Soapy
Son of his Father: The Heir and Prince
Perhaps I didn’t. I started the thread seeking answers so please, go ahead with what you would like me to understand.
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Elohim: ‘We’, ‘US’... Singular or Plural GOD?
- Thread starter Soapy
- Start date
Let me see carefully (and, yes, He is talking about the Messiah:
"Zech 2:66 Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith the YHWH: for I have spread you abroad as the fourwinds of the heaven, saith the YHWH. 7 Deliver thyself, OZion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon. 8 For thus saith the YHWH of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. 9 For, behold, I will shakemine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know that the YHWH of hosts hath sent me. 10 Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the YHWH. 11 And many nations shall be joined to the YHWH in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the YHWH of hosts hath sent me unto thee. 12 And the YHWH shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again.
vs 8 - yes, the Messiah but he says he is YHWH of hosts after YHWH that sent him...
So, quite unmistakably, YHWH sent YHWH.
And, yes, there are many versus that speak of the Messiah.
I always am amazed how we can put God in a box and tell Him what He can and cannot do. And yet we know God is everywhere and hears all prayers that are lifted up at the same time.
Good grief! Are we seriously doing this again?
I wish that folks, before deigning to explain 'elohim, would first share their insights concerning the Hebrew words for "face" and "water" (and, for that matter, "sky").
As for 'elohim ...
Biblical Hebrew 'elohim is an example of a Canaanite linguistic development, namely, the concretized abstract plural, according to which the nominal plural form expresses an abstraction in reference to an individual or thing that holds a particular status named by the abstract category in question. Thus the plural of the noun "god" occurs with the meaning "deity." The Late Bronze Age forerunner of 'elohim is attested in the Amarna vassal correspondence and in other cuneiform texts from Syria-Palestine. The Iron Age reflex of this Canaanite expression occurs not only in Hebrew, but also in Phoenician.
- A Reassessment of Biblical Elohim by Joel S, Burnett
- A Reassessment of Biblical Elohim by Joel S, Burnett
L'chaim!
firedragon
Veteran Member
Exactly!
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
Not sure how an English pronoun completes an argument about Hebrew. Fortunately, ECHAD is used for TWO BEINGS that are intimately one--a married couple, a picture of the Trinity and Jesus and the church of true believers.
Fortunately also, the word YACHID or singular one is NEVER used of God in the Hebrew scriptures, despite the Lord's name(s) appearing in the Hebrew scriptures many thousands of times. God is a plural oneness.
Soapy
Son of his Father: The Heir and Prince
The Jews were not under any delusion that Yahweh was claiming to be ECHAD!
It is a trinitarian miscue made in an attempt to suggest that ONE means THREE.
The Israelites were living among tribes and nations that believed in, and worshipped, multiple Gods.
Yahweh, the true God, told his favoured nation, that they were not to worship any other God but He.
Yahweh told them that he was to be their ONE and ONLY God.
It’s that simple!
Nothing in the Torah suggests a God of multiple persons and so Trinitarians snatch at every attempt to claim something that is not what was spoken. Profanity is the word to use here.
You can figure that something is not right by the fact that at no time was anything if a multiplicity ever mentioned by Yahweh God concerning his Rulership.
The book of Genesis speaks of Yahweh’s Holy Spirit... but Trinitarians say it is a person in itself. .. Since when does the SPIRIT property of a Being become a person?
Genesis also only mentions Yahweh and his holy Spirit ... this is TWO (If the attempt at the trinity is to be made).... Where is the THIRD person of the weird Math of trinity?
If you argue that it was Jesus who was the ‘US’ and ‘OUR’ spoken by Yahweh then WHY??? Why, if all three are co-equal, co...whatever, does it take a consultation to come to a decision to make man when no consultation was made to make the vast universe and all the plants and animals and other living creatures!!
No... a consultation with ‘Himself’ is not valid.
Yahweh was making a statement, ‘Let us make man in OUR image’.
‘Image’ is personality, traits, power, and authority. And indeed, the angels, (and The Satan in particular) are immensely endowed with personality, traits, power, and authority (but not self-will). Or, Satan specifically, as the SUPERIOR ANGEL, may have had been endowed with SELF-WILL, as many HEAD SERVANTS are even in human societies.
This self-will could by all means be a reason why Satan sinned by demanding that he, too, should receive worship after HE HELPED CREATE MAN.
This, ‘help’, though, only extended to the creation of the BODY of Adam, as it is shown that the body was initially LIFELESS. It was only made a LIVING SOUL after YAHWEH put a living spirit into it.
You may note that even OTHER ANGELS later CREATED LIFELESS BODIES for themselves - but since ONLY YAHWEH can put AN INDEPENDENT spirit into a body (Yahweh is the creator and Father of spirits!) these rebel angels put THEIR OWN spirit into the bodies to enliven them. And note carefully that these bodies were so human-like that they were able to procreate with human females to create the Nephilims.
So it is not beyond the bounds of truth that Yahweh was speaking to [at least Satan] in saying, “Let us create man in our image”.
The main problem in understanding this stems from the sheer terror that Trinitarians get from the thought the angels did ANYTHING during or for the creation.
This is sad because angels, immensely intelligent, hugely powerful, and wonderful servants to Yahweh, are exactly the ‘intelligent tools’ required for such a monumental task.
Do not believe though that I’m advocating worship of angels. Yahweh expressly told us that we should refrain from such things - indeed any Angel that seeks worship is DOOMED to eternal destruction.
So even as the angels aided the creation process, they are NOT MENTIONED explicitly so they are not looked upon or to attract attention such as worship.
rosends
Well-Known Member
Echad means "one." Sometimes that "one" is made up of parts ("one nation" made up of people, "one household" made up of family members) and sometimes that "one" is purely singular (one man, one pit, one locust, one cherub).
Yachid is used to mean "lone" or "alone" or "lonely."
Soapy
Son of his Father: The Heir and Prince
I guess you are unaware that Yahweh sent a testimony about himself and his plans for mankind through his earthly son, Jesus Christ.
As to what Yahweh CANNOT DO, well, it is all neatly boxed labelled, ‘SIN’.
Yahweh cannot sin - and everything that is wrong is initiated by Sinfulness.
Mankind lives in a limited physical world and all his abilities, even the ones he doesn’t even yet know he has, is bound within the laws of the physical world.
Yahweh is Spirit. The spirit realm is unbounded (that’s hard for bounded man to understand much like, perhaps a fish in a fish tank might wonder what celestial space is like!).
Ridiculous nonsense is actually part of sinfulness and so we can conclude that Yahweh does not indulge in ridiculousness.
Trinity is ridiculous.
Soapy
Son of his Father: The Heir and Prince
Oh dear, KenS, you seem to be doing it again.
There are NO INSTANCES of Jesus being called ‘Yahweh’ (or ‘LORD’) in any part of the verses you quoted - in fact, none at all in any part of the Torah.
And that’s my point. Trinitarians are so desperate to claim that Jesus pre-existed that they will stoop to the depth of depravity to try and make it seem so.
Verse 8 that you picked out is a two part verse. Yahweh is quoting what the Messiah WILL SAY.
The almighty Elohim sent his angels to Zechariah to foretell what will take place in Yahweh’s anger at those nations who abused Yahweh’s beloved nation.
As we [now] know, a [the] messiah was sent to fulfil what Yahweh Elohim foretold. Jesus more than likely re-quoted those words around his disciples as proof of his Messiahship just as he quoted other verses which prophesied about him.
Did you notice that in chapter 6:12 , Yahweh God foretold that he would “Bring forth his BRANCH”?
Can you guess who this ‘BRANCH’ that Yahweh will bring forth [‘In the fullness of time’]?
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Damn! I knew I was missing something.
Soapy
Son of his Father: The Heir and Prince
Pass the message on, please. There’s a lot of people in this forum and in this world who haven’t heard it yet. And even some who have heard it still don’t believe it.Damn! I knew I was missing something.
Thank you.
I referenced the names of other scholars, such as Westermann, to substantiate the widespread support for the 'plural of self-deliberation', which Hasel himself concedes in that article: "One of the most widely accepted interpretations of the plural in Gn 1:26 is that God addresses himself and that the plural is a plural of deliberation."
For scholarly supporters of the plural of self-deliberation, we have: Paul Jouon, Grammaire de Vhebreu biblique (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1947), 114e; Werner H. Schmidt {Die Sch?pfungsgeschichte der Priesterschrift [WMANT 17; Neukirchen Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1967], 128-30), Trible (God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, 13), Westermann (Genesis 1-11, 145), and Francis Martin ("Male and Female He Created Them: A Summary of the Teaching of Genesis Chapter One," Communio 20 [Summer 1993]: 240-65), among others.
Niskanen in his article, "The poetics of Adam" [Journal of Biblical Literature 128, no.3 (2009)] notes: "The plural of deliberation and the address to the heavenly court are currently the most popular interpretations".
Unlike the plural majestatis, both of these interpretations were hypothesized in Talmudic and Patristic times, alongside the other possibility of a personified divine attribute being implied into the account i.e. "The ancient Jewish tradition treated Genesis 1:26 with caution and ventured to bring together two propositions which otherwise might be set against one another. On the one hand, God created the world through his Wisdom identical with his Word/Torah, and God could consult his heavenly court, more specifically, his angels, while creating humankind, and he might engage them as his proxies and agents, while creating human beings. On the other hand, God was the sole Creator of the universe so that the act of creation was his work, not that of angels."
Hasel personally lends his support, instead of plural of deliberation or angelic address, to a plural of fullness (by way of reading a personified divine attribute such as Wisdom/Word into the text as YHWH's emanated agent of creation, which is possible for the reasons I outlined in my original post and above i.e. the first words of Genesis be-re**** (in the beginning) are echoed in Prov 8:22–31 ("The Lord created me (qanani) as the beginning (re****) of his way." (Proverbs 8:22) and the first century BCE text Wisdom of Solomon expressly states that God "by your Wisdom have formed humankind...the Wisdom that sits by your throne" (Wisdom 9:1-2) etc., although I think plural of self-deliberation and consultation of the angels/other elohim are likely stronger interpretations).
I appreciate that you are strongly in favour of plural majesty as the chosen reading, but you should consider the fact that our earliest Jewish exegetes in the Talmud did not interpret the use of the plural verb as majestatis in Genesis 1:26 (they read it predominantly as YHWH addressing the angelic hosts or self-deliberating in his heart) and most modern scholars have concluded that there is very little inner-biblical or extra-biblical textual/comparative parallels that would lead one to interpret the plural in this fashion.
In many ancient myths, deliberation precedes the creation of humans while evidence from both the Hebrew Bible itself and parallels in Canaanite / Mesopotamian mythology demonstrate that YHWH could easily in this context be understood as addressing his heavenly court. Moreover, Psalm 8:5-6 is understood by some scholars as engaging in a commentary of Genesis 1:26 and it refers to the other elohim / angelic hosts.
What is your evidence for other near eastern rulers of the time addressing their subjects with a plural of majesty and in the Hebrew Bible itself, and where else do we find the attribution of such plural majesty to the Deity? In the Hebrew Bible itself we see the following as typical of monarchs: "Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah" (Ezra 1:2), which as you can see is an address in the singular, not plural of majesty.
I don't see persuasive evidence for plural majestatis, it wasn't the interpretation of the earliest exegetes and neither does modern scholarship support it either as the preferred interpretation.
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Soapy
Son of his Father: The Heir and Prince
Are there any evidences that Yahweh uses angels in accomplishing his word?
Angels are to be regarded as “Intelligent Tools” to the Heavenly Deity. God, himself, does not ‘Perform’ a deed physically but utters his thoughts as words and deeds to be accomplished by the ‘tools’ he created to do so.
These ‘Tools’ are not to receive ‘CREDIT’ in such a way that they are glorified, praised, honoured, and certainly not Worshipped by mankind. For though man is made at present less than angels, angels are nonetheless NOT COMPLETE IMAGES OF THE ALMIGHTY. Angels are servants in the service of the almighty and man is a Prince of the Heavenly King.
THEREFORE the utterances of the Almighty are as ACTS ... ACTS that are HIS, and His alone.
A builder does not praise, honor, or glorify, and certainly not Worship, the cement mixer, nor the wrench, nor the Hammer, Saw, etc. In relation to the almighty, angels are ‘tools’.
But ‘tools’ with intelligence, sense, power, and wisdom. So they are to RESPECTED - and certainly scriptures shows that since angels MUST ACCOMPLISH what the Almighty has tasked them with, any attempt to dissuade them from their task will be met by fierce and unopposable force. Further, as they must not receive Worship, they will, and are allowed to punish anyone who attempts to tempt them into receiving thus. Their penalty for accepting glory, or worship from mankind would be eternal destruction...
firedragon
Veteran Member
Of course. To reach his conclusion. Read his full work. I have already said it so no point repeating. He even disagrees with you.
And you are quoting another missionary.
What do you mean "of the time"? When do you think this "time" was? Was it at the time of creation? What other rulers would have been there at the time? Think about it.
Or, are you referring to a completely naturalistic understanding of a dating? Which dating is it then? If its a naturalistic dating you are looking at, then refer to a completely cloven scholar who has developed a methodology of dating Genesis. Not a Rabbi, or a pastor or a priest with a theological approach. Please consider it and then please do give a dating objectively.
Yes.
One example:
The sentence is rendered by decree of the watchers (angels),
the decision is given by order of the holy ones,
in order that all who live may know
that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdom of mortals;
he gives it to whom he will
and sets over it the lowliest of human beings.’ (Daniel 4:13-17)
A "missionary"?
"Westermann is considered one of the premier Old Testament scholars of the twentieth century."
He was a scholar, not a "missionary".
And moreover, he - like most of his peers - supported the plural of self-deliberation, which also has pedigree in Talmudic exegesis and doesn't back up Christian Trinitarian theology, so in what fashion are you construing him or even Hasel as missionaries? Based simply on their religious affiliations, as if that should imply that they are incapable of exercising objectivity in their professional academic work?
Had Westermann been a "missionary", you can be that he wouldn't have been arguing in favour of the plural of self-deliberation.
I expected that you would have been aware that I'm referring to the standard scholarly dating for Genesis, which dates its final form as post-exilic to circa. 539-333 BCE, as opposed to to the traditional Mosaic ascription.
firedragon
Veteran Member
He was born to msssionary parents, and he was always a missionary my friend. Thats fine. He was still a scholar and is valid to argue from his point of view. But please do note that all of these scholars you are quoting are from a particular background. Dont you?
If you dont wish to see it, then its your prerogative.
No, the use of 'their' to denote someone who might be either a male or a female is a common idiom in English. Did your teacher never say to a mixed group of you, "Who left their bag on the bus?" or the like?