h7307. רוּחַ rûaḥ; from 7306; wind; by resemblance breath, i.e. a sensible (or even violent) exhalation; figuratively, life, anger, unsubstantiality; by extension, a region of the sky; by resemblance spirit, but only of a rational being (including its expression and functions): — air, anger, blast, breath, x cool, courage, mind, x quarter, x side, spirit((-ual)), tempest, x vain, ((whirl-))wind(-y).
In the Hebrew text we find the word rûaḥ which translates to spirit in the english text. When we look at the definition of this word, we see its wind - like (by resemblance) breath, for example (i.e.) a sensible or even violent exhalation.
When we continue in the definition we see “figuratively” which is used to indicated a departure from a literal use; it’s a metaphor. This means word can metaphorically be used for life and anger but it is not supported “unsubstantiality”
The next statement connects the internal logic of two statements (by extension) that being of wind (or breath) and the next being the sky.
Then we get to the next statement that starts with “by resemblance” being what is to follow is resembling what we’ve all ready discussed which is wind (or breath), life, anger, and sky. It’s like the spirit of man and then the definition continues to break it down - air, anger, blast, breath, x cool, courage, mind, x quarter, x side, spirit((-ual)), tempest, x vain, ((whirl-))wind(-y). Note: when you see “x” next to a word it means theres not enough information about the result, it’s just that it’s been used that way. It’s like saying “in terms of x”.
Let’s look at the Greek word by which we get the word spirit in our Bibles.
pneuma
g4151. πνεῦμα pneuma; from 4154; a current of air, i.e. breath (blast) or a breeze; by analogy or figuratively, a spirit, i.e. (human) the rational soul, (by implication) vital principle, mental disposition, etc., or (superhuman) an angel, demon, or (divine) God, Christ's spirit, the Holy Spirit: — ghost, life, spirit(-ual, -ually), mind. Compare 5590.
Let’s break this one down a little. Much of it is the same but there’s a couple nuances in it.
We have a current of air, for example (I.e.) breath or a breeze.
We continue in the definition by saying the word can by used as a purpose of explanation (analogy) or a departure from the literal (figuratively) a spirit like (i.e.) the human soul. Pneuma can be used in a statement, event, or situation that implies the case of (by implication) for a vital principle or mental disposition, or for an angel, demon, God, Christ, Holy Spirit like a ghost, life, spirit(-ual, -ually), mind.
The popular teaching in the gentile church is that man has flesh but there's this living spirit, a life that is beyond our flesh, that is placed inside us. I've heard people talk about God placing a spirit within a fetus of a womb, a theology with no Biblical backing. People describe man as flesh, spirit, and soul as if we are three different parts in one. It's widely taught that the flesh can die but the spirit cannot.
The Hebrews never viewed rûaḥ, translated "spirit" in the same way the gentiles do today. The fact is, the Greek (gentile) of Biblical days never viewed it the same as we do today either. Since the Greek Bible translates rûaḥ to pneuma, I'm going to focus on the Greek pneuma. We have more information on this subject anyway.
I'm going to cover some historical, Biblical time, understandings of the Greek word pneuma and we're going to see what they understood this word to mean.
As I go through historical thoughts based on the writings we may ask the question of why we would look at these. "These are ancient understandings and we know so much more now," some may say. The truth is, the use of pneuma in Scripture does not revolve around the theory that defines the word today but rather what they defined it as in their day. We MUST look at this word in THEIR contextual understanding and not ours.
The Oxford Classical Dictionary list pneuma with a breathe or blow, it's "air in motion" or "breath" as something necessary to live. In Greek theatre it is used of the "breath of life."
The term was first used by Anaximenes of Miletus to describe air in motion and the "psychic air" in man. "Psychic pneuma" constituted the underlying sensory and motor activities in a number of ancient medical theories.
Confused yet? It will get worse before it gets better.
In Hippocratic and post-Hippocratic writings it is widely used of inspired air or breath inside the body with no references to a particular theory.
Pneuma had various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology.
In ancient Greek medicine, pneuma is the form of circulating air necessary for the systemic function of vital organs. Pneuma is the material that sustains consciousness in the body. According to Diocese and Praxagoras, pneuma meditates between the heart (seat of the mind) and the brain.
The thought of pneuma meditating between the heart and brain came through Praxagoras' discovery of arteries and veins in 300 BC. He noticed that the veins and arteries were empty within a corpse thus, generations afterwards, Erasistratus made the basis of pneuma being carried through the veins and arteries by air (oxygen), inhaled from the outside air, in the blood and being carried through the body to cause thought and organic movement.
Isn't it amazing how much knowledge they had in those days.
Aristotle frequently denotes pneuma as "warm air", sometimes "heat", in his biological texts. Interestingly, he notes its existence in sperm and notes that it's responsible for transmitting the capacity for locomotion and certain sensations to the offspring. Aristotle notes that pneuma is necessary for life and is involved with preserving the "vital heat".
Aristotle explains the movement of all animals as an expansion and contraction of pneuma. The innate pneuma is the power of life to be mobile and exercise strength. He says that all animals possess an inborn pneuma and exercise their strength in virtue of it. It's the breath in a living thing that produces strength and regulates the inner vital heat "held in the heart."
Some commentators think the Aristotelian pneuma is less precisely and thoroughly defined than that of the Stoics.
In Stoic philosophy, pneuma is the concept of the "breath of life," a mixture of the elements air (in motion) and fire (heat). In its highest form, pneuma constitutes the human psychê.
In the foreword to his 1964 translation of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Maxwell Staniforth writes:
Cleanthes, wishing to give more explicit meaning to Zeno's 'creative fire', had been the first to hit upon the term pneuma, or 'spirit', to describe it. Like fire, this intelligent 'spirit' was imagined as a tenuous substance akin to a current of air or breath, but essentially possessing the quality of warmth; it was immanent in the universe as God, and in man as the soul and life-giving principle. (Marcus Aurelius (1964). Meditations, p 25)
In the Stoic thought, everything consists of pneuma and matter and, depending on their proportion of fire and air, there are four kinds of pneuma.
The pneuma of state or tension: is a unifying and shaping pneuma that provides stability, a type of cohesion, to things. It's a force that exists in a stone, log, or cup. The 4th-century Christian philosopher Nemesius attributed the power of pneuma to its "tensile motion."
The pneuma as life force: is the vegetative pneuma enabling growth and distinguishes things that are alive.
The pneuma as soul: is the most rarefied and fiery form and it serves as the animal psychê. It pervades the organism, governs its movements, and endows it with powers of perception and reproduction.
The logic psychê, or rational soul, is a pneuma of the mature human being, which grants the power of judgment.
In Stoic cosmology, the cosmos is a whole and single entity, a living thing with a soul of its own. Everything that exists depends on two first principles which can be neither created nor destroyed: 1 MATTER, which is passive and inert. 2 LOGOS, or divine reason, which is active and organizing. The third-century BC, Stoic Chrysippus regarded pneuma as the vehicle of logos in structuring matter, both in animals and in the physical world. This divine pneuma that is the soul (life) of the cosmos supplies the pneuma in its varying grades for everything in the world, a spherical continuum of matter held together by an orderly power.
In his introduction to Meditations, written in 1964, the Anglican priest Maxwell Staniforth discussed the profound impact of Stoicism on Christianity.
Another Stoic concept which offered inspiration to the Church was that of 'divine Spirit'. Cleanthes, wishing to give more explicit meaning to Zeno's 'creative fire', had been the first to hit upon the term pneuma, or 'spirit', to describe it. Like fire, this intelligent 'spirit' was imagined as a tenuous substance akin to a current of air or breath, but essentially possessing the quality of warmth; it was immanent in the universe as God, and in man as the soul and life-giving principle. Clearly it is not a long step from this to the 'Holy Spirit' of Christian theology, the 'Lord and Giver of life', visibly manifested as tongues of fire at Pentecost and ever since associated – in the Christian as in the Stoic mind – with the ideas of vital fire and beneficient warmth. (Marcus Aurelius (1964) Meditations, p 25)
Notice Staniforth's use of "it is not a long STEP from this to the 'Holy Spirit' of Christian theology." What he's saying is, there was a step from the original meaning and intent to the modern meaning. What this means is that we have imposed our definition of a literal (ghostly type) spirit upon a word used in Biblical text that only has that meaning figuratively; not literally.
Even in the Stoic writings, pneuma (translated spirit in the Bible) is the vehicle of reason within a physical world.
This would explain the differences between the American point of view of the Spirit of God versus the Hebrew and historical point of view.
I was raised in many different denominations of the church today and I’ve never heard these definitions of these words when it came to the translated word in Scripture - spirit. Instead, what I’ve always heard is an explanation as if the spirit is like some ghostly type being that is a part of us or a part of God and that this flesh body houses that ghostly being we call a spirit.
I want you to notice that those definitions, and the philosophers who wrote about it near the time of it's use in the Bible, never defined spirit in the way much of the church defines it today. We’ve taken the adverbs that tell us that the word is kinda like this but not really (figuratively, analogy, etc.) and ignored it’s direct definition of air, sky, anger, mind, etc and created this spiritual doctrine that the Bible never meant to say. The words used in Hebrew and Greek were just common words used in the language of the day, as common as engine is used in our day.
The word is used all over Scripture from the old testament to the new testament and I would love to go over each one but I want to show you how we’ve taking something that says one thing and how we can easily be snatched up into this belief.
"For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.” James 2:26
What we are seeing here is not James talking about a ghostly being leaving the body. Think about the definition and let's think back to Genesis.
"then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." Genesis 2:7
God breathed into man and man became a living creature. James is not trying to use the connection of body and spirit (as in the way it's taught today) to explain faith without works versus faith with works, this connection falls short on trying to explain what James is teaching. But, if we understand the actual meaning of the term used, and we go back to James, we then see he's saying that the body without pneuma (breath) is dead. So he’s saying that works with faith is like the breath or life of faith. In other words, works are the breath to faith. See how much we miss when we follow bad theology?
King Solomon was obviously pulling from Genesis when he wrote
“and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit [ruah] returns to God who gave it. 8 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.” Ecclesiastes 12:7-8
There's no historical evidence that the authors of the Bible believed in man having a spirit like God. In fact, historical writings of the Hebrews tell us the opposite. Could this belief that keeps creeping into mainstream christianity, this battle, be an on going deception of satan that we've seen since the beginning… you will be like God?
If you break away from your preconceived notions and re-read Scripture for what it was saying to them in their language, replacing the hellenistic belief of spirit in the church today with either mind, thought, air, or breath, you’ll find the Bible is saying more than what we’ve been believing.
We can’t talk about this subject without talking about the Spirit of God. The belief in the church is that the Spirit of God came down on man after Jesus left, on the day of pentecost. The church treats the Spirit of God like some new thing because Jesus said a “helper” would come. The problem is that we see God’s Spirit all over the Old Testament.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;” Isaiah 61:1
Modern theology would tell you that the Spirit was “upon” them in the Old Testament but He dwells within us in the New Testament and that theology falls apart when you read Scriptures like Ezekiel
“I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Ezekiel 36:24-27
The Old Testament did not give us this information without defining what this Spirit of God was.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” Isaiah 11:2
Notice how the definition of the Bible aligns with the definition of a common word of a language used in that day. And now notice the resemblance when the New Testament defines it for us as well.
"But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.” John 15:26
The Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth, it’s the mind of God who knows the mind of God (1 Corinthians 2:11) and He puts that mind, that rational within us.
You might be saying, "But the Bible called the Spirit “He." This can start a whole new discussion about Hebrew and Greek but the word “He” comes from the Greek ἐκεῖνος ekeinos which defines as “thing” and can be intensified by the article prefixed he, it, the other, that, etc. An example would be like using the word “she” for a car. If the Greek writing was trying to use “he” as in a masculine form of man or God the writer would have used aftós or the pronoun αυτόν but instead the writer used ἐκεῖνος which means that; which is a thing.
This is why we must not fall into theological practices without an in-depth study. You are much better searching Scripture, searching after God, and living a simple life in Christ rather than following theologies that lead down a non-Biblical path.