Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is translated from the Greek πνευματος αγιου (pnuematos agiou) and Hebrew רוח קדשׁ (ruach kadosh).
Many people feel like "Holy Ghost" is a bizarre and even sacrilegious way to translate this term, but this feeling is based more on poor education than on any actual problem with the translation.
The word "ghost" comes from the Old English word gast, which meant breath, wind, spirit, angel, demon, etc.
The word "spirit" comes from the Latin word spiritus, which meant breath, wind, spirit, angel, demon, etc.
At the time that the KJV was translated from Greek and Hebrew into English, if someone wanted to talk about the spirit of God, they were just as likely (maybe even more likely, since the common people were more familiar with Germanic-rooted words) to use the word ghost as the word spirit. They were perfect synonyms. The two words were interchangeable.
In today's English we tend to associate the word ghost only with the spirits of the dead and the word spirit with the spirits of supernatural beings. But that doesn't change the actual meanings of the words. Notice that I said "spirits of..." in both cases. That's because the words mean essentially the same thing, and it is still perfectly acceptable in modern English to refer to the "ghost" of a dead person as a "spirit".
The only two real differences between the words "ghost" and "spirit".
The two words came from different ancestral languages, Proto-German (via Old English) and Latin (via Old French).
We are in the habit of using one word in some contexts and the other word in other contexts.
The definitions of the words haven't really changed. It's only our informal usage of the words that have changed somewhat since the KJV was translated.
Having said all that, a modern English translation of the Scriptures shouldn't use the word "ghost" to refer to the Holy Spirit because it does confuse people who are only used to hearing that word in the context of the spirits of dead people.
The name גד has ancient origins as a false deity in many places around the world, and it is mentioned in Isaiah 65:11 specifically. You cannot deny this. It was used in Europe when the first printing presses rolled out the first bibles and it was a name of one of their foremost deities before the catholic church invaded their land. These are facts and there are many more like them.
Yes, Gad is used in Isaiah 65:11 to refer to the god of fortune that was commonly worshiped in ancient Semitic cultures. However, the word itself just means "fortune" and was applied to the corresponding god more as a nickname than anything else. If someone today decided that there was a god that governed how much light is put out by light bulbs, but didn't know its name, he might call it "the god of lumens". If he started a religion to worship this god, eventually his followers would probably just start calling their god "Lumen" because it's easier. Same thing here. "Gad" was not really the name of the god, but of the god's area of responsibility.
This is almost exactly the same way that ba'al was first a common Hebrew word that simply meant master or husband, but was later used like a proper name for a particular false master. It was a perfectly good word coopted for nefarious purposes. Interestingly enough, YHVH uses the word "ba'al" to refer to himself more than once in Scripture.
The rest of this claim is historical fiction as far as I can tell. I haven't found a single source for the existence of a deity named Gad or God anywhere outside of the Ancient Near East. The English word, god, descends from an old Germanic word that meant almost exactly what it means in English today: a supernatural being. It was never the proper name of any deity. Someone probably made that up because they wanted to impress their friends with their arcane knowledge, what Ryan (IIRC) refers to as more-special-than-thou syndrome.
In the ancient Semitic languages, including Hebrew, gad means fortune or troop, depending on the language and context. This has absolutely no connection to the ancient Germanic word. The German languages, including English, are part of the Indoeuropean family of languages. English and Hebrew share one major element in common: they are both spoken by humans. But that's about it. If a word in Biblical Hebrew sounds similar to a word in Old English or German, there is next to zero chance that the words are actually related in any historical way.
In Exodus 23:13, YHWH specifically says we are not to have the names of other deities even found in our mouths...
And yet the Bible, all of which is clearly meant to be read aloud, contains many names of pagan deities. God commanded the prophets to speak the names of pagan deities on many occasions, for example in Jeremiah 46:25 which contains the name "Amon of No" (strangely translated as "multitude of No" in the KJV).
The same pagans (and Israelites!) who worshiped Ba'al also used the name YHVH to refer to multiple pagan deities. They were only following the example of the Hebrews with the golden calf at Mt Sinai. Since YHVH became the name of one or more pagan gods, does that mean we can't use that name for the original YHVH anymore?
Clearly Exodus 23:13 can't mean that we absolutely must never speak the name of a pagan deity under any circumstances, or else God commanded the prophets to sin. Rather, it means that we must never pray to them, call on them, speak or act in their names, or swear by them. In other words, don't speak of or to them as you should to YHVH.
...yet you would teach as many people as you can in your warped desire to break this command wantonly and to justify your own wrongdoing.
To which I can only respond with Exodus 20:16, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
Why not just drop your pride and be wrong for once? Why not just let go of you and say to Him, "Okay, Father." Why not just use the name HE told you was His instead of fighting so hard against Him and everyone who would oppose you, instead of insisting on using what YOU want to call Him.
Like adonai, baal, and elohim, "god" and "father" are both titles, not names. They are both titles applied to countless false deities as well as to the one true Creator (also a title and not a name). YHVH also said to call him Adonai, Elohim, El Shaddai, Father, Yeshua, Emmanuel...and even Ba'al.
I am perfectly willing to admit when I'm wrong. I have done so many times, and I'm sure I will make and correct many more mistakes if God (YHVH, if you prefer) allows me the time.
But you're going to have to use some actual evidence of error--as opposed to historical fantasy--before I'll take you seriously.
"Our father died in the wilderness; but he was not in the company of those who gathered together against the Lord, in company with Korah, but he died in his own sin; and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be removed from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father's brothers." (Numbers 27:3-4)
A man's name is more than the label on his birth certificate. It is who-he-is, the sum total of his character, his legacy, the whole crater he makes in this world. So, too, God's Name isn't just a collection of sounds & letters.
Yeshua said to "preach the gospel & make disciples of all men". He didn't say "preach paleo-Hebrew & make all men transliterate the Father's name thusly".
People who fight over the correct English(!?) spelling & pronunciation of YHVH have completely missed the point. If they believe that such things are the same gospel proclaimed to the nations by Peter & Paul, then they are the subjects of Paul's warning to the Galatians against those who teach "a different gospel...who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ."
Sometimes when people start getting back into Scripture, they discover things they never knew were there, they get convicted, they get excited... And sometimes they get a little carried away by things they read or hear without considering the greater context.
For example, in Exodus 23:13, God said "Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips."
Years ago, when I was first getting really serious about trying to obey God, I thought this meant we needed to stop using "Tuesday" and "January" because they were named for pagan gods.
Some people take that even further and say we shouldn't use words like "lord" and "god" because the True God shouldn't be made to share his titles with false gods.
But then there's this:
For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. Isaiah 54:5
We all know this is talking about YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (The all-caps LORD always means that the original Hebrew read "YHWH".) There's absolutely no question about it. Isaiah is relaying a message from God about Himself to the people of Israel.
Did you also know that the Hebrew word God used to describe himself as a "husband" is ba'al, the exact same word used as to refer to the chief Canaanite god? It can be translated as husband, master, lord, etc.
In other places, God YHWH calls himself El and Adonai, which translate almost exactly to god and lord, respectively.
All words and sounds are abused and co-opted at times for sinful purposes, but there is no such thing as a "pagan" word or sound any more than there can be a pagan hammer or a pagan screwdriver. Words are just tools used to convey information, and, just like hammers, they can be misused.
Some nouns carry more information than others, but in the end they're just labels. God, lord, ba'al... these are generic nouns that are sometimes used as proper nouns, just like Father, Doctor, or President. The chief Canaanite god was often called Ba'al, but YHWH also called himself ba'al.
If pagans worship a god of the trees and they call it Tree, are we then forbidden to use the word "tree" ever again? Of course not. Even if there was a real being masquerading as the god of the trees, that word doesn't belong to him, and it's not really his name.
When God said "Don't let the names of false gods pass your lips" in Exodus 23:13, he didn't mean, "Don't speak the phonetic equivalents of their names and don't ever use those nouns again." No. What he meant was, "Don't call on false gods. Don't swear by their names, don't honor them by talking about them in a favorable manner, don't pray to them, don't act in their names, and don't speak for them."
Words are just tools to represent information through speech and writing. Don't confuse the labels for the realities, and don't let the world dictate your speech.
Can anyone point me to a single verse anywhere in the Bible in which God tells us how to pronounce the tetragrammaton? Just one. No? Then get over yourselves. If it were that important, He would have given us some hint as to where the vowels and stress are supposed to go.
The ungodly obsession that some people have over getting the pronunciation right is indeed ungodly. It comes from a spirit of pride and gnosticism, a spiritual addiction to false mystery. It's not even really His name! It's just a label designed to teach us things about Him and you do not need to know how to pronounce it correctly to learn the lessons. I don't care if you say Yahuah, Yahweh, Jehovah, Yehovah, Yahwah, or whatever your current favorite is. It's still yod-heh-vav-heh,
When you, who barely knows any Hebrew at all, tell people that you know more than all of the greatest Hebrew scholars of the last 2000 years, when you tell them that the exact pronunciation is more important than whether or not they're feeding the poor or keeping the Sabbath, know that you have strayed way off the path and become nothing but a tool for Satan to divide God's people. You are making God's people weak and ridiculous.
When Paul wrote to his non-Jewish followers across the Roman Empire,
he didn't call himself "Shaul." He called himself Paul. He didn't call
the Messiah "Yeshua haMashiach." He called him "Iesous Christos."
It's
ok to use transliterations, abbreviations, and even translations to
refer to Yeshua/Jesus, especially when trying to communicate with non-Hebrew
speakers. It's ok to use Hebrew names too. Just make sure you are using them in such a way as to teach the truth, not as stumbling blocks that drive people further from the truth.
Our
Messiah's name isn't a collection of letters or sounds. Those things
are just convenient labels. His name is the whole picture of who He is:
Redeemer, Savior, Wonderful, Counselor, Anointed, Son of the Living God, the Word of God, the Law Giver, our Passover Lamb, our Atonement, High Priest, the Rock that Saves.
Some believe that the introduction of the letter J represents some kind of corruption or conspiracy to keep people from pronouncing the name of Yeshua. The letter is only 400 to 600 years old, and Hebrew has no J at all, so how can "Jesus" possibly be the Messiah's name?
There are two objections raised here.
The Letter J Is Only 400 Years Old!
The letter J wasn't invented to keep people from pronouncing the name correctly. The reality is exactly the opposite. J was created to show when the letter I was being used as a consonant, such as in the words "job" and "majesty". Before the letter J was invented, both of those words were spelled with I instead of J.
Every language that adopted the letter J into its alphabet pronounces it differently. Germans pronounce it like an English Y. Spanish speakers pronounce J like H, Y, or Kh, depending on regional dialect.
Have you ever heard someone from Mexico pronounce the English word "yes" as if it began with a J, like "Jyes"? Evidently, English speakers used to pronounce a consonant I with a J or Zh sound, exactly as many (not all!) Spanish speakers pronounce Y today.
English already had the letter Y, so why didn't they use that for consonant I? Two reasons:
The letter Y was already doing double duty as a Th sound, as in "ye olde shop", which would have been pronounced as "THE old shop", not "YEE old shop".
Some consonantal Is that were pronounced like Y, evidently did get the Y letter at some point. I don't know if that was before or after the shift to J or if there was a rule about whether the letter was at the beginning or end of a syllable, followed by one or another vowel, etc.
Sometime in the mid to late Middle Ages, Latin speakers began to pronounce consonantal I (especially initial consonantal I) with a J sound. This pronunciation was picked up by French and other speakers long before King James commissioned his Bible. I'm not sure if Medieval Latin adopted this pronunciation from English speakers or not, but I suspect that English adopted it from Celtic languages and not from Latin.
At some point, Latin scribes began adding a tail to the letter I when it was pronounced like J, and this new letter was also adopted by other European languages, even when those languages didn't have the J sound. When Iesus became Jesus, the pronunciation didn't change. Spanish speakers continued to pronounce it as Hay-soos, Germans continued to pronounce it as Yezus, and English speakers continued to pronounce it as Gee-suhs, just as they had when it was still spelled with an I.
The change to J didn't change how anything was pronounced. It reflected a pre-existing reality of regional accents. The English took the J sound from the Celts and the J letter from European scholars of Latin.
Note (2025/04/04): Rob, of the RobWords YouTube channel, says that the earliest occurrence of the letter J appears to have been in 1524 and describes the sound shift in English much as I do but ascribes it to French influence. See here: A guide to our alphabet.
There Is No J in Hebrew
If you didn't already pick this up from my discussion of the invention of J, let me spell it out for you: All letters were invented at some point and no Latin letters exist in Hebrew. There is no Y, I, E, S, U, W, or A in Hebrew. Those are letters from the Latin alphabet and Hebrew uses the Hebrew alphabet.
What people should actually be saying is that there is no J sound in Hebrew, but even that depends on how you pronounce the letter J. If you speak Spanish or German, then there is definitely a J sound in Hebrew.
In fact, the Latin letter J is a descendant of the Hebrew letter yod, or I should say they are both descendants of a common ancestor. The paleo-Semitic/Hebrew yod became the Greek and Latin I and the (slightly more modern) Hebrew yod י. Then the Latin I became the I, J, and Y.
Saying that Hebrew has no J is like saying that English has no י. Of course, it doesn't, because English and Hebrew use completely different alphabets.
Philologically speaking, though, J = I = י. So, in a way, Hebrew does have a J. It's just shaped differently.
If you don't like the way Jesus is pronounced by English speakers, then pronounce it the way a German would, which is probably much closer to the Greek form used throughout the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament and the Apostolic writings of the New Testament: Ἰησοῦς.
If you feel that the Apostles were wrong to write his name using Greek characters and grammar, then spell and pronounce it in the Hebrew manner. I prefer to use the form Yeshua, myself, but I'm not about to use the Hebrew characters in my English articles because I'm trying to communicate with people. Your priorities might be different, and that's certainly your business.
Someone recently asked, “If ‘Palestine’ is such an ancient country why is it not mentioned in ancient history?”
Actually it is. The same word is found all through the Old Testament,
so obviously it was mentioned in the histories of at least one ancient
people. Palestine is an English corruption of a Latin corruption of
Pilishti, which we more commonly know from the Bible as Philistine.
That kind of corruption happens with words all the time. Think of
Jesus, which came from Iesus, which came from Yeshua. Or Jay, which came
from Jayco, which came from Iago, which came from Yaakov.
The Philistines (not the Palestinians) would have a prior claim to
part of the land of Israel, if it weren’t for that inconvenient thing
about God taking the land away from the Philistines and Canaanites and
giving it to the Israelites. The modern Palestinians are just Arabs who
happen to live within a political boundary once bearing that name, and
are not actually related to the ancient Philistines at all.
Once upon a time, Jews, who lived in the territory known as Palestine before it became the State of Israel, were known as Palestinians, but few of the people we now call Palestinians would claim them as ancestors.
There
doesn’t appear to be an actual ethnic group of people that anyone can
accurately call “Palestinians.” It’s a little like claiming to be of the
Pennsylvanian race. There are Pennsylvanians, but they’re only called
that because they live in Pennsylvania, not because they’re really a
distinctive race of people
