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Pneuma (πνεῦμα) is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for "spirit". [1] [2] It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is also used in Greek translations of ruach רוח in the Hebrew Bible, and in the Greek New Testament.
Nephesh (נֶ֫פֶשׁ nép̄eš), also spelled nefesh, is a Biblical Hebrew word which occurs in the Hebrew Bible. The word refers to the aspects of sentience, and human beings and other animals are both described as being nephesh. [1] [2] Bugs and plants, as examples of live organisms, are not described in the Bible as nephesh.
The Shekhinah (Biblical Hebrew: שכינה šekīnah; also Romanized Shekina(h), Schechina(h), Shechina(h)) is the English transliteration of a Hebrew word meaning "dwelling" or "settling" and denotes the dwelling or settling of the divine presence of God. This term does not occur in the Bible, and is from rabbinic literature. [47]: 148 [48] [49]
The concept of an immaterial soul separate from and surviving the body is common today but according to modern scholars, it was not found in ancient Hebrew beliefs. [1] The word nephesh never means an immortal soul [27] or an incorporeal part of the human being [28] that can survive death of the body as the spirit of the dead. [29]
The Old Testament consistently uses three primary words to describe the parts of man: basar (flesh), which refers to the external, material aspect of man (mostly in emphasizing human frailty); nephesh, which refers to the soul as well as the whole person or life; and ruach which is used to refer to the human spirit (ruach can mean "wind", "breath", or "spirit" depending on the context; cf ...
The use of the word "ruach" (Hebrew: "breath", or "wind") in the phrase ruach ha-kodesh seems to suggest that Judaic authorities believed the Holy Spirit was a kind of communication medium like the wind. The spirit talks sometimes with a masculine and sometimes with a feminine voice; the word ruacḥ is both masculine and feminine. [36]
The ruach elohim which moves over the Deep may therefore mean the "wind/breath of God" (the storm-wind is God's breath in Psalms 18:15 and elsewhere, and the wind of God returns in the Flood story as the means by which God restores the earth), or God's "spirit", a concept which is somewhat vague in the Hebrew bible, or simply a great storm-wind ...
Two different models of the process of creation existed in ancient Israel. [15] In the "logos" (speech) model, God speaks and shapes unresisting dormant matter into effective existence and order (Psalm 33: "By the word of YHWH the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their hosts; he gathers up the waters like a mound, stores the Deep in vaults"); in the second, or "agon ...