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Summary
- “Holy Ghost” and “Holy Spirit” translate the same Greek words, pneuma hagion, and name the same person, the third person of the Trinity.
- “Ghost” comes from Old English gast, meaning breath, spirit or soul; its sense of a dead person’s spirit dates only from the late 1300s.
- The King James Version (1611) says “Holy Ghost” 90 times and “Holy Spirit” 7 times, sometimes for the same Greek phrase in the same book.
- The American Standard Version (1901) switched to “Holy Spirit,” and nearly all modern translations and the Catholic Catechism now use it.
- Churches differ on the filioque, on baptism in the Spirit and on spiritual gifts, not on the meaning of the two names.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Genesis 1:2; Psalm 51:11; Luke 11:13; 12:12; John 14:16–17, 26; 16:13; Acts 5:3–4; Romans 8:9, 16, 26; 1 Corinthians 12:7, 11, 13; Galatians 5:22–23; Ephesians 4:30), and from the Douay-Rheims Bible, 1899 American edition (Matthew 28:19). Word counts for “Holy Ghost” and “Holy Spirit” were made on the same KJV text. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- SBL Greek New Testament, Luke 11:13 and 12:12. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+11:13%3BLuke+12:12&version=SBLGNT
- “Ghost (n.).” Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/ghost
- Naudé, Jacobus A. “Emergence of the Tyndale–King James Version Tradition in English Bible Translation.” HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 78, no. 1 (2022): a7649. https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v78i1.7649
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraphs 245–248: https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_one/section_two/chapter_one/article_1/paragraph_2_the_father.html; paragraph 691: https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_one/section_two/chapter_three/article_8/ii_the_name,_titles,_and_symbols_of_the_holy_spirit.html; paragraphs 1830–1832: https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/section_one/chapter_one/article_7/iii_the_gifts_and_fruits_of_the_holy_spirit.html; paragraph 1289: https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_two/section_two/chapter_one/article_2/i_confirmation_in_the_economy_of_salvation.html
- Mattison, William C., III. “Are the Actions of a Person Operating out of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit the Same as the Actions of That Person Operating out of Infused Virtue?” Studies in Christian Ethics 36, no. 2 (2023): 350–371. https://doi.org/10.1177/09539468221149698
- Stump, Eleonore. “Aquinas’s Ethics: The Infused Virtues and the Indwelling Holy Spirit.” New Blackfriars, first published online 26 June 2023, https://doi.org/10.1111/nbfr.12850; reissued in New Blackfriars 106, no. 1: 1–12, https://doi.org/10.1017/nbf.2024.18
- Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chapter 1, section 6. https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-westminster-confession/
- Assemblies of God (USA). “Statement of Fundamental Truths,” sections 7 and 8. https://ag.org/Beliefs/Statement-of-Fundamental-Truths
- Espinosa, Gastón. William J. Seymour and the Origins of Global Pentecostalism: A Biography and Documentary History. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822376873
- Fee, Gordon D. “Baptism in the Holy Spirit: The Issue of Separability and Subsequence.” Pneuma 7 (1985): 87–99. https://doi.org/10.1163/157007485X00076
- Britain Yearly Meeting. Quaker Faith & Practice, chapter 19, “Openings.” https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/chapter/19/
- Unitarian Universalist Association. “Themes in North American Unitarian Universalist History.” https://www.uua.org/lifespan/curricula/newuu/workshop2/160263.shtml
- Doctrine and Covenants 130:22. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/130?lang=eng
- Karakolis, Christos. “The Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts: Personal Entity or Impersonal Power? A Synchronic Approach.” In The Holy Spirit and the Church according to the New Testament: Sixth International East-West Symposium of New Testament Scholars, Belgrade, August 25 to 31, 2013, edited by Predrag Dragutinović, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr and James Buchanan Wallace, in collaboration with Christos Karakolis, 87–110. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 354. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016.
- Van Oort, Johannes. “The Holy Spirit and the Early Church: The Experience of the Spirit.” HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 68, no. 1 (2012): art. 1154, 7 pages. https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v68i1.1154
- Teer, Torey J. S. “Basil of Caesarea, Inseparable Operations, and the Divinity of the Holy Spirit: A Pro-Nicene Case Study.” Evangelical Quarterly 92, no. 4 (2021): 312–327. https://brill.com/view/journals/evqu/92/4/article-p312_2.xml
- “First Council of Constantinople.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/First-Council-of-Constantinople-381
- Augustine of Hippo. On the Trinity, Book 15, chapters 17–19. Translated by Arthur West Haddan. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 3. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/130115.htm
- Johnson, Adam, and Tessa Hayashida. “The Spirit of the Atonement: The Role of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s Death and Resurrection.” Religions 13, no. 10 (2022): 918. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13100918
