to me like an epexegetical or appositional genitive. It’s clear that throughout the gospels δαιμόνια (and synonyms) are viewed as personal beings. Here context indicates it’s clearly indefinite. This comment extends to all your citations regarding this, such as 9:39, which you have also marked as NP (and wouldn’t λαμβάνει suggest personal action?).
Well, that’s all I have time for today. Looking forward to responses, if any…
I’ve collated the other gospels and Acts. The results follow. I think that we can state the main findings this way: “when the holy spirit is personified, the Gospel writers strongly prefer the article.” The natural corollary is: when the Gospel writers do not use the article, the holy spirit is usually not personified.
However, I now find the idea of “a holy spirit” completely untenable. There are multiple references to holy spirit being distributed to multiple people, etc. I think that usage best parallels a substance like water or air. Also, even if Luke 2:25 had not been present, I think that the usage in 2:26 would likely have used the article due to preference for the article in this context. So I think that I have disagree with Paul and mwh on this after all.
I’ve included references to wind and expiration, etc. I think that mwh is correct above about references to blasphemy and speaking against (someone) belonging in the personified category.
I also should point out that the article in BDAG is quite extensive and well worth reading on this subject. Among other things, the suggestion is made that in passages where first the Spirit is mentioned without the article and then is immediately followed by an arthrous reference, that the article is in fact anaphoric. I should have thought of that…
After reading your post, I think that I may have used a confusing presentation. I haven’t marked any of the verses that refer to spirits other than God’s spirit or the holy spirit. So I didn’t mark 1:17, 1:46, 4:33, 9:39, etc. On the left hand column I put “P,” “NP,” or “UNK,” next to the verses that I thought referred to the holy spirit, and only included these in the tabulation.
Ah, I see, I took it as when you marked NP that everything underneath was also NP, sort of like a header. I believe that some of my comments are still relevant, however.
I think that some of my decisions in the list (especially the full list that contains Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts above) are certainly arguable.
Luke 3:16 αὐτὸς ὑμᾶς βαπτίσει ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πυρί
Could these be understood as hendiadyses? The “Holy Spirit of fire” and “joy of the Holy Spirit?” If so that would indicate to me that these should really be personal and definite references.
Wouldn’t it have to be “the holy spirit-and-fire” and “the holy joy-and-spirit”? I don’t see any reason to take it that way nor any reason why that would personify it in this usage. No one is baptized in people. I can substitute substances into the above and have it make sense, but not people.
Luke 1:35 πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐπελεύσεται ἐπὶ σέ (parallel δύναμις ὑψίστου). Let’s look at the whole verse:
By your own standard, it strikes me ἐπέρχομαι would expect a personal subject, whereas ἐπισκιάζω would expect an impersonal subject based on its usage elsewhere. I actually think that δύναμις ὑψίστου here is a metonymy for the presence of God himself, a probable glory-cloud reference, but that’s a matter of interpretation well beyond our discussion of the narrow grammatical issue. Otherwise, while there is certainly parallelism here, πνεῦμα ἅγιον and δύναμις should be treated as separate concepts, πνεῦμα can certainly be personal and definite even if δύναμις is not.
“ἐπελεύσεται” might indicate a person approaching, but that’s not the image here. ἐπελεύσεται ἐπὶ σέ: “will come upon you,” like a condition, not “will come up to you” like a human being.
Wait, I’m not sure I understand what you mean. What do you think about Zerwick & Grosvenor’s interpretation that it means something like “divine inspiration” in that particular context? I must say I haven’t delved very deep into these texts, but my point was not so much that Luke conceived some sort minor spiritual entity he calls “a holy spirit” (I suggested that only very casually), but rather that he doesn’t consistently use πνευμα αγιον to designate a clearly defined entity known as “the Holy Spirit” (though he might do so at times). The more I look into in, the more I actually like “divine inspiration”. Should we really expect Luke to be fully consistent at all times in the way he uses these words? He isn’t writing a philosophical treatise, after all. What do people mean when they say “Heaven knows”, for instance? Assuming the person who says that is a Christian, how does saying that fit together with the official Christian doctrine of the Trinity? Which part of the Trinity does “Heaven” specifically refer to? Or would you rather admit that the question is absurd?
MWH: Z & G’s book isn’t a grammar book, it’s a running grammatical commentary of the whole New Testament, a bit similar to Ameis-Hentze-Cauer for Homer. It’s very concise, almost pocket size, and most of the information is very elementary, such as parsing verb forms. But it also addresses more advanced questions as well, like in this instance, although very concisely. The entry in this particular case is simply “πνεῦμα ἅγιον wt art. den. divine inspiration §176, 181” (the numbers refer to a grammar book by Zerwick, which I don’t have). Although the entries are hardly ever elaborated (it’s a portable book), they seem to be sound and thoughtful.
In Acts, Luke says exactly the same thing twice, once with the spirit speaking (personal), and once with the spirit enabling (non-personal). The personal use gets the article. Matthew says the same thing as Luke, but “in spirit” (non-personal), and does not use the article. It’s possible that Matthew is not referring to “holy” spirit here, but it seems unlikely. Mark uses the article for a non-personified usage, but that does not contradict the rule (“the personified usage gets the article”). Note though, that according to the SBLGNT apparatus, the Byzantine tradition doesn’t include the article for Mark 12:36.
This tells me that even when the same author is talking about the same event, a personal verb like προεῖπε will make him switch to using the article. Probably unconsciously.
Divine inspiration doesn’t seem to be a terrible translation, but it doesn’t accept personification as easily as πνεῦμα ἅγιον would. I wonder if early Christians actually imagined God’s literal breath permeating the atmosphere in a living way, and when they breathed it in or were enveloped by it, they would prophesy, etc. But when it talked to them out loud it was “the holy breath.”
I have no access to later editions, but Blass (before Debrunner) writes on πνεῦμα:
I cannot say whether this passage differs greatly in later editions.
Mwh always speaks highly of Blass & company’s grammar, rightly so no doubt. How will the newer grammar by von Siebenthal (2011) compare with that by Blass & co.? Von Siebenthal has more pages (ca. +300), but impossible to say without comparison how the pages have been used. It could easily be due to the conciseness of Blass, but little point in guessing.
I first had difficulties in understanding this, but managed with the help Google translate. I paste what Google translates gives, slightly corrected by me (I hope):
Τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα now more or less as a person, and then with the article, now as a divine spirit entering the human being, and then without article, unless a case of anaphora as in Acts 2:4, 8:13, 17; in 10:44 ἐπέπεσεν τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἐπὶ πάντας is referred to the known fact of the outpouring, but this also comes close to the former mode of use. Preposition and assimilation also causes omission: ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, ἐν δυνάμει πνεύματος ἁγίου.
Blass was a reputable Homeric scholar, and that’s how I know him.
Thanks again for your response. I think you make a good point on ἐπέρχομαι particularly in its use here with ἐπί. I think the upshot for me is that it’s a matter of emphasis in context, whether or not Luke is seeing the Spirit as the divine power of God or as a personal entity. The two are also not mutually exclusive. It also soon begins to venture into the realm of hermeneutics with contextual and co-textual comparisions, a bit of which I suggested above.
As for the hendiadyses, the phrases certainly have the form of a hendiadys, and I’m not willing to give up on the thought just yet. What it would mean, I think, is seeing the Holy Spirit particularly in terms of purificatory fire (think of the use of fire in the OT sacrificial system) or in the second example primarily in terms of the Spirit bringing joy (another important OT theme particularly related to shalom).
Of course we see him in the form of BDF, Blass-DeBrunner-Funk. The main criticism of BDF is that it tends to depend a bit too heavily on knowledge of Classical Greek, and that it’s now somewhat dated particularly in terms of advances in linguistics. To the first criticism, it never bothered me personally, but I think otherwise some updating would be a good thing, and perhaps also some re-writing. It tends to be rather dense at times.
): Grosvenor & Zerwick also thought that we’re not talking about the Holy Spirit here. I recommend the book, which I think is a solid and concise piece of writing.