Context Clues – Polytheism Pt 8

Do you believe in ghosts?

What an interesting question. It’s one we can answer in a number of different ways, and whatever answer we provide will offer an insight into the way we think and view the world.

How would I answer the question? I would respond as I often do, by saying: “It depends.” What do we mean by the word “ghost?” For some people, a ghost is defined as the wandering soul of a deceased person. For others, a ghost is simply a spirit, or a spiritual entity. Depending how deeply you wish to delve into this or that folklore, this or that mythology, you’ll come across a wide variety of ideas on the subject – many of which contradict each other. 

Are ghosts good? Evil? Friendly? Antagonistic? Tricksters? Misunderstood? Happy? Sad? Many different ideas exist about them, and these ideas often come from a particular religion or world view.

We’re in a series on the polytheism context clue. We’ve taken some time to look at a few of the major pantheons worshipped by the various people groups surrounding ancient Israel. That first form of “Biblical polytheism” simply means that it appears in the Bible. Feel free to go back and review some of the earlier posts in this series if you’d like to know more about that.

A reasonable question then is whether there are any additional forms of Biblical polytheism, and if so, what do they look like? In my opinion, there is indeed a second form of Biblical polytheism, and it is this second form which evaluates and informs our understanding of the unseen realms. It focuses on the role(s) of angels, demons, powers, principalities, rulers of darkness, spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12), and so on.

One of the great blunders in modern theology comes about when we forget that the Bible wasn’t originally written in 21st century English, but rather in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Why does that matter? It matters because our languages use different words to describe different things, and in the case of ancient Hebrew (and to a lesser extent, ancient Greek), they had far fewer words to work with than we do now. For example, ancient Hebrew had somewhere around 6,500 words (estimates vary). Ancient Greek had quite a few more, ranging around 100,000 – 200,000 words depending on your sources and estimates. Modern English, by comparison is estimated to have between 250,000 and 1,000,000 words, although only about 170,000 are in common use according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The reason I mention this is to draw attention to the fact that the ancient Hebrew (the primary language of the OT) had far fewer words to work with than modern English. That means that while we might have a dozen, or even a hundred similar words to a describe a thing, oftentimes there would be one or maybe two words in Hebrew, which could mean all of those different things.

When it comes to certain words like “spirit,” “ghost,” “god,” or “angel,” we have to understand that these words meant many different things in Hebrew. For instance, the OT word for “spirit” is most often “ruach.” But ruach also means “wind,” “breath,” “exhalation,” or figuratively “life,” “anger,” or “unsubstantiality.” However, it can also refer to a region of the sky, and it can resemble the spirit of a rational being. More generically, it can refer to air, courage, vanity, cool, or even a tempest. From there, we can move into some of the variants and implied meanings, but I’ll spare us that exercise for now. Each one of our sample words listed above (spirit, ghost, god, angel) are similarly complex and expansive.

Okay, so what’s the point in emphasizing the differences between our languages? What an excellent question – I’m so glad you asked!

Most of us read a translation of the Bible rather than reading the original Hebrew and Greek. Like a cargo ship stopping off at various ports to load and unload cargo, every language acquires and offloads a multitude of nuances, meanings, implications, and context clues over time. This can be a frustrating revelation for those of us who prefer the use of literal definitions of words as our baseline for Biblical study. Much of the literature contained within the Bible is simply not literal, and even the passages which are more literal tend to carry a myriad of social, cultural, and historical nuances.

I’ll use a lighthearted modern example to illustrate. In English, the word “sick” literally refers to an affliction or ailment disrupting the normative, good health of an individual. However, it’s not quite as simple as it sounds, right? We can be literally referring to a physical sickness, or a mental sickness, or, depending on your belief system, even a spiritual sickness. In addition to all of this, “sick” started to be used as a non-literal slang term a few decades back, and rather than the term meaning something bad (as sickness is generally considered to be), it began to be used as a colloquial term meaning something good. Over the past thirty years or so, I’ve watched this slang term grow and morph to adopt many additional meanings and nuances. 

Here’s the point: other languages do the same thing. (I know, shocking!). In fact, E. W. Bullinger took it upon himself about a century ago to compile a modest summary of the Figures of Speech used in the Bible, identifying over 400 unique figures of speech used both in modern English and in ancient languages. He then included a sample list of different verses throughout the Bible which employ the various figures of speech. (If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, check out Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, by E. W. Bullinger). Again, this can be disheartening for those of us who prefer a chiefly literal approach to Scripture, as we must acknowledge that a great portion of the Biblical text is not literal, but in fact figurative.

Now I don’t bring this up to overwhelm us, nor to discourage any of us from reading and studying the Word of God. On the contrary, my hope is that this simple understanding will help to foster a greater appreciation for the original text and language of the Bible – to inspire within us a greater depth of understanding, and a greater desire to rebel against over-simplification or reductionistic theology.

So let’s tie this back into our original question: Do you believe in ghosts? Well, it depends. What do we mean by the word “ghost?” What did the ancient Israelites believe about ghosts? What did the Egyptians believe? Or the Babylonians? Or the Canaanites? What did Jesus’ own disciples believe about ghosts? And just as interesting, where did these ideas come from?

I hope you’ll join us next time as we continue to peel back some of the layers surrounding these questions, as we further unpack the second form of Biblical polytheism.

• Context Clues – Polytheism Pt 8
• Context Clues – Polytheism Pt 7
• Context Clues – Polytheism Pt 6
• Context Clues – Polytheism Pt 5
• Context Clues – Polytheism Pt 4