A comparative-philosophical solution to the problem of part-whole relations between רוח -type entities in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

What has been called "the pneumatology" of the Hebrew Bible is generally held to be an unsolved problem. To this day, available research operates on the assumption of a "missing link" between theological, cosmological, and anthropological domains distinguished within the meta-language. This is indeed evident from a comparative-philosophical perspective in that the conceptual background for רוח -type entities as encountered in scholarly discourse comes across as ontologically disjointed and metaphysically fragmented. In the present article, the author argues that the riddle of "The One and the Many" is a pseudo-problem generated by anachronistic Platonic dualism supervening on inquiries into the assumed nature of רוח as "Ursubstanz" and the mereology of רוח -type entities in the world of the text. In addition, a unified theory is put forward with reference to the problem of part-whole relations as can be reconstructed from the perspective of more monistic conceptions of spirit in the associated history and philosophy of religion.