The word "spirit" in the New Testament is a translation of the Greek "pneuma." "Spirit" itself comes from the Latin "spiritus." Both technically mean "breath, wind," and this is usually pneuma's lexical definition in most lexicons and dictionaries. This being said, to confine pneuma to this definition when translating is to actually mistranslate this word from a Roman/Hellenistic worldview. In Roman and Hellenistic thought, woven through as it was with Stoic ideas and concepts which were the dominant thinking of the time period, "pneuma" meant so much more, much like "logos" means so much more than just "word" and because of its greater meaning in this worldview, is almost untranslatable with a single word in modern English.
In the first century Hellenistic world, the word "pneuma" referred to "the breath of life," but also the "creative fire." It was seen as being made up of the elements of air and fire. At times, it is used almost synonymously with "logos" as the "generative principle" of creation, and like "logos" it is seen as permeating all of creation, animating everything, and identified with "the God." It is one of the two things, matter being the other, as being neither created nor destroyed and is therefore immortal and eternal. It is in one place described as the "soul" of the God of which every human being has a share or takes part in.
In modern English, really, the best actual translation of this word, if we were to take all of this into account, is "energy" as we understand it today within modern science. That is, it is the eternal, omnipresent foundation of all matter and existence, as well as the animating force in living beings which can be neither created nor destroyed.
Consider this definition of pneuma when Jesus tells Nicodemus (by his name, a Hellenistic Jew), "What is born from flesh is flesh, but what is born from pneuma is pneuma. And the pneuma goes where it wills and you hear its sound but you don't know from where it is coming and where it is going. So is every single person born from the pneuma."
Consider also that within the Roman/Hellenistic Stoic worldview, there is the God who is Father and Creator of all (identified as Zeus outside of Jewish thought, but still), there is the Logos, identified with the God, which is the active governing principle of the universe which the God used to create the universe and in which the entire universe consists and is held together, and which every human being holds a share or part, and then there is the Pneuma, also identified with the God, the creative fire, the animating principle of the universe, also in which all human beings have a share as their individual souls are themselves portions of it.
The God and Father, the Logos, and the Pneuma. Sound familiar? We find these three also in 1 John 5:7 (Textus Receptus), "Because there are three who testify in the sky, the Father, the Logos, and the Hagion Pneuma; and these three are one thing."
It is often said that the theme of the Gospel of John is Jesus as God. This is not entirely accurate. The theme of the Gospel of John is Jesus as "Logos," which is just slightly different in concept. But we can see this being addressed up front in the first chapter, "And the Logos incarnated and camped out among us..." When Jesus talks about Himself as being the Way, the Truth, and the Life, He is talking about Himself as Logos. When He says, "And if the Son shall set you free, you will in fact be free," He is talking about the Logos, incarnated as Himself, setting you free. The distinction between "the God" and "the Logos" is an important one, because while the Logos is identified with "the God" in first century Greco-Roman (and Stoic in particular) thought, it is clear that there is a difference, and the Logos is always considered to be the "firstborn of all creation through which everything was made" and in which all human beings have a share or portion of. The influence of the Greco-Roman Stoic understanding of "the God," "the Logos," and "the Pneuma," on the writings of John in particular, but also of Paul should not be dismissed or underestimated because it is Greco-Roman in origin and rooted in Stoic philosophy rather than being specifically Jewish or rooted in the Old Testament.
I don't think it's that much of a stretch to say that our concept of the Holy Trinity has its original roots in the Roman/Hellenistic Stoic worldview. This does not make it untrue just because of its Stoic origin, but it does mean that the concept did not originate within any period of Judaism.
I am becoming more and more convinced that much of the New Testament, and even Jesus' preaching in the Gospels, was given and written with an audience already immersed in this decidedly Greco-Roman worldview in mind. I think it would do a lot of good for Bible teachers and translators to study the Stoic philosophers and Greco-Roman worldview before attempting to interpret what the New Testament teaches. Moreso than studying a Judean one.
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