περιστερὰν (peristeran) in John 1:32: Noun Accusative Singular Feminine
περιστερὰν (peristeran) in John 1:32
Textual Witness
The Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus reads περιστερὰν in John 1:32 within the phrase Πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The form helps readers hear a vivid comparison: the Spirit's descent is described by image and manner, not by identity with a dove.
How To Communicate It
This grammar can be communicated as a simile that makes the event visible and memorable, while preserving the subject as the Spirit.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- The feminine label is grammatical, not a basis for theological claims about sex or gender.
- The accusative form supports the comparison in context, but it does not by itself settle every syntactic detail.
What Does The Label Mean?
Noun: the word names a creature in the simile, and here it functions as the noun περιστερὰν in the clause.
Accusative: the form often marks a direct object or a comparative object, and here it follows ὡσεὶ to describe likeness.
Singular: the form is grammatically singular in this occurrence, presenting one dove image in the comparison.
Feminine: the noun belongs to the feminine grammatical class, which is a lexical feature and not a theological gender statement.
What The Form Does In This Verse
ὡσεὶ
The comparison marker ὡσεὶ frames περιστερὰν as the image of likeness, so the noun participates in a simile rather than naming a separate object of action.
It supplies the dove image for John's testimony that the Spirit was descending like a dove from heaven.
It should not be read as the subject of the sentence or as a claim that the Spirit is a literal bird.
How Much The Form Matters Here
Moderate: The noun supplies the comparison image for the Spirit's descent in John's testimony.
Accusative noun in a comparison. serves as the dove image in the simile describing the descent. Attached to ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν. Governed by ὡσεί. The comparison language marks likeness of descent or appearance, not identity with a bird.
What image describes the Spirit's descent? The noun supplies the dove image in the comparison.
Direct: The comparison directly affects renderings such as like a dove.
The noun belongs to a simile and should not be read as saying the Spirit is literally a dove.
Simile noun identifies the Spirit as a bird: The noun supplies comparison imagery; the Spirit remains the subject of the testimony.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
The Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus reads περιστερὰν in John 1:32 within the phrase Πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ.
The lemma περιστερά means a dove, and the form here keeps that basic lexical sense while adapting it to the clause.
The accusative works with ὡσεὶ to present the dove as the comparison point for what John saw descending.
John reports seeing the Spirit come down from heaven in a dove-like manner, so the focus is on visible manner, not on redefining the Spirit.
This matches the broader baptism scene where the descent is signaled as an identifying sign rather than a statement that collapses the Spirit into the image.
In teaching or translation, the form supports rendering like a dove and helps readers hear the descriptive, not literalizing, force of the comparison.
Do not derive a gendered theology from feminine grammar, and do not claim the accusative alone proves exact syntactic relations beyond the simile.