Speaking of exasperated Jesus...

[dreamer_easy]

I've just been listening to a terrific podcast about The Gospel of Mark while doing the washing up. Among many interesting things (the always-entertaining disciples bring the stupid and spend a lot of time panicking), there are references to the Greek word pneuma, "breath", usually translated as "Holy Spirit". For example:

"... right from the beginning in Mark, pneuma, or what's usually translated as Holy Spirit, sacred pneuma, the charged breath, the wind, the sacred essence, is what breathes through this story."

(It's God's breath which brings Adam to life, of course, and synaesthete7 has mentioned the idea of the Bible as theopneustos, God-breathed.)

Long-time readers of this LJ will not be surprised that I thought of a Mesopotamian parallel: the word for the spirits that cause illness is similar to the word for "wind", and those spirits get in through apertures in the house, like a wind coming in. (I read about this quite recently, but do you think I can find the reference? I cannot.) I'm not sure, though, that there are Mesopotamian parallels with the idea of breathing life into someone or something.

Is the idea of God's breath as His agent similar to the idea of God's Word (or indeed, Marduk's word, which can create and destroy)? And are these in turn parallel to the Egyptian idea of hike, roughly "magic", the divine power used by the gods?

Comments

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

Or, for that matter, the eastern concepts of chi and prana?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Ooh!

[alryssa.livejournal.com]

Heka, alternately used to mean magic or prayer (and also being a God in His own right), but yes, it's possible - the Egyptians placed a great deal of emphasis on the breath of the gods giving life to the Pharoah. Lots of mentions of scents, and such gracing the nostrils, and then there's the whole "opening of the Mouth" ceremony. I believe Aset breathed life back into Ausar in order to conceive Heru, flapping her kite's wings to do so.

[qthewetsprocket.livejournal.com]

sacred pneuma, the charged breath, the wind, the sacred essence,

i really like this concept, but i've always thought the aramaic term - ruah - was so much lovelier and onomatopoeiac. :)

[lordshiva.livejournal.com]

I've just finished a story that involved a lot of research on just this. Interesting.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about the pneuma, but in the Hebrew Bible, the verb bara is God's verb: it means "creation ex nihilo." It is interesting that the word davar can be translated as "words" or "things" - as if to imply that the name of a thing is the thing itself.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Did we discuss bara recently? I have this hazy recollection there being some debate over whether it was creation from nothing or the ordering of a formless universe.