{"id":13646,"date":"2023-02-10T23:44:26","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T23:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=13646"},"modified":"2023-02-10T23:44:26","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T23:44:26","slug":"online-trinity-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/13646\/online-trinity-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Trinity Study"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brother Clark – I just read your article on\u00a0goingtojesus.com<\/a><\/span> “Did New Testament Writers Think That God’s Spirit Was a Person?”<\/span><\/p>\n

I enjoyed your detailed study, but have one point of contention: English words do not have gender. And so translators cannot always rely on the gender of the original word to determine meaning. For example: We know that girls are female. However, in German (for example) the -chen ending makes the word for girl (M\u00e4dchen) neuter, and the possessive takes the masculine form, So the literal translation of Das M\u00e4dchen k\u00e4mt sich sein Haar is “The girl combs [itself] his hair.” However, because we know girls are female, the correct translation is: The girl combs her hair.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think in you dissection of the Greek grammar, you overlooked this distinction – insisting that literal translations would be consistent with the gender of the Greek noun. This is a fallacy. As a professional translator\/linguist in multiple languages, I tell you that NO professional translator would follow the procedures you outline in an attempt to ensure a translation was correct. No translator would consider a literal translation to be more correct than one that captures the intent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Example: Translate the following English into any other foreign language – “The documents were burned UP when the building burned DOWN.” How important is the directional adverb in rendering the translation. If one translated that the document were consumed in the same fire that destroyed the building, the translation is correct, without mentioning UP or DOWN.<\/span><\/p>\n

While I respect your knowledge of Greek grammar\/linguistics, trying to twist this into a refutation of Trinitarian doctrine goes FAR beyond the intent of the New Testament writers and their word\/gender choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stephen S.<\/span><\/p>\n

==========<\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Sir,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you for writing.\u00a0 I think you must have seen a shortened version of my Trinity Study that did not provide you with a crucial point of my study.\u00a0\u00a0In the full version (URL below), I state clearly that the apostles were perfectly free to use masculine or feminine pronouns when referring to a neuter noun IF they thought a neuter noun was referring to a person.\u00a0 For example, the Greek word for\u00a0child\u00a0is neuter, but a child would be referred to as a\u00a0he\u00a0or\u00a0she, depending in the sex of the child.\u00a0 I give several instances of this from the Greek New Testament.\u00a0 Indeed, that fact of Greek grammar is central to my entire study.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The point of my Trinity study was to show that although the Greek word for\u00a0spirit\u00a0is neuter, the apostles were free to refer to the Spirit as\u00a0he\u00a0IF they thought the Spirit was a person, but they never did.\u00a0 Not once.\u00a0\u00a0That indisputable fact tells us that the apostles did not think of the Spirit as a person.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I hope you will read my complete study.\u00a0 If you do so, you will see that my position is accurate, being solidly based on Greek grammar and the evidence found in the Greek text of the New Testament.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Best wishes,<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John Clark<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

P.S. Here is my complete study:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0https:\/\/goingtojesus.com\/gtj_books.html?tname=trinitystudy<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Brother Clark – I just read your article on\u00a0goingtojesus.com “Did New Testament Writers Think That God’s Spirit Was a Person?” I enjoyed your detailed study, but have one point of contention: English words do not have gender. And so translators cannot always rely on the gender of the original word to determine meaning. For example: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13646"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}