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The Heritage of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East


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Ištar as the Holy Spirit (1)

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Topics (move over topic to see place in topic list)

01 Religious and ideological doctrines and imagery




12 Assyrian Identity





03 Religious festivals, cults, rituals and practices


Keywords
gender
gods
Holy Spirit
Period
Neo-Assyrian Empire
Roman Empire
Channel
Jewish philosophers and scholars


Text
The portrayal of the Word of God as a female entity in Judaism (Shekhinah) has a parallel in Mesopotamia: Ištar as the Word of God. In the Assyrian oracles, called the “words of Ištar,” the goddess speaks as the mother aspect of the supreme god, but can also be viewed as god’s “spirit” or “breath,” which resides in the heart of the prophet, inspires him or her, and speaks through his or her lips, thus being the functional equivalent of the Biblical “Spirit of God” (the “Holy Spirit”). It should be noted that the Biblical Holy Spirit was likewise originally female, and the masculine gender of the Christian Holy Spirit (the third Person of the Trinity) is only the result of a relatively late (4th century) development. Thus, in both cases, the word of God is viewed as a female entity that unites with a human: with the prophet in Assyria, and with the Zaddiq in Jewish mysticism. The Christian Holy Spirit has been equated with the Old Testament prophetic Spirit since the early second century and made explicit in the formulation of the Nicene Creed (4th century): “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who … has spoken through the prophets.”


Bibliography

Lapinkivi 2004, 228Lapinkivi, Pirjo. The Sumerian Sacred Marriage in the Light of Comparative Evidence. State Archives of Assyria Studies 15. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Coprus Project 2004.

Pirjo Lapinkivi


URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0001397.php


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