And Then God Said...

[PandaPirate]

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

 

This is from Genesis 1:26. Notice that God said, "Let US make man in OUR own image." Who is he talking to? Other gods? I believe so. So, even god (Elohim) admits he's among other gods.

 

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? Enlighten me, please.

[florduh]

I was taught that the reference was the triune god - father, son, holy spirit. That makes sense in the context of a nonsensical myth.

 

The bible is just made up. It wasn't a god speaking in the first place.

 

So, no. The nonexistent god of the bible didn't admit there were other nonexistent gods.

[Neon Genesis]

Yeah, I was also taught that the "us" was referring to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but Jesus didn't exist until centuries later and the Israelites didn't know about the trinity until Jesus appeared. So, were the Israelites confused as to the meaning of these verses all those years before Jesus appeared and God purposely confused them for no reason? I wonder what the Jewish explanation is behind these verses.

[hereticzero]

Trinitarians believe God was speaking of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Originally it was thought that he was speaking to his angels. After the Book of John was accepted as canon, the teaching grew to be that God was speaking to Jesus at the time of creating man. It is not that the Israelites were confused about god saying 'us' but the christians were the ones having a tizzy and interpreting the OT in light of the writings of the NT. These books were never merged as one babble until fairly recently in church history. They had always been separated into two separate volumes.

 

When god said to the Israelites, they were to have no other gods before him, this did not necessarily mean there were no other gods. It meant that when they came to worship, they would not bring the idols of the other gods to present before him. The claim the babble makes that a spirit cannot possess something or rock or wood is dumb considering god occupied the ark of the covenant and at least once in time he allowed the devil to possess a snake and talk to a little girl. Who's to say what kind of shit was on the minds of the people that wrote the babble. I believe most of them were bipolar or schizophrenic hearing voices and seeing visions et al.

 

 

I've heard that god may have been speaking to other gods as well. Abraham chose his god from a pantheon of gods from the Mesopotamia region. Abraham is the one that started the time-honored tradition of mutilating penis' which christians feel obligated to do by some sick twisted fleck of logic. Somehow I can't help but believe that when god said 'let us make man in our image' he was also referring to his dick as well, so what gave Abraham the right to shorten my prospects, so to speak, as a believer?

[Legion]

Anybody who's anybody

says we instead of I,

us instead of me,

ours instead of mine.

[mwc]

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

 

This is from Genesis 1:26. Notice that God said, "Let US make man in OUR own image." Who is he talking to? Other gods? I believe so. So, even god (Elohim) admits he's among other gods.

 

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? Enlighten me, please.

Well, it means "gods" in the plural. Since the other words in the sentence are what they are you know it's not "god" singular.

 

The debate over the "what" this all means comes from other places in the bible like in 1 Samuel. In there you have Saul getting the spirit of Sammy called up from the dead. In that story the spirit of Sammy is called "elohim" or "a god" by the woman doing the work for Saul. Surely Sammy isn't a god of any sort so what does the word truly mean? Older groups use it just like you'd expect (Akkadian and even the Canaanites). But coming forward things change and cloud the issue.

 

The problem is that the word starts being used for things like angels, demons, spirits...the "heavenly host." So YHWH would be the top spirit and the others lesser spirits but all elohim because they're all in the spirit realm and share those traits. Making A&E in their "image" would then be a "spiritual" image. Personally, that doesn't wash with me. The story is dealing with physical things all in the physical realm that we all exist in today. It is supposedly our creation. YHWH made it and was working within it. But suddenly it goes all "spiritual?" I'm not buying it. This was an anthropomorphic god sitting on some throne somewhere talking to his kin about making little human copies of themselves. They likely lived in a mythic realm but that's a bit different than a "spirit" world. So once they made the place for us to live and all the things that weren't like them they decided to make little look alikes...and so they did. Now, if that included a "spirit" aspect then so be it but it wasn't about that one way or the other. It was about the humans who wrote this looking in the mirror and saying "I'm a copy of some god in the sky" (and that copy would include whatever that human thought gods included at the time...if that meant a "spirit" then fine but if not then that's fine too...it could be even more or less complicated depending on the period this was all written).

 

mwc

[Max]

Maybe he had multiple personality disorder. That would explain a lot...

[Grandpa Harley]

I was taught that the reference was the triune god - father, son, holy spirit. That makes sense in the context of a nonsensical myth.

 

The bible is just made up. It wasn't a god speaking in the first place.

 

So, no. The nonexistent god of the bible didn't admit there were other nonexistent gods.

 

The Triune was heresy in terms of the original Jewish myth... the 'we' is an odd thing in the fact that the God in question may have been referring to himself in the 'royal' we sense, or he was talking to the angels he'd created before hand... the whole 'trinity' mess is bullshit from Eusebeus' time...

[Legion]

Pluralis Majestatis, it is the royal we.

[florduh]

Jesus did not exist for the Jews, but the father god already knew him. Christians had the complete truth revealed to them, hence the common triune explanation.

 

I don't defend it as correct, it was just what I was taught. It's all bullshit anyway.

[Brother Jeff]

but Jesus didn't exist until centuries later

That's not true! Jesus has always existed! In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1). Jesus is the Word!

 

 

Jesus was the Angel of the Lord in His Pre-Incarnate existence. Oh wait... It's all mythological bullshit anyway. Glory!

[Brother Jeff]

It's amazing how silly and absurd Christian mythology sounds to me now, and yet is was The Truth™ for 15 years of my life. Wow, am I happy to have escaped the cult! Glory!

[Grandpa Harley]

Indeed... there are cults that make a LOT more sense

[Ouroboros]

Elohim is the plural of El. It's the old ancient name on the pre-Judaic pantheon, where Jahweh was only one out of many gods. I don't have the links and references right now, but it's the short story of it. Doc Robert Price talks about this, and many other. I think there's even non-Judaic scriptures that show that this is the case. El just mean "Lord", and Elohim "Lords". Adonai, Shaddai and the other names on God are probably just other gods in Elohim, and YHWH inherited both their attributes and their names. Pretty much like AT&T buying up Cingular/SBC and now is just AT&T... (This is just from the top of my head. I'll try to get some links later.)

[mwc]

Elohim is the plural of El.

From Online Etymology Dictionary:

Elohim

a name of God in the Bible, 1605, from Heb., pl. (of majesty?) of Eloh "God," a word of unknown etymology, perhaps an augmentation of El "God," also of unknown origin. Generally taken as singular, the use of this word instead of Yahveh is taken by biblical scholars as an important clue to authorship in the O.T.

That's the problem with good old biblical El, YHWH, whatever his name is. His origins are all cloudy. His creator worked in mysterious ways.

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

From Wikipedia, regarding Ugarit religion (I know, we can't totally trust Wiki, but I've read this at other places too, and even some transcripts and translations of the Ugarit fragments):

Ugaritic religion centered on the chief god, Ilu or El, the "father of mankind", "the creator of the creation". The Court of El or Ilu was referred to as the 'lhm or Elohim. The most important of the great gods was Hadad, the king of Heaven, Athirat or Asherah (familiar to readers of the Bible), Yam (Sea, the god of the primordial chaos, tempests, and mass-destruction) and Mot (Death). Other gods worshipped at Ugarit were Dagon (Grain), Tirosh, Horon, Resheph (Healing), the craftsman Kothar-and-Khasis (Skilled and Clever), Shahar (Dawn), and Shalim (Dusk). Ugaritic texts have provided scholars with a wealth of material on the religion of the Canaanites and its connections with that of the Israelites.

What's interesting is that Asherah and Dagon is mentioned in the Bible, and I think even Yam is in there (in Job or Psalms?).

[mwc]

What's interesting is that Asherah and Dagon is mentioned in the Bible, and I think even Yam is in there (in Job or Psalms?).

The question is what did "elohim" then mean to the authors of the biblical texts? Did it mean the same to them as those in the Ugarit for example? This thread easily shows that xians have altered the meaning to something entirely foreign to what we know both the Canaanites and the Jews used it.

 

And Asherah was a real problem in the bible. The scholars seem to be accepting that she was the consort of YHWH and that the "prophets" managed to get her "written out" of the bible (to some degree...their ranting against her obviously is a reminder of her just like the other reminders to forget things that exist).

 

Dagon is Baal Hadad's father (Hadad is a storm god...lightening bolts, thunder and all that but so much more...he gets things done) and through various deeds becomes second only to El in the pantheon. The thing is Baal is just "lord" and so we never truly know the name of any baals (I've read only the initiates into the secret cult might have possessed his name since names had power back then...perhaps YHWH was the name of a baal which is why it seems to appear out of nowhere?).

 

mwc

[PandaPirate]

Anybody who's anybody

says we instead of I,

us instead of me,

ours instead of mine.

 

Thank heavens for that, because that's EXACTLY how I talk to myself. Scares the bejeezus outta me.

[centauri]

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

 

This is from Genesis 1:26. Notice that God said, "Let US make man in OUR own image." Who is he talking to? Other gods? I believe so. So, even god (Elohim) admits he's among other gods.

 

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? Enlighten me, please.

 

The Jewish response to this can be found here:

http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/faq/faq134.html

 

also:

http://www.outreachjudaism.org/genesis1-26.html

[Ouroboros]

What's interesting is that Asherah and Dagon is mentioned in the Bible, and I think even Yam is in there (in Job or Psalms?).

The question is what did "elohim" then mean to the authors of the biblical texts?

Good question.

 

My suspicion is that the Torah, was manufactured to fit the new YHWH cult when the 70 scribes put it together. They did what the Orthodox Church did in 4th century. Pick the good stories, and change them to fit the new theology.

 

I have little doubt that the early Jewish tribes had a different theology than the 3th century BCE.

 

Once I heard that YHWH could have been the name of the Jewish tribal god, and that the tribes and their gods shared the names. So YHWH and Jew would have the same roots.

 

Did it mean the same to them as those in the Ugarit for example? This thread easily shows that xians have altered the meaning to something entirely foreign to what we know both the Canaanites and the Jews used it.

It might have meant the same thing for the early Semites, but you're right, it could have meant something else. It's strange though that they had such a similar language with very much similar or same gods, and identical names.

 

 

...

Dagon is Baal Hadad's father (Hadad is a storm god...lightening bolts, thunder and all that but so much more...he gets things done) and through various deeds becomes second only to El in the pantheon.

Here's a strange thought. I heard once that the early Scandinavians came there many thousands years ago, and when you say Dagon was the storm god etc, it makes me think of Thor. We have evidence of really old settlements from stone age, and maybe, just maybe (crazy thought) the whole old Asatro originated from the same as the Ugarit and Semite religions?

 

The thing is Baal is just "lord" and so we never truly know the name of any baals (I've read only the initiates into the secret cult might have possessed his name since names had power back then...perhaps YHWH was the name of a baal which is why it seems to appear out of nowhere?).

Interesting thought too.

[Dhampir]

Can't be the royal plural; who the hell is he talking to? And if he is talking to someone, it's equally conceivable that he's communing either with other gods, as would seem to be the idea here, or with angels, who could be in someway assisting this creation. Given that there's no mention of any other aspects of this triune deity in the OT (son, holy spook), those possibilities can't be ruled out.

[mwc]

The Jewish response to this can be found here:

http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/faq/faq134.html

 

From that link:

It is not that He invites their help, but as a matter of modesty and courtesy, God associates them with the creation of man. This teaches us that a great man should act humbly and consult with those lower than him. It is not unusual for God to refer to His heavenly court (angels) as "us," as we see in Isaiah 6:8, "And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?'"

Just as I confer with my pets and random lower beings before I set upon a task?

 

And why now? Why didn't YHWH do any consultations on the rest of this creation? How about "And let us make the sky blue" or something? Nope. Nothing until this point. And I've not seen angels but the ones I've heard descriptions of are not in my image and so I'm obviously not in theirs. So who's image am I in? "Ours" being an inclusive word and all.

 

I left the reference to Isaiah 6:8 because I find that vision interesting. Isaiah sees god and some "angels" in a vision. He's in the temple and he feels he's screwed because he's a sinful guy among sinful people. So YHWH tells him A) To follow the Law? B ) To love his neighbor? C) To love Jesus? D) To follow Paul? E) To just die? F) None of the above. If you answered "F" good for you. Nope. There's more than one way to be sin-free.

"6 Then flew unto me one of the seraphim, with a glowing stone in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; 7 and he touched my mouth with it, and said: Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin expiated."

 

Magic stones from the temple alter in a vision can make a person sin-free. Really. This works. So what's all this shit with Paul, jesus, crosses, grace, faith, Law, curses and all that crap? Magical vision alter rocks are all that's needed. It's in the bible.

 

mwc

[Legion]

Anybody who's anybody

says we instead of I,

us instead of me,

ours instead of mine.

Thank heavens for that, because that's EXACTLY how I talk to myself. Scares the bejeezus outta me.

I understand the feeling Panda. I actually chose the handle of Legion because I often say "we".

[mwc]

My suspicion is that the Torah, was manufactured to fit the new YHWH cult when the 70 scribes put it together. They did what the Orthodox Church did in 4th century. Pick the good stories, and change them to fit the new theology.

 

I have little doubt that the early Jewish tribes had a different theology than the 3th century BCE.

So you think it was a LXX thing? That it went from the Greek to the Hebrew instead of the other way around?

 

The whole biblical history is inaccurate prior to the 7th or 8th century BCE. Then things get pretty decent. Then it gets really quite good around 2-3 century BCE (and that's when we start actually seeing manuscripts for everything).

 

Once I heard that YHWH could have been the name of the Jewish tribal god, and that the tribes and their gods shared the names. So YHWH and Jew would have the same roots.

It's possible. The problem is that no one has been able to spot a "tribe" of this nature. The Jews were kind of a gathering of mutts. I'm no linguist by a longshot but if I use my imagination I can see "Jewish" in the letters YHWH. Considering that, for example, many ancient Egyptian words are formed by simply inserting an "e" into them and even the experts aren't sure about a lot of pronunciation of very ancient words I could see a bastardized transliteration happening (YHWH->YehWeh->YehWesh->JehWesh->Jewish). So get indoctrinated into the cult and become a Jew. Later it becomes a "race" instead of a religion. Of course the Hebrews (from Hebron) would need be involved at some point and then merging of the children of Jacob (Israel) too. I really don't know. This is all something that just popped into my head when you said "YHWH and Jew would have the same roots" (but meant it in a different way).

 

It might have meant the same thing for the early Semites, but you're right, it could have meant something else. It's strange though that they had such a similar language with very much similar or same gods, and identical names.

It's been argued on this site that the jesus of 2000 years ago isn't the jesus of today. Same basic texts and all but different "spin" on them. It's what suits the reader (sort of the Antlerman way of thinking). The Canaanites seemed to understand the whole thing in the pagan fashion. So the texts were literal and figurative. The stories were allegorical, or perhaps taking place in a mythic realm that was essentially identical to the earth but sort of another dimension they couldn't reach. So in one story Baal goes to the underworld and El gets upset and falls to the ground to mourn. He cuts himself and puts ashes on himself. The story is about getting the fields ready to plant. The cutting is tilling the fields and the ashes are, well, ashes for fertilizer. Because when Baal returns, being a storm god, he brings rain. The Canaanites "got it." They also mourned this way. I don't know if the mourning ritual came first or the planting story did. But it seems the Jews took it literally and missed the whole point. They mourned that way (sans the cutting I think) but the rest was meaningless because of their local climate. So it was about a real "false" god. I think we've done the same with pretty much all the biblical stories. We get something from them but not what we were supposed to have gotten. We're taking them literally instead of getting our fields ready (and/or vice-versa).

 

Here's a strange thought. I heard once that the early Scandinavians came there many thousands years ago, and when you say Dagon was the storm god etc, it makes me think of Thor. We have evidence of really old settlements from stone age, and maybe, just maybe (crazy thought) the whole old Asatro originated from the same as the Ugarit and Semite religions?

I thought of Thor too...

 

I really don't know the influence in that direction. I know that the Babylonians and Sumerian/Akkadians were the ones to influence the Canaanites. Dagon, however, wasn't the storm god. He was the father of Baal Hadad, the storm god. A lot of people think that El was Baals father but he wasn't (although some stories indicate he was so perhaps in some cities they had El adopt him but Dagon was really Baal Hadad's father) although Baal eventually worked his way up to second in command (but El was rather old and tired so Baal was the go-getter that did things...but he still had to get permission from El).

 

mwc

[mwc]

I understand the feeling Panda. I actually chose the handle of Legion because I often say "we".

You just need to be cast into some pigs and drown. Clear that right up.

 

 

 

mwc