From a linguistic standpoint, the meaning of the word God
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93,
I take a pantheistic stance: God is coterminous with All things; coterminous with Nature; coterminous with the Universe. Same as Spinoza and other pantheists (like pretty much every mystic).
With this comes the idea that God is ineffable (no spoken thing is correct, no property is complete), and infinite (not limited to finite ideas and things), and necessarily the trinity of omnipotent (contains all forces within Itself), omniscient (contains all relations within itself), and omnipresent (contains all things/substances within itself).
I also think that God contains the ideas of both One (monism/unity) and Many (pluralism/duality) since these are, in themselves, incomplete without the other. This One vs. Many is a common argument in the history fo philosophy.
IAO131
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@sethur said
"I like the first line in Genesis, which reads "In the beginning Goddesses created the heavens and the earth"."
That would be quite a liberal reading. It is both masculine and singular really...
"Elohim has plural morphological form in Hebrew, but it is used with singular verbs and adjectives in the Hebrew text when the particular meaning of the God of Israel (a singular deity) is traditionally understood. Thus the very first words of the Bible are breshit bara elohim, where bara ברא is a verb inflected as third person singular masculine perfect. If Elohim were an ordinary plural word, then the plural verb form bar'u בראו would have been used in this sentence instead. Such plural grammatical forms are in fact found in cases where Elohim has semantically plural reference (not referring to the God of Israel). There are a few other words in Hebrew that have a plural ending, but refer to a single entity and take singular verbs and adjectives, for example בעלים (be'alim, owner) in Exodus 21:29 and elsewhere."
IAO131
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Yes, it's a masculine-form plural of a feminine noun meaning "god."
But it isn't (in Gen. 1:1) a plural of number - it's the "majestic plural" of Hebrew wherein a plural is used to mean "a really, really big example." Therefore, in this verse, the best translation is likely "Goddess."
Of course, most Hebrew scholars would render it "God" because theology has naturally fed language. But the feminization is supported by the Zohar which repeatedly attributes Binah to Elohim, says that Shekinah is the same as Elohim when in Binah, etc. etc.
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Almost, Jim. IM is the regular masculine plural suffix, just as OTh is the regular feminine suffix. But here, it is simply an irregular plural. Similarly, ABOTh means "fathers", it is not a majestic plural of AB, it is just irregular. Hebrew scholars believe that before Classical Hebrew was regularised after the Babylonian exile (probably) only plurals that were too well known to be regularised were left irregular, so Elohim probably originally meant "Goddesses".
Jewish belief has much more acceptance of the idea that their religion evolved, rather than was given from on high in pristine, eternal form. They know that 9th Century BCE temples had shrines to Jahweh and Asherah, and accept that monotheism developed, rather than being innate. The Rabbi I learned Ivrit from was happy with this, and he was Orthodox.
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@sethur said
"Nice excuse. In fact, Elohim is the plural, though irregular, of Eloha, Goddess. It's later interpretation by monotheistic Judaism as a singular masculine word is irrelevant."
The word was originally used and written by monotheistic Jews... Where do you think this word came from, the Zend Avesta?
Did you read the thing in quotes above?
IAO131
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The pentateuch was not written by monotheists - they were henotheists at best. Temples to Asherah and Yahweh as Goddess and God post-date Solomonic Israel. The version of pre-Babylonian scripture we have was compiled after the return from exile by Ezra and his pupil Nehemiah, and while post-pentateuch texts could be doctored, the pentateuch itself was shared by other tribes, such as the Samaritans ( who still have their own "Bible" with the pentateuch plus their own texts after that ), so was too well known to doctor too much. There is no evidence that Jewish monotheism pre-dates the exile and there is plenty of evidence that just one faction was henotheist. After all, Moses was told "thou shalt have no other god but me" not "there is no other god but me" and the text "Bel and the Dragon" indicates that pre-exilic Jews believed that other gods existed, but that Moses had made a covenant for them with just one, Yahweh.
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@sethur said
"The pentateuch was not written by monotheists - they were henotheists at best. Temples to Asherah and Yahweh as Goddess and God post-date Solomonic Israel. The version of pre-Babylonian scripture we have was compiled after the return from exile by Ezra and his pupil Nehemiah, and while post-pentateuch texts could be doctored, the pentateuch itself was shared by other tribes, such as the Samaritans ( who still have their own "Bible" with the pentateuch plus their own texts after that ), so was too well known to doctor too much. There is no evidence that Jewish monotheism pre-dates the exile and there is plenty of evidence that just one faction was henotheist. After all, Moses was told "thou shalt have no other god but me" not "there is no other god but me" and the text "Bel and the Dragon" indicates that pre-exilic Jews believed that other gods existed, but that Moses had made a covenant for them with just one, Yahweh."
It seems certain that the Jews were aware of other gods, that seems unquestionable. The idea that they are henotheists doesnt really apply if one takes it that they thought the gods existed insofar as people prayed to them, etc. yet thought they were false gods. Either way I dont see the importance of the idea much.
IAO131
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God is a placeholder, for some idea or concept which is beyond the perception of the human mind.
In example, the statement : "It came from God" would be interpreted (from the vantage point of the above statement) as :
"It came from beyond that which can be conceived."