Quick question: Do the Greek texts capitilize the Holy Spirit? I am not educated in Greek, so I don't even know if they would use such a method to indicate deity.
Thanks for the information and help.
Yes and no.
First, the Hebrew and Aramaic of the OT, to my knowledge, do not ever make a distinction in upper and lower case letters, in any manner, so this is not relevant, as to the OT.
The Greek of the NT was initially written in all upper case or letters, making no distinction in case and proper nouns from anything else. (There were also no breaks between letters in sentences, nor was there punctuation, either.) These early MSS are known as 'uncial'
Thus, for an example using the English language, a portion of Matt. 28:19 would read in this manner, if we could duplicate this.
...THENAMEOFTHEFATHERANDOFTHESONANDOFTHEHOLYSPIRIT
(Note any breaks in these letters are inserted by the computer, as I typed that in with no breaks.)
Later, lower case was developed for Greek language, thus we have what are known as minuscules (meaning small letters) and the majority of extant NT MSS are of this variety. (However, I think that there still were no punctuation or word breaks, at least initially.) Thus we would have something along these lines.
...thenameofthefatherandofthesonandoftheholyspirit
Still later we would find word separation, punctuation, etc. in the Greek language, reflected by late MSS and texts.
However, one simply cannot equate the writing style and conventions of the Greek and Hebrew languages with that of the English language, especially as used today, to reflect the capitalization of proper nouns (or Deity), as the writing convention. In fact, even from the written English of the 1500s into more modern times, this is not always made clear, as these examples from Ps. 51:11 should serve to show.
...thy holy sprete ... (MCB - 1535)
... thy holy spirit ... (BIS- 1568)
... thine holy Spirit ... (GEN- 1587)
... thy holy Spirit ... (KJ-1611)
... thy holy spirit ... (KJ-1769)
... thy holy spirit ... (WBT- 1833)
... Thy Holy Spirit ... (YLT- 1862)
... thy holy spirit ... (RV- 1881)
... thy holy Spirit ... (ASV- 1901)
... thy holy Spirit ... (RSV- 1952)
... Your Holy Spirit ... (NASB- 1971)
... your Holy Spirit ... (NIV - 1978)
... Your Holy Spirit ... (NKJV - 1982)
... Your Holy Spirit ... (LIT - ???)
... Thy holy Spirit ... (KJ21 - 1994)
... Thy holy Spirit ... (TMB - 1998)
... Your Holy Spirit ... (HSCB - 2004)
I would prefer all these words be capitalized, here as per the YLT, NASB, NKJV, LIT, and HCSB, as all three of these words, in this verse and context, refer to the Deity of God, but unfortunately, this simply hasn't happened. By the same token, I am not yet losing any sleep over this.
Hope that helps.
And, BTW, welcome to the Baptist Board. :wavey:
Ed
