Meaning of "Us" in Genesis.

there are a couple of possibilities.

1. ki-achad m'menu, "one of us," is simply a common idiomatic expression and doesn't express any real sense of plurality. i'll look into the linguistic stuff a little later.
2. god is referring to himself and other gods, demi-gods, or angels. a little polytheistic for the tastes of the some of the authors of the bible, but genesis 6 does later mention the beni-elohim, which can be translated "sons of god" and might mean something like "other gods" as beni-yisrael literally means "sons of israel" but can be rendered "israelite."
3. god is referring to a multi-personed singular entity, such as the christian triune god, or the qabala's interpretation of god's genders. these are both highly unlikely as both of these ideas are quite anachronistic to the text. but notice how people love to jump on this possibility.
4. god just likes to refer to himself in the plural, like a "royal we."

the god of the torah quite often exhibits jealousy. i think it would be more likely to ascribe this to jealousy than fear. this is another anachronistic idea for the torah. the people in the torah go to sheol when they die. literally "the grave" with their ancestors. this idea evolved a bit over time to include the greek concept of the underworld, where people existed as shades of their former being. and it's the hebrew word that became the english "hell."in the torah, heaven is the residence of god and his angels, the dome the stars and sun and moon are affixed to, and the bit that keeps the waters of heaven from again flooding the earth.Edited by arachnophilia, : #4

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similar meaning as "buried alive." the implication of both is that they didn't stay alive. ie: "die of natural causes." god kills a lot of people in the old testament. interestingly, he also "takes" a few, which could be read really either way. the exception to the above (about people not going to heaven in the old testament) is elijah.

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one (linguistic idiom)

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what mod said. it's not that i think it might be common for god to say, just that it's a common expression. certainly, the word or "of/from us" is used elsewhere in the bible. it's hard for me to search for it, because strong doesn't list it. but here's a bizarre instance or two:

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, ‘ --— —, : , ‘ — --
v'm'etz ha-daat tov v'ra -- lo tokal m'menu: ki b'yom akelek m'menu mot ta-mot.

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"but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil -- do not eat from it, because when you eat from it you will surely die."

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genesis 2:17 (similarly in 3:3, 3:5, 3:11, and 3:17)

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quote:

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...—, ’— , —, —-’
...v'ulam achiv ha-qaton y'gedol m'menu, v'zareo y'heyeh milo-ha-goyim.

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"...however, his little brother will be greater than he, and his seed will fill nations."

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gensis 48:19

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quote:

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, ...
v'y'ref m'menu...

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"and he let him go..." (literally, "refrained from him")

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exodus 4:26

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there are a lot of instances of "from us" or "than us" which i have of course neglected to post because that reading should be obvious. but it appears that doesn't really specify number like it's -nu ending would seem to indicate. rather, it's something of a catch-all expression, a standard figure of speech. i'm no expert, so i can't give a proper explanation, but basing a case on this word alone is rather shakey.

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two (god & angels, demi-gods, other gods)

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like i said, it's a little polytheistic for the tastes of the authors of the J and E, and especially P, so i'm inclined to think there must be something else at play when god says:

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‘—
n'aseh adam b'tselemnu, k'demutnu

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"i will make man in our image, after our personality."

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genesis 1:26 (P)

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even when god is clearly present with angels/demi-gods (job 1-2), he speaks and acts unilaterally. so i'm inclined to think this is simply an idiomatic of linguistic thing.

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three (trinity)

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...it is. there is no aspect of a multi-facetted god ever expressed in the torah. i know you're of the belief that the bible is all one text that is all the same ideologically, but it's just not. it's a collection of writting spanning 1,000 years, upwards of 60 authors, and written in two completely different countries. some texts specifically argue against the philosophies present in other texts, and there are many different versions of god that are talked about. certainly, even your average barely literate person can notice that god goes through a major personality shift between the old and new testaments?like it or not, the bible is a human text, and the weight of evidence and textual criticism and analysis bears that out. people have many different ideas of god, and the bible presents a few closely related, but not identical ones.certainly, if this is just a linguistic issue, as i very strongly suspect and the evidence above indicates, then this is hardly a good case for a god with multiple personality disorder. it's no better than claiming that elohim looking plural is evidence for jesus in the old testament. i'm sure you understand that case, or need i go over it again? i believe -- and the evidence supports -- that peoples' ideas about god changed rather dramatically over the centuries. they're all talking about the same god, but they have different ways of portraying him. it's the other trinity you've evidently not heard of, with a masculine presence of god (elohim), a feminine presence of god (shekinah), and a neutral presence, three genders in total forming on single god. from jewish mysticism, the qabala, and relating to etz chayim. and of course, unlike the holy spirit, shekinah actually does appear in the old testament. one is forced to wonder why the christian trinity is the obviously correct answer, but the jewish trinity is not. however, both are much later concepts and must be read back into the text, and not derived from it. so this idea, i feel, is out.

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four (royal we)

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one of the many common images for the hebrew god is the comparison to an earthly king. though i think it's worth noting that the predominant usage of "the royal we" in western society was probably influenced in large part due to the language of the bible (and not vice-versa).

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there's not. god has only one name, and it is . he is called many other things, but those are all titles. adonai means "my lord." elohim means "god." el- and a second part is a description. on yahweh is the name of god. sure it is. unless god changes ideologies in the middle of his one divine revelation. and yet, despite these huge differences, they all agree on their descriptions of god, even though they describe him in many different ways. look, i think we basically agree on this point, that there are many different ideas about god present in the bible. the mistake you're making, and the point i'm trying to emphasize here, is that not every book presents every idea. er, no, i used "argue" for a reason. for instance, the book of job was written to fundamentally undermine the philosophy of the wisdom movement that said that god blesses or curses people according to their worth and their deeds, which is an idea you can find throughout the bible without too much trouble. job, instead, presents a god who punishes an innocent man, and most of the book is very literally an argument between innocent job and his friends from the wisdom movement who say he must have sinned. there is, but it is of a decidedly different flavor than the mercy of the new testament. certainly, one only needs to read a few pauline epistles to gather that at least one author of the bible felt there was a big difference between the two covenants. you do that. try to look at the books of the bible in isolation for a little bit, and see what conclusions the books lead you to separately, and then compare. it's awfully hard to make a comparison when you're using one to fill in the bits of the other. you'll find that each author of the bible gives god his own personality in very subtle ways, and that there are more major shifts between different movements (at different times). so J and E are quite similar, but together are quite different than matthew, or even isaiah.

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in this particular text, and that it is a poor explanation for the apparently plurality of the language. because you're lumping it all together, and not keeping the different components distinguishable. you may form a gestalt god from the whole set of texts, or accept the one of dogmatic trinities, but it's wrong to assume that everything is interchangeable.and in any case, a trinity is a very different thing than a singular god (with ONE person) who is described many different ways by many different authors. just because you can use the same words to describe those two cases does not mean that they are the same thing. same problem, lumping everything together.

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el shaday is not a name. notice the difference in implications here? "they called me this, but they didn't know my name." and in any case:

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Gen 14:22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD [YHWH], the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth,

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clearly, adram did know god's name. the bit after that, "the most high god" is el elyon. also not a name. there are a lot of el-titles for god in the bible. none of them are names.also, if we're talking about the name of god and spelling it out, it'd be much more respectful to spell it correctly. no, of course not. the second covenant is given in exodus. you're probably thinking of the third or fourth covenant... but that wasn't my comment. my comment was that paul clearly thought there was a contrast between the covenants god gave the hebrews (the law/circumcision) and the covenant god made with the rest of the world (mercy requiring only faith). i said paul thought so. the point is that even the authors of the bible recognize a change, and specifically detail it. pretending that it's all the same kind of deprives, well, the whole point of pauline christianity. judaism and christianity are rather clearly NOT the same religion. indeed. the point was that it is wrong to take one text's concept of god and try to apply it to another text. isaiah has different ideas about god than J/E, who has different ideas than paul, who has different ideas than matthew, etc. for instance, john might marginally support the idea of a trinity (this is questionable, btw) but that does not mean the idea flies in genesis. you're not looking at the whole land. you're looking at a bunch of puzzle pieces and guessing at the picture. but half of the pieces go to a different puzzle, and neither set is complete. there's nothing wrong with context -- but you're not getting all of it. you're not getting the whole history of religious thought in the judeo-christian tradition, let alone the whole history of mesopotamian religion. you're getting the bible, and basing your standards on what someone else has decided goes into it. there are just many ideas about god in the texts surrounding the bible as there are in it, and getting the whole picture of how people thought of god in ancient judea requires looking at those other texts as well and seeing how the bible's texts fit into it. and you will find some interesting trends -- not that one idea of god is the only one present in every text. but what you're doing is falsely relating one piece to the big picture you'd like to see in the pile of pieces. and doing so without the pieces around it, or even really knowledge of its place in the puzzle. "big picture" thinking is not an excuse to shoehorn pieces in where they don't actually fit.in this case, "a simple quirk of hebrew grammar" is most likely suspect. it fits the surrounding pieces of the torah -- strict monotheism, and a more anthropomorphic concept of god.

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why do you assume it's the father speaking? the problem with this idea is that it really relies on making assumptions and making things up that are just not in the text. it never indicates anything else that could be read as trinitarian in the slightest. there is only one personhood of god ever talked about in the text: yahweh, and no others.reading the text as involving angels is similarly problematic. the text just doesn't describe any as being there. though, perhaps, we can infer from job that the tradition of angels being present is rather old:

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Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. ... When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

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Job 38:4, 7

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the same cannot be said for the concept of the trinity. the oldest entry we have that reads a different (but the same) person into the creation story is in the gospel of john -- and even there it's more likely that john is appealing to gnosticism than expressing the modern idea of a trinity. and he also fails to mention the third personhood of god, so i doubt we could call that a trinity if only two parties are mentioned.please see my post #10 for what i feel is the most likely explanation, a quirk of hebrew grammar. "from us" doesn't actually imply a plural, though i will admit the genesis 1 instance is truly bizarre -- that CAN be said in singular.Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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