Re: Wise words from a respectable and loved Doctor are always good forever

On Jan 31, 1:06 am, Don Kirkman <dons...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It seems to me I heard somewhere that andrewbch...@xxxxxxxxx wrote in
article
<b00ba698-e021-4735-8458-cabcb6ecc...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

On Jan 30, 11:56 am, Don Kirkman
If there were no other gods this command wouldn't have been necessary,
would it? And why is the Hebrew word for "God" in Genesis the plural
form "elohim"?
Wrong. This has been widely discussed and not the case at all.

Please offer some credible evidence. Quoting Google as though it were
sufficient evidence doesn't cut it.

For example a simple Google search gives:
"The name Elohim is unique to Hebraic thinking: it occurs only in
Hebrew and in no other ancient Semitic language. The masculine plural
ending does not mean "gods" when referring to the true God of Israel,
since the name is mainly used with singular verb forms and with
adjectives and pronouns in the singular"

The fact that it is in Google has no bearing on its accuracy, any more
than every message in these newsgroups is true and accurate. Who wrote
that, and where did the writer get the information?

AND

"In the Bible the word for God in the Hebrew that is most often used
is Elohim. It is a plural noun. Today it is popular to say it means
plural of majesty. However the form of the word, Eloh-im, is plural.
The word for God in the singular sense is El which is used most often
in describing Gods characteristics or attributes. El Eyon, El Shaddai,
In the Hebrew when Elohim is when used of the true God it is used
singular, as a composite unity, when it is used of false gods it is
used in the plural. (ex. you shall have no other Gods Elohim before
me.")"

Same responses above, to begin with. Look at Genesis 1:26: "Then God
said, 'let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . .'"

Nice try with a "talking point" that has no merit.

The point is that objective scholars and interpreters (in any
discipline) start from the basic meaning of words within the culture
which produced them rather than assuming the meaning can't be what the
text clearly says in the original idiom.

El Eyon [the most high God] and El Shaddai [perhaps the nurturing God or
the mountain God, "God Almighty" in Exodus 6:3] appear later in the
Biblical narrative than elohim, clear evidence that the culture was
developing different, deeper ideas about God..

"God also said to Moses, "I am the LORD"
[Exodus 6:2]

This is a still later arrival, translating "YHWH," probably from a verb
meaning existence, and eventually bastardized as Jehovah in English.
--
Don Kirkman

Your view is a minority view of Biblical scholars. I will not repeat
what I said before nor quote any more of the numerous articles,
readily available on the Internet, and you, and anyone else can do a
Google search with the words "god" and "plural" and more discussion
that explains and counters your talking points.

GOD is singular and unique.
.