allright posted (again) in #82 above:
“In this verse also God is in the plural and word one means united as one
The Shema doesnt have God in the plural either
The Shema is a bad translation to fit a theological belief"
….…………………………………….
Since you won’t look back at my earlier post as I asked, I will post it again, and follow it with a post concerning the common knowledge by Christians and Jews of the plural
Elohim.
Echad (‘Plural’ Oneness)
I have seen Deut. 6:4 - “YHWH [Jehovah/Yahweh] our God, YHWH [Jehovah/Yahweh]
one [
Echad] in Hebrew]” - rendered in several ways. (I prefer "Jehovah [is] our God, Jehovah alone.") Some trinitarians misinterpret this. They often say something like this: “At Deut. 6:4 the word ‘one’ is
echad in Biblical Hebrew, which means ‘composite unity’ or ‘
plural oneness’.”
First, it certainly wouldn’t be surprising to find that some noted
trinitarian authority on Biblical Hebrew had written somewhere that
echad means “united or
plural oneness.” But I haven’t found one yet!
Here is what I have found written about
echad by authorities on Biblical Hebrew:
The
only definition given for
echad in the trinitarian
New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance is: “a prim[ary] card[inal] number;
one”. We find no “plural oneness” there!
The highly respected Biblical Hebrew authority, Gesenius, says that
echad is “a numeral having the power of an adjective,
one.” He then lists the various meanings of
echad as:
“(1) The same,”
“(2) first,”
“(3) some one,”
“(4) it acts the part of an indefinite article,”
“(5) one
only of its kind,”
“(6) when repeated [
echad ...
echad] ‘one ... another’,”
“(7) [
K echad]
AS one man.” [The initial consonant of this word, “
K” actually means “
as” or “
like,” so in this special form the meaning is close to that of a plural oneness.
But this is not the form used at Deut. 6:4 !! ]
Gesenius also lists a plural form of the word (
achadim,) which means “joined in one, united.” This, too, is not the form used at Deut. 6:4 which context shows, instead, to have
meaning #5 above. - See
Gesenius’ Hebrew-
Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, #259, Baker Book House. Surely, if God (or Jehovah) were really a union of persons, a united one, this form which
truly means “united one” would have been used to describe “Him” repeatedly in the Holy Scriptures. But it and all other words with similar meanings were never used for God (or Jehovah)!
By using a good Bible Concordance (such as
Strong’s or
Young’s) we can find all the uses of
echad in the Bible. Unfortunately (due to space limitations),
Young’s and
Strong’s both list the rare plural form
(achadim,) and the “
AS one”
(Kechad) form
along with the common singular form
(echad) without distinguishing among them.
Nevertheless, since both the plural form and the
kechad form are used quite rarely (see Ezek. 37:17 and
2 Chronicles 5:13 for examples), we can see that the overwhelming majority of the uses of
echad listed in these concordances (over 500) obviously have the meaning of
singleness just as we normally use the word “one” today.
If you should find a scripture listed as using
echad in your concordance that definitely has the meaning “plural oneness” or “together,” or “as one,” you should check it out in an interlinear Hebrew-English Bible. If the word in question is really the
echad form of the word (as at Deut. 6:4), then it will end with the Hebrew letter “d” in the Hebrew portion of your interlinear. If, however, it is really the plural form of the word
(achadim), then it will end in the Hebrew letter “m”. And if the word is really
Kechad (“
AS one”), it will begin with the Hebrew letter “k” (looks like a backwards "C"). Remember, though, that Hebrew reads from
right to left (so the
LAST letter of a Hebrew word is really the letter at the extreme
LEFT.)
Using your concordance along with an interlinear Hebrew-English Bible in this manner, I don’t believe you will ever find
echad (as used at Deut. 6:4) literally meaning “plural oneness”!
Further emphasizing the impropriety of this “plural oneness” interpretation of
echad are the many trinitarian renderings of Deut. 6:4. In the dozens of different trinitarian Bible translations that I have examined none of them have rendered Deut. 6:4 (or
Mark 12:29) in such a way as to show anything even faintly resembling a “
plural oneness”!!
Even the highly trinitarian
The Living Bible, which, being a paraphrase Bible, is able to (and frequently does) take great liberties with the literal Greek and Hebrew meanings in order to make better
trinitarian interpretations, renders Deut. 6:4 as “Jehovah is our God, Jehovah
alone.” Notice that there’s not even a hint of a “plural oneness” Jehovah!
The equally trinitarian (and nearly as “freely” translated as
The Living Bible)
Good News Bible (GNB) renders it: “The L
ORD - and the L
ORD alone - is our God.” - Compare the equally “free-handed” (and trinitarian)
The Amplified Bible.
And even among the more literal trinitarian translations of Deut 6:4 we find:
“The LORD is our God, the LORD
alone.” -
New Revised Standard Version.
“The LORD is our God, the LORD
alone!” -
New American Bible.
“The LORD is our God, the LORD
alone.” -
The Holy Bible in the Language of Today, Beck (Lutheran).
“Yahweh our God is the one, the
only Yahweh.” -
New Jerusalem Bible.
“Yahweh is our God, - Yahweh
alone.” -
The Emphasized Bible, Rotherham.
“The LORD is our God, the LORD
alone.” -
An American Translation (Smith-Goodspeed).
“The Eternal, the Eternal
alone, is our God.” -
A New Transation, Moffatt .
The trinitarian
ASV (also the
RSV) gives 4 different possible renderings of Deut. 6:4. One of them is identical with
The Living Bible, and none of them includes an understanding of a “plural oneness” God!
The paraphrased
The Living Bible also renders
Mark 12:29 (where Jesus quotes Deut. 6:4 and an excellent spot for him to reveal a “trinity” God --- or even just a “plural oneness” God) as: “The Lord our God is
the one and only God.” Notice the further explanation of the intended meaning of this scripture at
Mark 12:32, 34. “’... you have spoken a true word in saying that there is
only one God and
no other...’ Realizing this man’s understanding, Jesus said to him, ‘You are not far from the Kingdom of God.’”
Why doesn’t this highly interpretive trinitarian paraphrase Bible (or any other Bible for that matter) bring out a “plural oneness” meaning at these scriptures (Deut. 6:4;
Mark 12:29) if that can be a proper interpretation for
echad?
Surely, if the trinitarian scholars who made this Bible had thought there was even the slightest justification for an
echad = “plural oneness” interpretation,
they would have rendered it that way: “Jehovah is a
composite unity;” or “Jehovah is the
United One;” or “Jehovah is a
plural oneness;” etc.
Instead they have clearly shown that God (who inspired it), Moses (who wrote it under inspiration), and even Jesus himself (who taught that it was part of the most important commandment of all -
Mark 12:28-29,
LB; GNB; etc.) intended this scripture to show God as a
single person only!
Similarly, the three annotated trinitarian study Bibles I own would certainly explain any intended “multiple-oneness” meaning for
echad at Deut. 6:4 (if there were any possibility of such an interpretation). But the extremely trinitarian
New American Bible, St. Joseph ed., gives no hint of such an understanding of
echad in its footnote for Deut. 6:4 (or anywhere else). And the trinitarian
The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 1977 ed., likewise gives no hint of such an understanding in its footnote for Deut. 6:4 (or anywhere else). And that trinitarian favorite:
The NIV Study Bible, 1985, also gives no hint of such a meaning for
echad in its footnote for Deut. 6:4 (or anywhere else). The only possible reason for all these
trinitarian study Bibles ignoring this “proof” is that it simply is not true!