John Collins

Welcome to BibleProject podcast. Today we begin a brand new expanded series on the spirit of God. Back in 2017, we did a short three episode series called the Holy Spirit. And it was during those few short hours that Tim introduced me to the ancient and biblical idea of God as Ruach, that is Goddess, Spirit. And today we come back to this portrait of God to explore it more deeply. You know, in the many years of bibleproject, we've yet ever revisit an idea. But here we are, ready for more spirit.

Tim Mackie

If there's one video and podcast topic we'd like to return to and fill out more, it's been this.

John Collins

The spirit of God, Ruach. Elohim. Ruach is a Hebrew word that we have difficulty translating into any one English word. And so Ruach gets translated in our Bibles many different ways.

Tim Mackie

What the biblical authors could signal with one word we have many words for. In English it's translated as wind, breath, speech, spirit, and then mind.

John Collins

Ruach in Hebrew, pneuma in Greek. It's a concept that takes a while for our modern minds to appreciate, but we can get there. Look out your window and see Ruach glowing through the trees. Close your eyes, take ruach into your lungs. As you do this, you begin to realize that we live and breathe and exist within this invisible energy. And so it's no surprise that ruach becomes one of the key ways the Bible talks about the nature of God,

Tim Mackie

the invisible personal energy of God that makes all things possible, that originated all things and that sustains all things.

John Collins

Saying God is ruach invites us into this mystery about the nature of God, how we as mortal, finite beings can experience an infinite God.

Tim Mackie

Ruach is the way the biblical authors are uniting the divine and the human creator and creation. It's the meeting place of the two, the point at which God can influence humans by uniting with them in this invisible way. There's a mystery, and that's at the heart of what the biblical authors are trying to say.

John Collins

Today, Tim Mackey and I kick off this expanded series on the theme of the Spirit of God. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim.

Tim Mackie

Hello. John Collins.

John Collins

Hello.

Tim Mackie

Hi.

John Collins

Here we are.

Tim Mackie

Here we are.

John Collins

What are we doing?

Tim Mackie

We're doing a new old thing. I guess you could call it a reboot conversation. What we want to do is re explore the theme of the Spirit of God throughout the storyline of the Bible. And we made a video called the Holy Spirit. Yeah.

John Collins

And we had a vodcast conversation.

Tim Mackie

Yeah.

John Collins

Maybe four or five episodes.

Tim Mackie

Three.

John Collins

Oh really? Only three?

Tim Mackie

Well, at least in my notes, in three blocks. Wow.

John Collins

We were brief back then. So.

Tim Mackie

Yeah, I think this was like year two or three of the project and it was so new. We didn't have like a pattern for how we made stuff. We made some things after talking for 20 hours. And we made some things after talking for three hours.

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

And so we made a video called the Holy Spirit. We talked for three hours. And basically the goal of those conversations was to help do a reframe of just what the basic biblical vocabulary of spirit means and refers to. And what was so interesting was we named it Holy Spirit. But then mainly the video wasn't about like the Trinity. It was helping us recover what a Hebrew or Greek speaker would have heard when they heard the word spirit. The word spirit, yeah.

John Collins

And then what does it mean? That God is spirit.

Tim Mackie

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So we landed on the English word energy.

John Collins

Yeah. We translated the word spirit as energy.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. And we even qualified in the video that, you know, the energy that is of the personal presence of God.

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

But I think it was easy to misunderstand.

John Collins

Yeah. That sounds like you're like the force,

Tim Mackie

like from Star wars, the spirit of

John Collins

God, depersonalizing God to some impersonal energy.

Tim Mackie

That's right.

John Collins

But the reason why we chose energy was because of that word. Ruach has three dimensions to it.

Tim Mackie

That's right.

John Collins

Which it can mean wind, it can mean breath, it can mean the animated force of a person and totally.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. I think even I want to via now for four. A four part meeting, including mind, what we call mind.

John Collins

Oh.

Tim Mackie

So we were talking recently and we were like, if there's one video and podcast topic we'd like to return to and fill out more. It's been this eight years go by and I just have read and thought and talked with so many more people and in my own journey of following Jesus, have encountered the Spirit in new and surprising ways. And mostly I just wanted to fill out a much more in depth biblical theme study of the Spirit of God throughout scripture and the storyline, and also aspects about the Spirit that I think maybe I knew about but hadn't fully appreciated or just hadn't taken the time to really sit in these manifold dimensions of Spirit in the Bible. So this is going to be a much more in depth series and I'm just really excited about it.

John Collins

Cool. Me too. I'm really excited.

Tim Mackie

Yeah, let's jump in. So first, what I'd like to do is just kind of actually summarize the original series that we did the basic ideas, but try and summarize them at one go.

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

Which is the many dimensions of meaning that are wrapped up with the biblical vocabulary of spirit. And just try and inhabit what the mindset of the biblical authors when they use their words for spirit. And part of the problem is we have this English word spirit, which is just one of the meanings.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

So from this point on, I'm just going to use the original words. Ruach, Hebrew, ruach. And then the Greek word penema.

John Collins

You put a P on there.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. You know. Oh, okay. So, quick note about Panoma. Well, penauma.

John Collins

Panoma.

Leo

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

Probably actually penevma.

John Collins

Whoa.

Tim Mackie

I know. There's a young New Testament scholar, Benjamin Cantor, who's just unleashing a tidal wave of historical research on the pronunciation of koine Greek in the first century.

John Collins

They hit that P. Yeah.

Tim Mackie

He's overturning all kinds of.

John Collins

He found some audio recordings or something.

Tim Mackie

Mispronunciations. No. Super cool. What he actually looks for is places where Greek is transliterated or transliterated into Latin or Syriac or other dialects. And what he's looking for is mistakes. And it's actually in the mistakes in these multilingual transcriptions of Greek that he's able to reconstruct how people were pronouncing Greek. And the one thing that is certain was that there was no silent p at the beginning of words. It was pronounced anyway. Yeah, cool.

John Collins

I gotta get used to that.

Tim Mackie

I know. No more silent pneuma. It's used to pneuma. I know, Me too. But panoma. And probably panevma, but that may be too far of a leap. So we're just gonna go with panoma. Oh, boy.

John Collins

I know.

Tim Mackie

Sorry, ruach.

John Collins

Do I have to say penuma?

Tim Mackie

You can say whatever you want.

John Collins

Okay, I'll work it out.

Tim Mackie

I'm trying to retrain myself. All right, so, paneuma. So here we go. A quick recap of the many meanings of ruach and penomah in the Bible. Okay, so Hebrew Bible is 3/4 of the English Bible. New Testament is one quarter in terms of page length. With that in mind, consider these numbers. Just some quick statistics on the usage of these words. The Hebrew word ruach, which we're yet to discuss, its meaning appears 378 times in the Hebrew Bible.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

And if you just look in one English translation for a translation count. So I'm just going to take the new American standard, which is not widely read and used much anymore these days. It is in certain Christian traditions, But in the new American standard, those 378 occurrences. It's translated as wind. In other words, it's used with the meaning of wind. Over 100 of those times. About 114 times.

John Collins

Okay. Almost a third of the time it translated wind.

Tim Mackie

Yep, that's right. About 119 of those times, it's used of the human spirit.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

Or of the human mind, but it's a human ruach.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

But then 30 times, it's specifically about breath, like what humans inhale and exhale.

John Collins

Okay. That's considerably less.

Tim Mackie

Considerably less. And then about 74 times, it's a reference to God's ruach.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

So wind, breath, spirit, and then mind are kind of the four main uses.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

What the biblical authors could signal with one word. We have many words for in English. So I want to take just some time to just try and recover what it's like to think natively with this view of the world that you have one word to talk about. What we carve out into separate things. Wind, breath, mind, and spirit.

John Collins

And when you say spirit, then you mean either God spirit, or human spirit.

Tim Mackie

That's right. And spirit as an idea of personal presence.

John Collins

Personal presence.

Tim Mackie

Personal animated presence. So we'll talk about these. We'll talk about it. Just to break down with numbers, there's also a Hebrew synonym. The second place award for a synonym to ruach is the Hebrew word neshama. And it only appears two dozen times. 24 times. So Ruach is the thing. It's the main word. Okay. So remember, that's Hebrew Bible is 3/4 of the Christian Bible appears 378 times. The New Testament is one quarter of the whole Christian Bible in terms of page length. And the Greek word pneuma appears 379 times, basically the same number of times.

John Collins

So four times per capita.

Tim Mackie

That's right. But even though it's like a third shorter kind of body of literature than the Hebrew Bible, so there's a lot of ponoma going on in the New Testament. Like a lot. So what is interesting again, if you just do the same experiment, pick one translation. I'll pick. The New American Standard. Gets translated as spirit, referring to the invisible personal presence in some way of either God or of a human. 373 times.

John Collins

So all the times, basically, yeah, totally.

Tim Mackie

There's only three times in the New Testament where it clearly and exclusively means breath. There's other places where there might be a double meaning intended, but three times where it exclusively means breath and only two times where it exclusively and only means wind. Now, there's other places again where it's packed with double meaning.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

But within the New Testament, invisible personal presence is the predominant meaning of spirit.

John Collins

We've talked before that the New Testament letters and gospels, they're written in Greek, but you're thinking in Hebrew.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. Or they're thinking in terms of Hebrew Bible and Jewish thought. Yeah, yeah.

John Collins

So when they use the words pneuma, they are using it to translate the Hebrew idea of ruach.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. Though you know, the New Testament authors also didn't just grow up in Jewish culture. They grew up in a melting pot of 1st century Greco Roman culture.

John Collins

So it wasn't they were exclusively thinking in Hebrew words. They also had a meaning of this word that had a first century Greek context.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. But it just so happens that there's a huge amount of overlap and commonality between the associations of ruach in Hebrew and penoma in Greek.

John Collins

So we're going to take this in two steps. We're going to like think of the word from a Hebrew imagination and then think of the word from a point of Greek.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. As always, we're going to spend a lot of time in the Hebrew Bible and then we'll step into the Gospels and then the rest of the New Testament in the kind of the latter third of this series.

John Collins

Okay.

Ellie

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

Thank you so much. Great clarification. From this moment on, we're just talking about ruach for a while. The Hebrew word ruach within the Hebrew Bible.

John Collins

We're going to rock the ruach.

Tim Mackie

We're rocking the ruach.

Leo

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

Here's a simple starting definition. Ruach in the Hebrew Bible refers to the invisible personal energy that is the animating, sustaining presence that makes all things possible, that makes anything anything. So the invisible personal energy that is of God that originated all things and that sustains all visible things. So it's invisible, but it actually is the creator and sustainer of all visible and material things that we see happen in the world. That's the basic idea.

John Collins

Invisible, can't perceive it.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. Okay, so let's start there.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

So coolest thing happened in the last week at the bus stop from my younger son who I took the bus stop a couple blocks away. So we walk there and it's March, real time. We're having this conversation. The birdsong is just everywhere. Signs of fading winter. And at the bus stop in the bushes. I don't know how my younger son saw this a week ago. There are hummingbirds all over our neighborhood. They're amazing creatures. They grace us with their presence all the Time, especially at this time of year. And so he saw a hummingbird up, and then he saw it fly into the bushes, like, right 10ft from where we wait for the bus stop. And so he looked over in the bushes and he walked over, and he was like, dad, dad. And he was kind of stooping down, and there was a tiny little hummingbird that had made a nest, and it was perched, like, sitting in the nest. And so then we got close up and it got freaked out, and so it went up into the tree. And I mean, if there is such a thing as a perfect circle in nature, this hummingbird made it the perfect little circle. And it's tiny. I mean, just. I don't even know.

John Collins

It goes in it.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. It's like a donut, but with a solid bottom.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

And in it were two tiny eggs.

John Collins

Oh, my goodness.

Tim Mackie

I mean, quarter inch in size. I mean, they're just. And then. So we backed off, and this hummingbird came back down and sat on its nest. And then we got to get so close to it as it got used to us. And so we visited this hummingbird now every morning. Oh, wow. And it was there this morning again before I came here.

Kendall

Wow.

Tim Mackie

So it's like rocking. Eight days of sitting on that nest. We're just like, how many days is it going to sit there? Does it eat during the day? Does it leave the eggs?

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

So it's become this very special little experience for my son and I, and for me, we've been talking about it. And the other night at dinner, he was. At the end of the week, we talk about gifts of God that God's given us during the week. And he brought up the hummingbird. And I was like, yes, buddy, that's right. It feels sacred to encounter this creature because normally they're high up in the trees. You don't see them. But it's a creature nursing, like, the next generation, and it's putting itself in danger of these giants. Right. Coming around it. And anyway, I don't know why it was such a special encounter. So what's remarkable is that creature. You can see its tiny little chest. It has these orange speckles on its tiny chest. You could see the chest moving and it's breathing. And, like, that's it right there. So, wait, what's it? The ruach. So lock in to watching a little creature inhale and exhale, and then just take a moment to stop and ponder the fact that I, as the observer, am inhaling and exhaling and what we are both inhaling and exhaling is the same thing. And intuitively know that the thing we inhale and exhale is the thing keeping us alive. Keeping me alive. Yeah. And it's the same thing keeping that hummingbird alive. And so let's ponder a little more. Let's take a walk and think about that. What's so wild is that same air.

John Collins

Am I thinking about this like an ancient, or am I thinking about this

Tim Mackie

like a. Yeah, we're taking a walk now with, like, Jeremiah or with Moses.

John Collins

So I don't know about oxygen.

Tim Mackie

No. But you know that we're breathing in and out something that I cannot see.

John Collins

Got it.

Tim Mackie

Let's, like any human, take five minutes to think about your existence. Yeah.

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

We're all taking in and breathing out something that isn't ours.

John Collins

Right.

Tim Mackie

It's outside us. We're taking it in. And every single living creature I ever encounter is taking in and out the same stuff.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

So what do you want to call that?

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

And then what do you want to call that in light of some other implications if you think about that long enough. So that thing that I'm breathing in and out, I first inhaled when I came out of my mom's womb. I don't remember it, but she told me about it. So not only do we share it right now, but we've been sharing it since we came into the world. And what's wild is that our moms could each tell a story about how they took their first inhalation of the same stuff. And that was before you and I ever existed. So we're talking about something that is keeping us all alive, that has preceded all of us, that has to have preceded all of us all the way back. But then the moment you and I die, it's going to still exist, Right?

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

So what do you call that? The thing that precedes me, that has been sustaining my existence, that has to have preceded all living things going all the way back. And that will outlast us going on in the future.

John Collins

Yeah. I mean, I have to do the mental exercise of getting out of my modern mind. Sure. Because I just immediately go to, well, we're talking about oxygen. And all those things apply.

Tim Mackie

Yeah.

John Collins

It's all around us. We're all sharing it. And I don't know how an oxygen molecule actually works or an atom or whatever, but.

Tim Mackie

Well, it's got some protons, it's got a neutron.

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

All that stuff.

John Collins

Got it.

Leo

Yep.

John Collins

From an ancient perspective.

Ellie

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

Yeah.

John Collins

I'm trying to get in that mindset. I'M walking around. I'm breathing in. I know it's something. I feel it come into my lungs. I can feel it as it exhales. I could blow it into my hand. But I can't see it.

Tim Mackie

You can't see it. But it's sustaining my existence, and it's sustaining my existence.

John Collins

And I see that it's also sustaining your existence. And I see that it's sustaining my cattle and the wild creatures and even the hummingbird in that nest.

Tim Mackie

And what is so interesting is that you and I come onto the scene and we think of ourselves as real.

John Collins

We think of ourselves as real.

Tim Mackie

We do, yeah.

John Collins

Of course.

Tim Mackie

And in one sense, that's true. But also think what is human existence, any creature's existence, except constant change and transition. So we think of ourselves as real. But in fact, you and I, from moment to moment, are never even the same because we're just constant change. And it's just happening in such slow motion from our point of view. We don't feel like we're changing. We feel like there's a me.

John Collins

There's a sense of a constancy of myself.

Tim Mackie

And that's true. But the material makeup of my body right now in my mid-40s, is hardly the same material makeup of the body that came out of my mother's womb. I'm, like, shedding myself all the time. Dry skin.

John Collins

Yeah. Every seven years bring a new body.

Tim Mackie

But the thing that we're inhaling and exhaling and that everything else is inhaling and exhaling, that's just still there, still the same. It's enduring. It's long before it.

John Collins

I see what you mean by real. So the material self feels very real, even though it's actually changing, constant changing

Tim Mackie

and coming out of nothing and going back into the dust.

John Collins

Yes. Invisible reality that's giving me life, that's

Tim Mackie

more constant, More constant. So. But that's what I mean by real. If we want to compare real and real, in a way, whatever this invisible thing is that's keeping us all alive is much more fundamental and real than

John Collins

you think it'll be for me. It'll be here after me.

Tim Mackie

That's right.

John Collins

And it's in and around everything.

Tim Mackie

That's right.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

Yes. So here's a meditation from Isaiah 40. Humans are like grass. The wind blows and they go away. The wind blows the ruach. So the ruach becomes an image for what is enduring and permanent and fundamental to all that is. Ruach is a way that the biblical authors are trying to talk about what is primary and like, ultimate cause.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

A fundamental reality without which nothing that exists can exist. And in our minds, it would be something like these forces. Isn't it funny we have to go to the word force, the gravitational force, the strong and weak nuclear force.

John Collins

Yeah, that's a great example. Magnetic force, the gravitational force is invisible, but it affects everything. And as soon as I start saying, well, what is it as a thing? I can't start talking about it as a chemical. I can't start talking as a compound or any sort of material structure. That's helpful.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. In our minds, I think gravity, or the strong, weak nuclear force, Magnetic force is our equivalent of how the biblical authors conceived of Ruach.

John Collins

That's really helpful.

Tim Mackie

Yeah.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. Because here's what's wild, is that I encounter that hummingbird and I do some meditation. I'm like, it's more real than anything because it's keeping both of us alive. Me and that hummingbird. And it's been here long before me. It'll be here long after me. And it's the stuff making the trees move and dance.

John Collins

It's more powerful than the trees.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. But the same thing I'm inhaling is the same thing making those trees move. What ancient people had as a huge advantage over us is that they aren't as distracted and lulled into apathy and mental laziness as you and I are.

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

Okay. And so they just had a lot more time to sit and meditate on, like, the fundamentals of human existence and

John Collins

watch an animal breathe.

Tim Mackie

Yes.

John Collins

Think about it.

Tim Mackie

Totally. So what they just intuitively put together is the stuff moving the trees is the stuff that me and that hummingbird are inhaling and exhaling. It's keeping me alive. It's gotta be fundamental to all life because it has to precede any living thing, because it's the thing that all living things depend on.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

So it's pretty cosmic. Whatever this thing is, it's cosmic. It's more permanent and real than anything I see. Yeah. And what do you want called that?

John Collins

What do you want to call that?

Tim Mackie

And ruach is the biblical word for that. So let's dive into some examples I think will be helped immensely. So first, let's just look at some examples of what we would call wind.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

And notice that this wind is directly connected to God.

John Collins

It's God's wind.

Tim Mackie

Yeah, it's God's wind. So wind for us is impersonal. It's just like an energy. Impersonal energy blowing around, not for the Biblical authors, which is why they use this word. So the first line of the Bible, in the beginning, God created skies and the land. Now the land was wild and waste and darkness was over the face of the deep waters. And the ruach elohim was fluttering over the service of the waters. There's a lot of layers to this that I don't want to get into, but I just want to note that the ruach elohim is doing some kind of wind like activity, hovering or fluttering. It's the word used to describe a bird's wings flapping over the waters. So in that sense, it's not just simply wind, but it has wind.

John Collins

Wind like qualities.

Tim Mackie

Wind like qualities, yes.

John Collins

Yeah. You can imagine wind whipping over water.

Tim Mackie

Yeah, that's right. And you can see it.

John Collins

Well, you can see the effects.

Tim Mackie

There you go.

John Collins

There you go.

Tim Mackie

You can see the effects of it. Okay. That's in the background of these other instances. I want to look.

Ellie

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

So after the flood, the great flood story of Noah and the ark and the animals, the key turning point in the flood storm, when it all changes and the flood waters stop rising and they start receding and lowering, is in Genesis 8:1, where God causes a ruach to pass over the land and the water subsides. It's very clearly like a wind causes a wind pushing the waters back.

John Collins

What's different is in Genesis 1, it was the ruach Elohim.

Tim Mackie

That's right. That's right.

John Collins

And this is just a ruach.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. Here it's God doing something to a ruach. It's a little bit. It's a tweak on Genesis 1, which is God's ruach. And this is now God making a ruach blow over, which you could say, well, I guess if God can do that with a ruach, you could say, that's God's ruach. But it is creating a bit of a distinction between.

John Collins

It feels different from. This is my personal presence you're experiencing versus I am animating something other than me.

Tim Mackie

Right? Yeah, that's right.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

Yep, yep. And that is the most common use of ruach in our categories of wind, when it gets translated, wind. So in the famous parting of the sea of reeds in the Exodus story, where the Israelites go through on dry land, Pharaoh and his army are destroyed in the waters. The waters are parted because Exodus 14:21, Moses stretched out his hand all that night. Yahweh drove the sea back with a strong eastern ruach, ruach from the east, and turned it into dry land. So actually very similar. It's echoing the flood story. Okay, so this is a very common use of ruach. It's associated with blowing the clouds in that bring rain. So there's many descriptions of storms in the Bible that use the word ruach to talk about the force, the invisible force making those white, puffy things up in the air, move and drop their rain.

John Collins

Okay, so that is ruach, but it's not God's ruach. It's ruach that God is using, but

Tim Mackie

God's connected to it. It's under the direction of God. So in one sense you could say it's God's ruach. In another, you could say it's something distinct from God. And actually that's so important. Okay, this is important. From one angle, it's God's ruach, Genesis 1, verse 2. But then from another angle, Genesis 8:1, it's something distinct from God. It's God who is above and beyond all, but yet it's God. When I want to talk about that, above and beyond all, God interfacing and within in the terrarium. Present in the terrarium. Ruach is one of the key words used to describe that personal presence. So what's so tricky is then signaling that personal presence is what is behind uses of the word ruach that we would call spirit. Gets translated spirit or spirit of God. So like in Genesis 1, verse 2, the spirit of God fluttering over the waters, or the hundreds of uses of the word ruach, that is just the phrase the spirit of Yahweh or the spirit of God. So when the prophets or when kings. I'm just literally sampled at random. Here's a moment from the book of Judges, chapter six, where there's a tribal chieftain named Gideon who does this great battle rescue of the Israelites from certain deaths. We're told that he was empowered by God's spirit. But specifically, it's the phrase, the ruach of Yahweh clothed Gideon, enrobed Gideon.

John Collins

Hmm. Okay, so this is the same word for wind. So I have to make a decision here. Am I going to translate it? Wind or spirit?

Tim Mackie

Yeah, yeah.

John Collins

But the ancient Hebrew thinker didn't have to make that decision. So they're just saying the wind, spirit of Yahweh clothed, clothed Gideon.

Tim Mackie

And what's interesting, it's not saying. This is not a description of the day he was born and took his first breath.

John Collins

Right.

Tim Mackie

He's an adult. He's been breathing for a lot of years. Something new, something remarkable happened to him that day. So remarkable that this incredible, against all odds rescue of his people happened when there were violent armed soldiers attacking them. And the only way you could account for that preservation of life in the face of death is something happened to that guy. Like he got the extra breath that day. He took some extra deep breaths. I don't know, he was super oxygenated. But it was the ruach of God that gave him his first breath, but then gave him some special breaths that day. I'm using my English words to try and get at this. So there's the ruach of God. When you want to tie it to the one who is above and beyond and creates and sustains all things, you can talk about as the ruach of God.

John Collins

And when you do that, you're specifically talking about the activity of God. Usually.

Tim Mackie

Yeah, right. But you're trying to tie it to the person of God, but you're tying

John Collins

it to the person of God.

Tim Mackie

That's right. It's not just a mindless force. You're tapping into the person, the someone who is behind all things. Yeah, but the ruach is the way of talking about the one who is above and beyond and behind all things, being personally involved in the nitty and gritty of all the change and events and the flux of human history and human life. The ruach is the way the biblical authors are uniting the divine and the human, the divine creator and creation. It's the meeting place of the two. It's the ruach. It's a remarkable word. I think that's why years ago we actually were excited about the word energy. Yeah.

John Collins

To find a word that does the same work. You know, years ago when we had this conversation, I was trying to use the word spirit when I referred to wind. Not in conversation, because that's weird, I guess, but like to myself in a poetic way, like, oh, the spirit moving through the trees. I'm breathing the spirit. But what's uncomfortable about it is then I start to conflate that with God's personal energy, which I'm like, oh, but it's different. But I think that's actually part of the point. Part of the point. The discomfort I'm supposed to feel, the tension I'm feeling.

Tim Mackie

When you just said that, the discomfort was saying, I'm breathing in God. Yes, because I think that why that makes you uncomfortable is because when you breathe in God, all of a sudden what that language can make you think is, I've contained God.

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

But I think part of what this concept is trying to invite us to see is it's actually the opposite. Actually. I'm contained within God, and everything that I am is sustained and is within and because of God's ruach. So anytime I'm inhaling ruach, it is God in me, but all that is is God in me as a part of an ecosystem in which I am.

John Collins

How clearly are they thinking in that category? Because, like when we looked at Genesis 8, God caused a ruach. It could have said, and God's ruach parted the waters.

Tim Mackie

Yeah, that's right.

John Collins

And been more explicit. So there seems to be this understanding that while I am enveloped by God and I exist within God, it isn't as simple as I'm breathing in God.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. This is so great, man.

Ellie

This is.

Tim Mackie

This is so great. This is such an ancient conversation in Jewish and Christian tradition. We're trying to name one thing, but it's so super real that we can only name it with two different names.

John Collins

Okay, what are you talking about?

Tim Mackie

That feel opposite to us.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

What we're trying to say is a core claim of Jewish and Christian tradition. Something that exists cannot be the author of its own existence. Something whose existence depends on something else can't have brought about its own existence. And everything that you and I encounter visibly with our five senses is something whose existence is actually dependent on something before it. So it's real, but it's real as a kind of dependent real. So there must be something like whatever it is that's highest up the chain of cause and effect has to be something that isn't dependent on any other thing for its existence. This is one of the classical ways of thinking about God. It's the unmoved mover, the first primary cause. So by the word God, we're designating the one who is the one who is the one who is Yahweh, the one who is. So that's key. So anything that is then is because God is. Which means that in a way it's in God, or its existence is dependent and sustained by God. Okay, so that could very quickly lead you, though, to think like, oh, so I guess I'm God, because I only exist in and from within God. From within God.

John Collins

It's like a little gut bacteria being, like, I'm human.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. So now we have to flip and we have to say what we're dealing with in the Jewish Christian claim of God as the creator of all things is that God exists in and of God's self. But God has also, by God's will, chosen that something else should exist other than God as itself. As a thing to exist with its own identity other than God. So precisely for relationship, it's like the generous God's, the generous host, that phrase. And while that thing that God has brought into existence is not God, it has a kind of independence. But that independence is relative because it only exists in full dependence on God. So how do you develop language for

John Collins

talking about something that's independent but still fully dependent?

Tim Mackie

A dependent independence and its very existence can only exist if the one who is pervades and sustains and keeps it alive.

Leo

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

And so ruach Elohim is one of the ways that biblical authors are talking about that metaphysical concept is that it's God, the ruach Elohim, Genesis 1, verse 2. But then also, once God has brought something into being with its own relative independence, the way God personally interacts with it, but as its own thing. And that's what you get It With Genesis 8, verse 1, God causes a ruach. And there we're like, oh, it's wind. So it's not God.

John Collins

Right.

Tim Mackie

But it's. I don't know, man. We're at the coincidence of opposites here.

John Collins

Okay, so if I'm an ancient thinker and you're telling me the story, and I say you're telling me Elohim Kaz, the ruach, I'm thinking to myself, okay, the God of the universe, the first mover within which I exist and everything has life, is causing spirit to push off these chaos waters.

Tim Mackie

Yeah, that's right.

John Collins

And so am I kind of simultaneously thinking it's an independent thing from God, but also, in some way, is God is God. Yeah, I am thinking both things.

Tim Mackie

It's distinct from God because it's right here in creation. I can feel it and I inhale it. I can even contain it within my lungs.

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

So that's.

John Collins

So obviously it can't be God.

Tim Mackie

So that can't be the whole of who God is, that can't be all that God is. In the same way that I am not God in the sense I am not all that God is, but yet in another sense, I am filled with the ruach of God, and I only exist because of the ruach of God. And so in some way I do really participate.

John Collins

Now, is there a verse, I think, in Job or something we looked at before that kind of makes it pretty explicit that it's the ruach of Elohim in you?

Tim Mackie

I mean, we're going to get there. But yes, just to make it clear, job in job 27 says, the ruach of God is in my nostrils.

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

The same phrase as Genesis 1, verse 2, Ruach, Elohim is in my nostrils.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

God's in my nostrils.

John Collins

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim Mackie

By which he doesn't mean, like, all that God is above and beyond is in my nose, but that something very real that is divine and comes from the divine as God's gift to me, as someone who's both contained in God and other than God is in me. It's, I guess, a classic version of a paradox. How can all creation be both distinct from God but yet wholly dependent and participate in God's existence? Yeah. And the word ruach of God in Genesis 1:2, or God causing a ruach to blow within creation, Genesis 8:1, are two ways of staying that paradox.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

And, you know, within human knowledge, we're to the point where is it this or is it that? Because both seem real. Usually that's the invitation to the greater thing that transcends them both. And the limit is just my limited understanding. There's a whole other set of uses of ruach in the Hebrew Bible that the only word I can think of that does justice to these uses is our word, mind. So, for example, in Genesis 41, the pharaoh, king of Egypt, has a dream about these wonderful seven cows grazing by a stream. And then these seven mutant nightmare cows come up from the land and then devour the healthy cows and so on. And what we're told is that he wakes up in the morning and his ruach was agitated. His ruach was troubled.

John Collins

Pharaoh's.

Tim Mackie

Yeah.

John Collins

Pharaoh's after dreaming this thing.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. So he sends for the magicians of Egypt. Nobody can tell him what his dream means. He comes across this Hebrew slave who can tell him what it means. And what he says is, we'll look at in a couple conversations. But his ruach is troubled.

John Collins

Yeah.

Tim Mackie

So I guess it could mean that his breathing was.

John Collins

Couldn't breathe quite well.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. But here, let's stack this alongside another example. Numbers 14 was the story of Moses sending the spies into the land. And 10 of the 12 spies come back with a report that's like, no, there's giants in the land. They're going to kill us. We can't go in there. God can't rescue us. And a guy named Caleb and Joshua say, no, the Lord can deliver us like he brought us out of Egypt. He can do this. And when God compares Caleb to the 10 spies who didn't trust him, what he says is, caleb has a different ruach, and he has followed me fully. When David is Sharing the blueprints for the temple in Jerusalem. He says that he had a dream and he saw the blueprints in, like, a divine dream that God gave him. It says that he gives to Solomon the plan, then this blueprint plan and the plan of all the temple that was in the ruach with him.

John Collins

The plan of everything that was in the ruach with him.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. So there's a ruach with him. I guess you could say it's his ruach.

John Collins

Yeah. And the plans are in there.

Tim Mackie

The plan of the temple are in his ruach.

Leo

Yeah.

John Collins

Okay. Yeah. That feels a lot like mine.

Tim Mackie

Yeah. So there's many more examples like this, but we're talking about the same thing. Like, I think our closest is our concept of. Oh, no, no. An idea. Like, what is a concept? What is an idea and where does it live? That's right. Like, if you come to me and share an idea, which you have many times over the course of this project. Like, if I got an X ray. No, no, Like a CAT scan or whatever, an mri. Mri. And scanned your brain.

John Collins

Yeah. Where would you see it?

Tim Mackie

Am I going to see the idea molecule? This very mysterious part of human cognition is what we call ideas or concepts or information. Information. So I don't want to try and do a full discussion of that, but to say. It's very intuitive to say that you received, you came into contact with something that was outside you, that you received from somewhere outside you, the inspiration. And because you and I in biblical thought are porous, our bodies and our hearts and minds and will are porous. Things can enter into us from the outside, like an idea, like a plan to build a building, and then you share it with somebody else. And what you could say was your ruach because it's invisible. It comes from within you, but also came to you from outside. So it went into you, you received it from somewhere, some input you got. Then you somehow think about it, whatever thinking is, and then you say something or do something. And now that invisible thing that came to you is within you and then goes out of you, has a visible effect in the world. Now there's building where there wasn't one before. And one of the words for that in biblical Hebrew is ruach. We have to use the word mind at that point, but ruach.

John Collins

Yeah, mind not meaning your brain, mind meaning that invisible, processing, storing, contemplating, communicating these abstract invisible things.

Tim Mackie

Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in David's case, I think why it's phrased in this unique way in the ruach that was with him is it wants you to see this as both something that's David's ruach, but also that comes to him from God because we're told that it was a divine blueprint that he saw.

John Collins

Right.

Tim Mackie

So it was both his ruach and God's ruach. In other words, ruach is the point at which the divine and human meet and the point at which God can influence humans by uniting with them in this invisible way.

John Collins

Yeah. So thinking like an ancient, you got this invisible ruach energy. I'm breathing it in. It's sustaining everything. And at some point, I need to start talking about my own sense of mindful agency. And it's this invisible part of me that's very real and almost more real to a sense of myself than anything. And the word I have also is ruach. And we call that the human spirit. But just like there's this blurring between, is that the spirit of God in the trees, or is that a ruach,

Tim Mackie

the God sent that got sent? It's like something other than God.

John Collins

Yeah, it's a tension there, but there's also tension in, like, is this my spirit, or am I being filled with the spirit of God?

Tim Mackie

Exactly. Yes.

John Collins

And this is my spirit because I'm an independent creature made in God's image. But I'm independent, but then I can't exist without God's.

Tim Mackie

Yeah, totally.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

So right there at that intersection of divine and human, there's a mystery. And that's very much at the heart of what the biblical authors are trying to say. And so what's so fascinating, we'll look at some of these passages later on in the series. So the apostle Paul, in his letter to Corinthians, we call it 1 Corinthians, knows these people intimately. He planted the church in Corinth. There's a bunch of terrible things happening from his point of view going on. He wishes he could be there, but he can't right now. So he's writing a letter. And so there's a bunch of instances in chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians where he talks about, hey, listen, right now, at this moment, I am absent from you guys in body. Like, I'm not physically present with you, but what he says is, I am this, First Corinthians 5, 3, I am present en pneuma with you, where he says in verse four, in the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled together, and I am with you in pneuma. And so our translators have a challenge right there, because what he's saying Is that because God's spirit is there with you, gathering with you when you gather? And because I am connected to God's spirit right now through God's spirit, it's like I'm with you. Is that what he's saying?

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

Or is what he's saying is, my spirit is so joined and connected with you and with God's spirit? Anytime you guys get together, I'm there. So the debate in English translations is, do you capitalize the word spirit is

John Collins

Paul's spirit or God's spirit?

Tim Mackie

Exactly.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

And the longer I've sat with that paradox of how to translate spirit right here in 1 Corinthians 5, I've begun to wonder if the point isn't the paradox. Paul is with them, but not because he's physically there, but because he is united to God spirit, and God's spirit is united to them. And there's passages in John that we could look at of when Jesus says, I will be in you, my disciples, and you'll be in me, and will be in the Father. So this isn't just a Hebrew Bible thing. This idea of the union of God and creation, of divine and human is part of the point of the word ruach. And it's pretty intuitive because the hummingbird and I are both depending on something that's not us to keep us alive, and that long precedes us, and that also blows in the trees. What do you want to call that? And that's the fundamental meaning of ruach. Okay. So essentially, what we just did was what we took about three hours to kind of work through years ago. We did a little more that we're going to fill out more, but that's the first step.

John Collins

Okay. That's the refresher.

Tim Mackie

So I guess if there's a million unanswered questions right now that just got raised, there's very much the point that we'll begin to address all the loose ends as we go forward.

John Collins

Okay.

Tim Mackie

What we should look at next then, is how ruach is fundamentally associated with what we would call life, but also with death. Ruach is talking about the knife's edge between life and death that all living creatures live on. So we'll look at a whole bunch of biblical texts about that.

John Collins

That's it for today's episode. Next week, we're going to explore how the Spirit of God is the originator and sustainer of life and how thinking about the Spirit in this way draws attention to our own mortality.

Tim Mackie

This is the biblical author's way of exploring humans as frail, as mortal, as not sustaining their own existence.

John Collins

And we'll look at how the story of the Bible is an invitation for the mortal to somehow become more.

Tim Mackie

Whatever immortal life that humans are going to experience is not something they have of their own nature. It's something that is given to them as a gift.

John Collins

Bibleproject is a crowdfunded nonprofit. We exist to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we create is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.

Kendall

Hello, my name is Kendall and I'm from Salem Academy.

Leo

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Leo

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Kendall

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hi, my name is Ellie and I'm from Virginia. I work on the product team here. So the background of everything that serves our app and website and classroom. I have wanted to be an engineer since I was in middle school also. Then I started dancing competitively when I was seven. And then all throughout high school, my junior year, me and one of my friends choreographed a duet. We did it in like the span of two weeks. And we won a choreography award for it, which we were in the same category with my choreographer, who I respected a lot. And so the fact that we got a call out for this was, like, super exciting. If you have a captive audience for me, like, I'm there. There's a whole team of us that make the podcasts come to life every week. For a full list of everyone involved in this episode, check out the show notes where you stream the podcast and on our app.