Both images, of the dove and of the tongues of fire, are found in the New Testament. The dove image is also used in the Hebrew scriptures in the story of the flood, where Noah sent out a dove to see if there was any dry land and the dove came back with an olive branch in its beak.
The dove image appears in all three Synoptic gospels at these places:
Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, and Luke 3:22. Here's Mark's version, beginning at 1:9:
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In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.
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The tongues of fire come in the Pentecost story told in the Acts of the Apostles. Pentecost was and still is a Jewish feast that comes 50 days (hence the name) after Passover. In the Christian idiom, it is 50 days after Easter. The archaic English term for Pentecost is Whitsunday. Here's the passage, Acts 2:1-4:
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When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
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So, as you see, another metaphor for the Spirit is wind. In fact, the Hebrew word for spirit is the same word as the word for breath. The Greek word used in Acts has the same root as the English words pneumonia and pneumatic. Genesis 1:1-2, says:
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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
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The Oxford Annotated Bible has a footnote at the word Spirit that says that "wind" is an alternative translation.
BTW, in case you haven't caught on, Holy Spirit = Holy Ghost, the more archaic term.
I have used the word "metaphor," because I believe that human beings can't understand the depths of the mystery that is God except through metaphors using human images. Notice that the Scriptural passages say, "
like a dove" and "
as of fire." The early Greek councils devised a trinitarian formula of three persons in one God, the third person being the Holy Spirit. Personhood was a specifically Hellenistic way of looking at the aspects of the divinity. Judaism and Islam, the other Abrahamic religions don't admit of any division in the Godhead. Literal, fundamentalist churches believe that the dove and the tongues of fire appeared just as the Bible says. Progressive interpreters see them as metaphors for the divine qualities of peace, purification and inspiration. God's continuing presence in the world is often described in terms of the Holy Spirit.
Now, I will defer to the theologians among us.