Welcome!
On Tue, 6 Jun 95 09:55:19 CDT you wrote:
>
>I'm fairly new to the reflector so let me give a quick intro. My name is Bob
>Pyne and I teach theology at Dallas Seminary....
>
>Bill Hamilton has been talking about the breath of God in Genesis and the
>uniqueness of humanity. Since I've done some work on the vocabulary there, let
>me make a few suggestions.
>
>In Genesis 2:7 the "breath of life" is "nishmat hayyim" in Hebrew. However,
>several parallels demonstrate that this is essentially synonymous with "ruach,"
>the word more commonly used for the Holy Spirit in the OT (and also used for
>wind [Ex. 10:13], breath [Job 15:30], or the human spirit [Gen. 41:8]). In
>Ezekiel's vision, which parallels Genesis 2 as a "re-creation," the "ruach" of
>God (used throughout the book to refer to the Spirit of God) comes from the four
>"winds" (also "ruach") to give life to the reconstituted bodies of Israel's
>slain army (Ezek. 37:8-10). Job 27:3-4 uses "nishmat" and "ruach" in parallel to
>speak of the animating breath/Spirit of God sustaining Job's life, as do Job
>33:4 and Job 34:14-15. Psalm 104:29-30 also speaks of God's animating breath as
>his "ruach" which sustains all animal (and human) life.
Agreed. I realised that in later books the "breath of life" and
"spirit" became synonyms. My point was that in Genesis they were not.
>The point is that one cannot distinguish between the "nishmat hayyim" of Genesis
>2:7 and the "Spirit (ruach) of God" in the Job passages or in Ezekiel 37. Since
>Genesis 6:17 and 7:15 also speak of animals being animated by the "ruach hayyim"
>("breath" or "Spirit" of life), it's best to say that people are not seen as
>unique by virtue of the Spirit's animating presence, for God preserves the life
>of all of his creatures through his animating breath, the life-giving Holy
>Spirit. (Incidentally, this helps as well with Genesis 6:3, where a Qumran
>manuscript reads "My Spirit shall not ABIDE IN man forever because he is
>flesh"--in other words, God will not forever sustain humanity's physical life.)
>The Spirit's presence as life-giver is not a doctrine to be taken lightly, for
>it forms the basis for the New Testament doctrine of regeneration and
>resurrection through the indwelling of the Spirit (Rom. 8:11).
Agreed.
>That was rather long-winded, but the bottom line is that human uniqueness is
>reflected not so much in the presence of God's animating breath in the OT as in
>the fact that we alone are made in the image of God. I have some thoughts on
>what that means, too, but that can wait.
Agreed.
My point was that the model of making man from the dust and the breath
of God (Gn 2:7) could have applied to all new basic types, for all
life is from the earth (Gn 1:11, 24) and all animal life (including
man) has God's breath of life (Gn 1:30, Gn 2:7; 6:17; 7:15,22). There
is no Biblical warrant for believing that man's creation is something
different. What is different about man's creation is that he alone was
made in the image of God (Gn 1:26-27; 5:1; 9:6).
God bless.
Stephen