|
Holy Ghost was the common name for the Holy Spirit in
U.S. English until 1901. It is the
name used in the King James Version of the Bible, and is still the preferred name among conservative Pentecostal groups and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In 1901 the American Standard Version of the Bible translated the name as Holy Spirit as had the
English Revised Version of 1881-1885 upon which it
was based. Almost all modern English translations have followed
suit as the word ghost has lost its old meaning of the spirit or soul that is inside man and come to be identified almost exclusively with the concept of
disembodied spirits, usually of the dead, which may "haunt" the living, an idea far from that intended by the King James
translators.
|