gnosis92

Given the very few OT references to the Holy Spirit, how did it become prominent in first century CE.

biblegateway give me these two hits.

Isaiah 63:10
Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them.

Psalm 51:11
Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Psalm 51:10-12 (in Context) Psalm 51

Solo

The chief difference between the way the Spirit operates in the OT and NT is that in the OT it is God's agency visiting on individuals, in a singular manner. The Apocalyptic sects made the Spirit a community affair. Moses was alone on the sacred mount (which was taboo to every living thing). Matthean Jesus preaches on the mount to a crowd.

Jiri

gstafleu

If you look up "spirit" in general in the OT, you will see quite a few occasions where it is linked with god, as in "the spirit of god" or some such formulation. For example, the spirit of god is floating over the primordial waters in Genesis 1. In addition, when god communicates with someone it is often "in spirit", IOW it is the spirit of god doing the communication. Now given that god is holy, obviously his spirit is holy as well, and referring to the spirit of god as the "holy spirit" does not seem all that strange or innovative. The same seems by and large valid for instances of god's spirit we encounter in the NT (with the odd possible exception).

However at one point, something like 2nd/3rd century CE, Christians invented something something they called the holy trinity, where there was a great confusion about three gods/aspect of god being one (father, son, holy ghost). That a god can manifest itself in different aspects is not at all a strange idea, religions the world over are full of it. The confusion the Christians created was a novelty, though. I suspect that the "holy spirit" you are asking about is the one from the trinity, simply because the other ones, both from the OT and the NT, are no big deal.

If so, the holy spirit (from the trinity) certainly did not come from the OT. There "god is one" (remnants of previous polytheism aside), and portraying him as three--even with a work-around like the trinity--is blasphemous. So where did this holy spirit, and the idea of the trinity, come from? Good question .

Gerard Stafleu

gnosis92

thanks. I did not think the OT holy spirit is the 3 person of the holy trinity but then again I did think the NT holy spirit is the 3rd person.

gjohn suggests the comfortor or spirit of truth as distinct from son and father