Wallace's "The personality of The holy spirit"

by Blotty 1 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • Blotty
    Blotty

    Source: http://orcuttchristian.org/Wallace_Greek%20Grammar%20and%20the%20Personality%20of%20the%20Holy%20Spirit.pdf

    I assume this is a portion of one of his books considering the page numbers & all in all its quite good food-for-thought for both sides of the theological argument. His honesty here is surprising considering he once cited Countess' very flawed argument. A very good article to read anyhow and unironically quite useful in teaching how Greek antecedents work - something very important on occasion.

    not to "spoil" the article but here are some very "un- Wallace" thoughts, considering his stance on the trinity:

    In John 16:8, the only explicit antecedent to e)kei=noj is o( para/klhtojin v. 7. The personal pronoun au)to/n in v. 7 also refers back to para/klhtoj. As Curt Steven Mayes (Pronominal Referents and the Personality of the Holy Spirit [Th.M. thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1980], 33) notes on this passage, "The fact that John often uses e)kei=noj as the equivalent of a personal pronoun (= he or they) may be significant for the Spirit's personality. But the question is, how is the masculine form in this passage to be explained? Is it meant to teach theology or agree with para/klhtoj? Surely the latter is a grammatically sound conclusion." Mayes's observation leads to a further interesting point: in 1 John, as R. Brown and others have repeatedly noted, the author consistently uses the pronoun e)kei=noj, to refer to Jesus (as opposed to God the Father). Now there are significant shifts (albeit subtle ones) in the terminology between the Gospel of John and 1 John, but I wonder if the common thread here is the concept of the ascended Christ as Spirit. If this were the case (and I admit it's an if), the author would tend toward the masculine, not because of a view of the Spirit's personality, but because of a view that the Spirit was identified somehow with the ascended, exalted Christ (who would naturally be thought of as masculine).
    (page 100 - Footnote: 10)


    "The first two passages, John 14:26 and 15:26, can be handled together. In both of them, pneu=ma is appositional to a masculine noun, rather than the subject of the verb. The gender of e)kei=noj thus has nothing to do with the natural gender of pneu=ma. The antecedent of e)kei=noj, in each case, is para/klhtoj, not pneu=ma."
    (page: 104 - Last paragraph)

    "the masculine demonstrative pronoun, e)kei=noj, stands in relation to o( para/klhtoj, not to to_ pneu=ma. In 14:26, the noun clause—"the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name"—is in apposition to o( para/klhtoj. How do we know that to_ pneu=ma is the appositive rather than o( para/klhtoj? Because it follows o( para/klhtoj. (25)"
    (page 107 - see also footnote 25 & 26)




  • Phizzy
    Phizzy

    Great find Blotty ! thanks for Posting !

    The Paper, which was an eye-opener to me, but confirmed my gut feeling, a feeling I have had since my late teens where, as a JW, I sparred with a number of Trinitarians, but did not have this to bludgeon them with !

    The paper ends with this, which I agree with too :

    " In sum, I have sought to demonstrate in this paper that the grammatical basis for the Holy Spirit's personality is lacking in the NT, yet this is frequently, if not usually, the first line of defense of that doctrine by many evangelical writers. But if grammar cannot legitimately be used to support the Spirit's personality, then perhaps we need to reexamine the rest of our basis for this theological commitment. I am not denying the doctrine of the Trinity, of course, but I am arguing that we need to ground our beliefs on a more solid foundation."

    I am not a believer of any stripe nowadays, and do not condemn those who believe the Trinity Doctrine, I see it as a natural evolution in Christology, but I do hate spurious use of Scripture ! The Trinity Doctrine is not found in the N.T, and even the Gospel of John does not point to a nascent form of it, it seems !

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