@@dennisquaidsleg3820 It’s called crucifying demons because these demons are beliefs that we thought were true but aren’t. Crucify them before you die or you will face them while you are dying.
Human beings are a microcosm of the environment they live in, like all plants and animals are. Dissect an animal and you know more or less precisely the environment they evolved in and came from. The same is true of human social interactions and human beliefs and thoughts, they reflect the environment they evolved in. It's possible, if not certain, that how humans think about God (or gods) is reflective of the cosmos we evolved in, IE our concepts about God probably reveal an abstract truth about the cosmos, just at a lower resolution than a tool like science might prefer.
@benjamintrevino325 scholarship and studies are important for deconstruction, philosophy and spirituality are important for reconstruction. I feel this channel is leans excessively to the deconstructionist side.
Always rememeber that the bible/torah is more a colletion of books than a cohesive singular thesis...that is for the theology to make it, letting some vestiges of these old concepts of Abrahamic religion slip
It's funny that God said anything at all. It's even funnier that he made sure a guy wrote his words, because, for some reason, it's very important that we have the record of what God was saying to himself while he was doing stuff.
there are multiple gods mentioned in the bible, but there is the One True God described as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of salvation, also what does Stephen seeing Christ at the right hand of the Father before dying have to do with anything?
@@Dloin it's recorded in the bible, there are quite a few different false gods like baal, asherah, dagon, etc, who are worshipped in the old testament, who people sacrificed to and had prophets for. There's also a mentioning of diana in the new testament (acts 19) who was a goddess in ephesus and worshipped in a lot of Asia minor at the time. Also, forgive me for the generalization i'm about to make, but why is any time a Christian mentions something in the bible people always say, "that's the doctrine 'they' taught you" or "you've been brainwashed" etc. Yes i grew up in a family that went to church, but a lot of my beliefs and doctrine didn't come from them (my family that is). If you read the bible false gods are mentioned throughout as i stated before, Moses also quotes God saying "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob". It's also in Isaiah where God says "I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me" long story short, the bible is how i know.
@@kyleepratt except that's exactly what trinitarians believe. God is one God, in 3 persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. They have the same essence and share the same divinity, which Jesus mentions multiple times in the gospels and in the revelation. A couple examples would be that no one can snatch the 'sheep' (His people) from His hand, while saying immediately after that the Father gave them to Him and no one will snatch them out of the Father's hand. Another example would be in revelation when God says "I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End" and Jesus says later "I am the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End", or earlier in revelation where Jesus puts His hand on John, and says "Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades" Or in Luke's gospel where Jesus forgives a paralytic of His sins saying "your sins are forgiven you" and the religious leaders (scribes, pharisees, etc) say "Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Jesus perceived their thoughts and said "'But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins' He said to the paralytic man, 'I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home'", and the man got up and walked home glorifying God, there's a whole bunch of other examples but i hoped this cleared things up, and id be happy to answer any other questions you have
So it’s polytheistic, not monotheistic. There area multiple gods who know each other and have interactions with each other and with humans. Hmm. Kind of like the Greek gods or Polynesian gods. I like it.
The Bible has never been monotheistic. In Exodus, the Egyptian gods turn the priests' sticks into snakes, and Moses's god performs the same miracle. The Book of Job describes an entire Divine Council. Yes, other gods exist throughout the Bible.
The Hebrew Bible is probably better described as henotheistic. The Judahites acknowledged that other gods existed for other people, but Adonai was specifically their god. Hence the references to other gods fighting with Adonai, and other gods being able to perform miracles on occasions.
@@christasimon9716 Yeah, the gods of cultures/peoples outside of the Israelites have always been known, but in Sunday school the teaching was that they were false gods that weren’t anything more than figments of the imagination of ignorant gentiles. This seems to highlight that even within Israelite culture there are multiple ‘actual’ gods. I wish we knew more about those others. That would be the ‘council’ that you mentioned. But the concept of ‘god’ within Israelite culture is fickle.
This is a bit of woo. If you take the "seven days of creation" to which to this day are the days of the week and the Gods that we ascribe to them (Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn) we quite quickly reconcile other ancient religions to this one. All rooted in Astrology. The 12 tribes, brothers, disciples, gates etc are the zodiac. Abraham literally means "Father Ram" which is the first zodiac sign. Christ symbol is the fish (Pisces). John the bapitist (Aquarius - the water bearer) "the one that prepares the way". Look at parts of revelation and compare to an astrological map. They suddenly look much more like campfire stories of star gazers.
Love these videos, and a gr8 channel. Making a point to hit on how this was projecting the social/political institutions the HUMANS writing the stories were used to ONTO the cosmos, in particular, is really appreciated.
I have always been fascinated by this snippet in Genesis. I noticed the plural immediately and was mystified. Thanks, Dan, for addressing this bit of mystery.
Tho I’m not a Jew, Muslim, Christian, or so forth, however I would say that the case of Genesis 1:26-31 is a small matter that can easily be shoved aside. One easy explanation could be that it’s just a Jewish way of talking, I mean, we’ve seen this multiple times in the bible, even in The book of Daniel (2:36), The author wrote that the fictional character Daniel said “𝐖𝐞 will tell the king the interpretation”…and we all know that it was only this character whom went in to talk to the king💁
@@KWade-bt4dc Good try, but nope...why? #1. Remember the character, King Nebuchadnezzar, said that he would reward the one/ones who could tell him the dream and its meaning...so if this “we“ included Arioch, then he would've also been rewarded. #2. They didn’t actually went in together together🤞like you're thinking...again, remember, they ain't friends or anything like that...this character Arioch was sent to 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥 these so called ’wise men✌️’ ; so he brought this daniel in as an Officer, not because of his (Daniel's) request, but because this was of much importance to this Nebuchadnezzar.
You should mention Francesca Stavrakopoulou's wonderful book, God: An Anatomy, which lays out the history of God in terms of his body, and his wife, Asherah. It's incredibly telling.
I remember asking that very question when I was ... four? Five? Very young, anyways - that and many other questions is why I found myself being bored in the sermon instead of being with the other kids in Sunday School, and - looking back on it - quite probably why I was 'allowed' to skip church if I wanted when I turned 8 or so.
BTW, God making man "in his image" refers to physical appearance, i.e., a humanoid shape. Modern apologetics like to claim this refers to humanity's mental/spiritual qualities, such as the ability to create, but the story itself shows that that *could not* be the case, as the entire point of the fruit and it's effects was to MAKE humans like the gods in that manner...so obviously, they were NOT like God in that way before, and in fact, nor did God *want* them to be like him. The only thing left, therefore, is physical appearance.
Hmmmm ... So somewhere out in the heavenly realm, God has blood vessels, vertebrae, reproductive plumbing, etc? How big is He? How big is His ... [ahem]?
@@roytee3127 Feels to me that more often than not, God is presented as a voice instead of having a physical form. By the way, I thought "heavenly realm" is a later innovation? Genesis clearly described the original dwelling of Adam and Eve as a geographic area.
Sounds like something went wrong on The British Bake Off. "Oh, deary, you overworked your abstract plural, and it concretized. That's rubbish now, innit?"
Because the Jews used to be one of the polytheistic canaanite religions and Jehovah was just one god among many they worshipped, e.g. Asherah. Later, during the Babylonian Exile, the jewish religion was put into writing for the very first time, and that coincided with a retcon, a religious reformation-movement, triggered by the trauma of almost being wiped out: The jewish religion became monotheistic, focusing on just one of their gods.
Hi, I think it’s important to look into the topic a bit more in depth, Dan here only represents one of many plausible interpretive options for why there is a plural here. He also completely misrepresents the use of the word ‘scholars’ as if everyone who doesn’t have a formal qualification in these matters is incapable of interpreting. Who gets to decide which interpretation is correct? Surely the author?
So later biblical authors and theologians downgraded the other gods to angels. That's just rude. 🤣 Btw Dan, iirc, you said in a previous video that you were planning on writing a book surveying the evolution of God, their prominence and powers, over the course of the Bible's writing. I hope I'm correct in that recollection, and that you're still on track with writing it. 🍻
Folks at my grandma's church invited me to stop coming when I suggested God had evolved over the course of the Bible and wanted to reconcile this "forever and ever, amen" stuff.
@@NWPaul72I guess that's the 21st-century equivalent of being stoned to death, or bring burned at the stake. Being uninvited to attend church? Now that's what I call a blessing in disguise. 😊
I wrote a fiction novel [not in any store since my name isn't known and having a book published is quite arduous] that has to do with the concepts of the ancient "gods" and how people saw them. In the novel, they were entities of another dimension who wanted to see if they could create, within on species of primate, a "connection" that would eventually see them reaching a level of awareness, for the purpose of eventually interacting with them. Some of the "deities" humans associated with these entities were the likes of deities of Mesopotamia, but also Yahweh and even Jesus, to an extent. But I really should work in the notion of the "Elohim" character as one of the architects of this "experiment". It's been enjoyable creating a story around these ancient systems.
Amazon used to have a self publishing option, accessible to anyone afaik. You can look into it if you are ok with publishing as e-book. However my advice is to make sure you have a well written book first. Good luck.
@@pansepot1490 I appreciate your advice. An e-book would be acceptable, especially since as it is now, it has only been a work of interest, and enjoyment, for myself. If a few gain some level of enjoyment as a result, that will be an extra benefit. Thanks!
to reply to the title of the video: God asked the other gods for help because he couldn't do it alone. And that's why he says "us" and "our" THIS is the true explanation, ODIN told me so.
Dan McClellan is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), commonly known as the Mormon Church. He has been actively involved in the church, even working as a scripture translation supervisor for the church for many years. Although he engages in complex and critical discussions about religious texts, he remains an active member of the LDS Church, contributing to both scholarly and faith-based conversations about religion and the Bible.
According to most religious types gender is set and determined by your genetics. Also according to most religious types God is NOT physical/mortal and thus has no genetics and thus no gender. Finally according to most religious types, referring to someone by their chosen gender is woke and something to be avoided. Thus the only way to be proper is to refer to God as It/They/Them. Referring to God as "He/Him" is woke.
For the same reason he says, “I am the Lord, YOUR god. You shall have no other gods BEFORE ME.” The authors were polytheists. You speak pretty good Hebrew for a Mc. 😉
Very good Dan. Love your work. imo Perennial Christianity, a word I made up lol, is the answer to all the academic trouble with theology. If the first cause that we can even consider , is the being that became or was one with Yeshua, an infinite within and authorizing another infinite ie becoming one outside the bounds of time and space ie ...always have been one. And then that divinity, expresses itself within the knowledge and growth level of each culture in various ways.....we have Yeshua, holding the heart above all knowledge and after all...isn't it the heart that matters? Great Video Dan. Keep it up.
I’m still amazed that Protestant churches can high jacked Jewish text to mean something it doesn’t from this verse like a Trinity doctrine. Then herald it around like they have the only truth. Not knowing the trinity doctrine was a later innovation. This is a video all Christians should watch that scribe to trinitarianism.
If the bible were inspired, which I don't believe, the concept of trinity wouldn't have needed to exist with men for God to inspire the wording in Genesis as such. And yes, there was the El pantheon. But fundamentalism doesn't have a crisis over findings of scholarship.
It's odd that a book inspired by an all-powerful and all-knowing deity even needs to be interpreted by human beings, because its meaning is not obvious, in the first place. I'm glad you pointed out that what the serpent said to Adam and Eve was true and what God told them was false (which God admits to later in the text). Most people miss that or bend themselves into pretzels to explain it, even though the text is pretty darn clear. My favorite part of Genesis is noticing that the sun is not created until the fourth "day". How did those first three days happen without a sun? Simple: The people who wrote that knew that the sun CAME OUT during the day, but they didn't know that it actually CAUSES the day. It looks small and close so it makes sense for them to think it was just a chariot that crossed the sky each day. This is why it was mentioned almost as an afterthought and why Joshua could stop it from moving across the sky (instead of saying that the Earth would stop spinning).
I'll give a pass to the consort, but one of the second tier deities should be able to pop down to earth and straighten us out on what the main deity wants us to do.
Hey Dan, I have a question. In other cultures around Israel, the image of a god usually was a statue in which the spirit of the god lived after the inauguration ceremony and then the god was worshiped through the image. If human beings are the image of god, why do we have them being created "in" and not "as" the image of god? Is there a special meaning behind the "in"? Thanks, Thomas
I'm normally not a fan of Dan and think his takes are misleading, but this was a really well done video with examples throughout. Great work! I obviously disagree with Dan on the Trinity just because his interpretive grid and mine will always take us to separate conclusions. But he brings up good Divine Council points to a debate that I'm currently 50/50 on (whether the Divine Council is satirical and rhetorical or literal. I think both have solid arguments).
I would say that whether or not the Divine council is "real", the ancient Israelites and their neighbors certainly believed it was. He has a really fascinating lecture available on his website on the divine council where he digs into all the sources.
@KWade-bt4dc That's what I meant by "real" is whether they took it "literally" or not. I'm always interested to read divine council content. I'm not sure if I'll learn anything new, but if there's a chance of learning I'm all in. 🙂 You said website specifically. I can't find the lesson you're talking about on RUclips? I have to access it through his website?
The image is our image, WHAT WE EACH SEE IN OUR MIND is the image(imagine), now the first sin is Christ’s alone, He asked why we chose other Gods than Himself(insecurity) because in the beginning was many Gods after the original Word(some think Cain and Able are the other colours) today science has found that four Mushrooms have lost the ability to to digest decay so now they eat with the trees(first temple)where water brought back the tender plants.
"What does it mean when God said, “Let Us make man in Our image” in Genesis 1:26?" ~~~ An interesting response just passed into my radar; 1) Nothing (can be evidenced to) exists but One Consciousness/Mind. One, a 'Singularity'! 2) We are all unique Perspectives (Souls) that/who, collectively, comprise Consciousness. This explains the use of the plural 'Us', Elohim, etc... 3) What we perceive, every moment, is Mind! Mind, in it's totality IS God, so everything perceived is a tiny bit of the complete Our image! We, individually, are only privy to our little momentary peeks, unless in Heaven; One with God/Consciousness/Mind. So that reminds God that each and every Perspective, no matter how outrageous or stupid or good or evil or anything... is an essential feature of Who and What We Are! "God cannot know himself but by me!" - Meister Eckhart "The eye by which I see God is the same as the eye by which God sees me. My eye and God's eye are one and the same." - Meister Eckhart
The first mistake is thinking God said it! That book has served to divide, confuse and conquer. It requires an open mind, much knowledge, and wisdom to realize how people have been deceived into believing a lie. The strong delusion is no joke! Once you discover the truth behind the book then you’ll wonder why you did not discover it sooner. But if your eyes are to shut you’ll never see it! The truth is not easy for the ears and most people prefer to ignore it and remain in the box.
Isaiah 43:10, but okay "scholar." How's the counting going by the way? I would assume you have no idea the number or how great. The comments who are agreeing with you are perhaps a hint, but even I draw towards curiosity the number of souls you're doing your absolute best to keep on the broad road. You probably don't even notice. Not many do.
According to the creation account in Proverbs, God must be talking to Lady Wisdom. According to the creation account in Job, God might be talking to Leviathan daring her to stop him. According to the creation account in John, probably God is talking to the Word instructing the latter what to do.
That assumes the writers of all those books were working from the same view of cosmology and god. Those examples were written at different times and by different authors, and it isn’t accurate to assume they were in perfect harmony on those points.
Trinity was operative. It took time to develop the language like Trinity etc. Ancient church traditions believed in a truine God long before the language for it wss crafted.
@@bukowski20 How so? This lines up exactly with our doctrine. We are out of our minds because we believe in the fullness of the Gospel? Explain that one.
@maklelan Is the concretized abstract plural ever used for any noun other than deity? I ask because my own (crackpot) theory is that Elohim as a singular is due to revisionism on the part of monotheistic editors re-writing an existing polytheistic creation myth to harmonize it with an aggressive monotheism, probably during the Exile when you were more likely to get students for whom Hebrew was not their language of day-to-day usage. If concretized abstract plurals are only ever used to refer to deity, I'd see that as consistent with my own (crackpot) theory, but if it's also used of, say, chariots or cooking utensils or whatever, then that would be a strike against it. I saw a summary of Joel Burnett's dissertation, but it doesn't seem to directly address my question, so I thought I'd ask you. Thanks.
Why would God, however, say let "us" ? I get that the other deities are there and sharing a lot of attributes with the highest God (e.g. knowledge, etc) but wouldn't there be only ONE creator God of human beings? Are the other gods also creating with him?
You are correct. There is no "Let US" or "Our" in 1:26. Those words were added. The verse starts the same as the other Creation verses, "Then God said." When it was translated 2,000 years ago, the words Let us, and Our was put in. 1:27 says it all, God created man in his image. However, the likeness part remains a mystery since no one is made in the likeness of God per Rev 4:3's description of God. Careful examination of the original shows we are made in the "likeness" of the animals he just created. Example: we have hearts, lungs, muscle, brains, ears, nose, hair, we walk, breathe air, eat the same foods and so on, just like the animals he just created. Therefore, we are made in the image of God, but in the likeness of the animals he created before Adam.
I’ve heard it said that “knowledge of good and evil” really means knowledge of everything. Like how we say someone knows “everything from A to Z”. Is this correct?
So would you say this is simply a remnant of Pagan ideals that came before? Considering Christianity absorbed and took a lot of things from Paganism. Would it be early Christianity/Judaism and writers still trying to mesh it all together before Christianity was around enough to cement its own identity as a religion?
I'm more interested in the meaning of "likeness". What does that mean? That we look like God? That we think like God? Likeness is pretty vague. There have been a number of human species, with differences in their looks. As for the rest of it, well, there were angels, demons, archangels, cherubim, a host of supernatural beings. They were somewhat lower in seniority, but supernatural nevertheless.
But the difference between the nominative case plural Elohim, is the same difference as 'we' the gods as a plural. It’s a plurality consciousness. In other words, the concretized abstract is still referring to a collective.
I like Dan. He's usually thorough about the Christian doctrine, but he's wrong about this one. Based on his argument, God and his Devine council created everything together.
OMG. If this is true, why would God make it so difficult to read and understand?? Doesn't make sense to me. There are so many interpretations that it ends up contradicting each other.
YHWH judged the gods and became the snake Adam, the Christ, judges the earth and becomes a worm Lilith settled them east of Eden. Until the day Adam wields the fiery sword in vengeance and judgment; setting up the abomination of desolation in himself; as the temple without one stone left standing upon another
On the other hand, in any home with a Father saying "let us crank out some rugrats in our image", who do you think he's talking to? Nothing mystical to see here. What was YHVH's WIFE's name? ;)
So, God made man in his own image male AND female, and later divided man in a separate male and a separate female. Can we conclude from this that God is also male AND female, and that when God split man up into two halves, man was no longer in the image of God? Also, it says God put into [undivided] man his spirit. Was the spirit also undivided male AND female?
It's all fun and games until somebody's pet T-Rex ends up with a third of the Lord hanging out of its maw, and a third in its clutch. Just mindlessly noshing away on God.....
Is there anything, uh, concrete, that we have, in terms of what the 'Divine Council' would have been made up of, back when those parts were written? Like, surviving religious texts/references to other deities in the council, or how said council functions, etc.? it feels like a vestigial part of the Bible most Christians probably don't even realize is there, and other than mentioning the most high, I don't think I've heard you talk much about the divine council
The idea of a divine council is basically an assembly of divine beings in thier heavenly home. Olympus is a common example. There are numerous references in the bible of Yahweh holding council with other divine beings. Psalm 82 being the easiest to find. Job 1:6 alludes to the same idea.
@@MrDalisclock I'm familiar with the concept, but as it pertains specifically to ancient Judeo-Christian beliefs, there seems to be virtually nothing about who those other "divine beings" are. Since the Judeo-Christian god in modern times is largely considered the creator of everything, the idea that there are other gods, or a god higher than the Judeo-Christian god, seems very strange to me. If you look on wikipedia's divine council article, for instance, it has a quote "the identities of the members of the assembly are far more obscure than those found in other descriptions of these groups." But "far more obscure" doesn't necessarily mean unspecified or lost to history. If the Judeo-Christian god is the creator of the universe and 'the one true god' or something, then it feels like the presence of other deities that aren't pretenders / false gods is left unexplained, unless perhaps they were children of YHWH and Asherah or something. Or perhaps angels were originally conceived as lesser gods or something? I believe Dan at some point mentioned that YHWH wasn't originally conceived as creating the entire universe. He's certainly mentioned the "most High" a few times in passing, but as far as Judeo-Christianity having a *pantheon* of gods, it seems like other than a few allusions, there's no details about the other gods. I would imagine in antiquity, there were likely specific gods meant in those passages, that got suppressed the way Asherah did. I'm just fascinated by the idea of there being other gods in Judaism/Christianity. Perhaps those were just the gods of various other cults that got stomped out when the temple of Jerusalem became the obligatory worship point, and those passages were an attempt to co-exist with other religious beliefs? That'd be neat, if so.
@@Quirken there's some interesting overlap with the Bible and Urgaritc mythology. Not a ton but evidence of a pantheon under El who is married to Asherah and father of the gods, including Ba'al, Anat and Mot. Some versions of Deuteronomy 32: 8-9 also reference the division of the world amongst the gods, of which Yahweh gets Isreal. It's tucked in there and that particular wording is from the Dead Sea Scrolls so a lot of people handwave it. The angel thing is fascinating and a lot of ink has been spilled over it. It's possible as isrealite religion become more Yahweh centered the other higher tier gods got slowly pushed out of the pantheon with only minor servant gods being recast as angels, since angel is job description and not a name. Only later do the angels get names and apparently specific responsibilities, like in Daniel. It's weird and hard to trace honestly. And then there's the cherubim which are a whole thing to themselves, but never called Angels.
The world mission society church of god believes the “us” refers to female deity called god the mother along with god the father created mankind in gods images male and female.
In comparison to the absence of trinity scriptures in the Bible, what do you make of claims that the Book of Mormon is heavily saturated with Trinitarian doctrine even though the CJCLDS is famously, or infamously depending who you ask, non-Trinitarian?
If there is a Polytheistic Pagan creed in the Bible, would you take it or reject it? Believing that there are Gods that look like humans is a Polytheistic Pagan creed.
I remember seeing a video of this guy saying Jesus is not God because he said "there is none good but one, that is, God" without mentioning Jesus says "I am the Good Shepherd" in John 10.
@@tezzerii 1 Corinthians 2:14 "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
The only issue I see with this line of reasoning is that calling himself "the Shepherd", doesn't automatically equate to "I am God." Also, it shows the that the writers of the Gospels apparently had very different concepts of who they thought Jesus was, so, if Jesus is God, it is very deceptive to say "only God is good." It seems like he's pretending to NOT be who he really is.
Hey Dan, I think that's the sumerian god Enki speaking in the divine council to try and convince the other gods (Espicially Enlil) to create man in order to relief the Igigi gods. What are your thoughts?
It depends on when it was written I guess. According to the bible Abraham was born in Ur, Sumer so it is likely he worshipped Enki and Enlil etc. But the Hebrews were more focused on the Canaanite pantheon, so El, Baal and Asherah. 40 was Enki's sacred number but 70 comes from the 70 sons of El and Asherah.
@@KasperKatje Oh yeah, there is the canaaanite pantheon. The 70 sons of El and the 70 nations from the Old Testament Bible heavily mirror the Canaanite pantheon over the sumerian.
@@rimmersbryggeri well, there are a lot of archaeological finds of the worship of Asherah but in the end they are all fictional indeed and didn't stop the switch to sole worship of fictional tribal god Yahweh.
@@KasperKatje I meant that abraham and genesis 1 don't belong to to same narrative or even the mythology of the same tribe so there is little reason to try to shoehorn abraham into it. Abraham lived both in UR and in a place from whre you acould walk to talk to the pharaoh as a man that had allready lived to 200% of the life expectency so I wouldnt take anything said about abraham very sereiosly. Especially assuming that the pharaoh lived in central egypt at the time.
Easy, God issued a 'bill of divorce' because of her complaining about having equal time and sends her back to her parents. An easy explanation, nothing mysterious here.
I'm no scholar, but I have studied this very subject in the bible. There's no mention of the holy spirit in the old testament. The spirit of God, however, is mentioned multiple times. Although, if you replace the word "spirit" (which is Latin for "breathe") by "breathe" or "wind", it works (almost) all the time - the new testament included.
Genesis 1 is ELOHIM (Lucifer and the fallen angels). They made this realm. They made man in their image. (tares) Man is an idol, a trap to hunt angels. Genesis 2:7 the Lord God forms His representative in their system. (wheat) One Gospel: Gospel (GOOD ANGEL) of Reconciliation. Jesus Christ came into THEIR kingdom to reconcile fallen angels unto Himself. We are the fallen angels (ELOHIM) kept in DNA chains of darkness. If you do not confess being a fallen angel in Lucifer's kingdom, then you are an unbeliever. Unbeliever = those that claim to be made in the image of ELOHIM(gods). REPENT FALLEN ANGELS.
I think it's just you. YT creates copies of videos from 360p to 1080p, and the low-res versions propagate faster across the network, so if you're really early, you might be being served a lower res version which is upgraded. The resolution you get also depends on which YT server you connect to, and the amount of traffic on the entire path between the server and your machine. YT will sacrifice resolution to maintain continuity.
And since They made them male and female after Their own image, where did They get the idea for Eve? Were there female gods in the council? So I'm a heretic, I still say Yea.
It actually doesn’t say that if you read closely. It specifically says he made “the man” in his own image, then repeats again specifically in the image of Elohim he created “him”. Then it tacks on the “male and female he created them” without reference to any image.
YHWH/EL and his wife Asherah are the High Gods. One of Asherah's symbols is the dove 🕊️ After Josiah outlawed the worship of other gods, Asherah was demoted and eventually became the Holy Spirit of Christianity. Jesus is one of God's and Asherah's 70 sons, he is the Solar Lord. The true Trinity is Father, Mother, and Son. Adonai, Asherah, and Jesus
This is an interesting Idea. Some LDS people would be on board with this, except Nephi meet the holly spirit. But we still believe in a heavenly mother (or mothers depending on who you're talking to) For us we would say because Elohim is plural it includes our heavenly father and heavenly mother.
The Torah was taken from Zorastism, during the Babylonian exile. The Elohim refers to the Annunaki, who engineered Homo Sapien Sapiens, i.e., us. The stuff you are saying is incorrect. The Annunaki however, also believe(ed?) in a supreme creator, but Yahwey is not it.
Why is it said that Satan took 1/3 of heaven with him at his rebellion? Best answer is that he had been given 1/3 of heaven by God upon his creation. There is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All equal with God. You cannot be equal with God without being God. They are all three God. All three always are and were not created. No created being is equal with God. All others were created by God and given what authority they have by God. Just as Man was.
No, still makes no sense I'm afraid. The more I hear the Trinity explained the less sense it makes. WTF is a Holy Spirit. Forget whether it was created or not, or equal with Jesus or God. What is it? Never heard a good explanation.
The ancient Israelites had no concept of the trinity, Bill. Yahweh started out as one of many tribal gods and patron deities before becoming "God of the universe". You should familiarise yourself with the scholarship. -------------------------------------‐------------------- According to the general consensus of scholarship *(even critical Christian scholars),* YHWH was originally incorporated into the Canaanite pantheon as a son of the Canaanite high god El before inheriting the top spot in the pantheon and El's wife Athirat (Asherah) before religious reforms "divorced" them. El's pantheon in Ugarit (modern day Ras Shamra in Syria) is called the *Elohim,* literally the plural of El. Interestingly, the Biblical god is also referred to numerous times as Elohim. If you want to see if El is fictional, just read his mythology in the Ugaritic/Canaanite texts. "The mysterious Ugaritic text Shachar and Shalim tells how (perhaps near the beginning of all things) *El* came to shores of the sea and saw two women who bobbed up and down. *El* was sexually aroused and took the two with him, killed a bird by throwing a staff at it, and roasted it over a fire. He asked the women to tell him when the bird was fully cooked, and to then address him either as husband or as father, for he would thenceforward behave to them as they called him. They saluted him as husband. He then lay with them, and they gave birth to Shachar ("Dawn") and Shalim ("Dusk"). Again *El* lay with his wives and the wives gave birth to "the gracious gods", "cleavers of the sea", "children of the sea". The names of these wives are not explicitly provided, but some confusing rubrics at the beginning of the account mention the goddess *Athirat (Asherah),* who is otherwise *El's* chief wife, and the goddess Raḥmayyu ("the one of the womb"), otherwise unknown." *"First, a god named El predates the arrival of the Israelites into Syria-Palestine.* Biblical usage shows El was not just a generic noun, but often a proper name for Israel’s God (e.g., Gen 33:20: “El, the God of Israel”)." "I should add here that it is very clear from the grammar that the noun nachalah in v. 9 should be translated “inheritance.” *Yahweh receives Israel as his “inheritance” (nachalah), just as the other sons of El received their nations as their inheritance (nachal, v. 8).* With this verb, especially in the Hiphil, the object is always what is being given as an inheritance. Thus, Israel is given to Yahweh as his inheritance. ((Here I’m indebted to Dan McClellan.)) It would make no sense for Elyon to give himself an inheritance. Moreover, as I’ve argued elsewhere, it is not just the Gentile nations that are divided up according to the number of the *sons of El.* It is all of humankind, i.e., “the sons of Adam.” This clearly includes Israel. And the sons of Adam are not divided up according to the number of the *sons of El,* plus one (i.e., plus Elyon). They are divided up, according to the text, *solely* according to the number of the *sons of El.* *Thus, that Yahweh receives Israel as his inheritance makes Yahweh one of the sons of El mentioned in v. 8. Any other construal of the text would constitute its rewriting.* A Sumerian hymn speaks to the goddess: “Nanshe, your divine powers are not matched by any other divine powers.” *Does this mean that Nanshe was the high goddess, that there were no gods above her? No, it does not.* Nanshe was the daughter of Enki, the high god. *In Sumerian mythology, as with Ugaritic, Israelite, Babylonian, and others, in the ancient past, the high god (Enki, in this case) divided up the world and assigned his children certain domains.* Nanshe was given a limited domain (the modern Persian Gulf) and was tasked with maintaining social justice there. *This is exactly what we see in Deuteronomy 32 with Yahweh. Yahweh is given a limited domain (Israel) and is given authority over his people, to punish them, as well as to protect and defend them against foreign enemies.* That Yahweh, like Nanshe, is said to have incomparable divine power *does not* mean that he is not subordinate to the high god who gave him his domain. *It is also of note that Nanshe, like Baal, Yahweh, and so many other deities, evolved over time. Her domain increased, and she was promoted in the pantheon (although she never became the high goddess)."* *"The Most Heiser: Yahweh and Elyon in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 - Religion at the Margins"* based on the *majority scholarly consensus.* (Written by Thom Stark who is a Christian) *"Michael Heiser: A Unique Species? - Religion at the Margins"* (A second response to Michael Heiser) *"Excerpt from “Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan” by John Day - Lehi's Library."* *"The Table of Nations: The Geography of the World in Genesis 10"* - TheTorah.com (Excluding the short narrative on Nimrod (vv. 8-12), *which appears to be a later addition,* Genesis 10 contains *70* names of nations or cities, a number that was symbolic of totality. Similarly, the descendants of Jacob were *70* in number (Gen 46:37; Exod 1:5), *as were the sons of the supreme Canaanite god El, with whom YHWH became equated.)* *"Polytheism and Ancient Israel’s Canaanite Heritage. Part V | theyellowdart"* (Of course, much of this [i.e., that Israel worshiped El and Asherah alongside YHWH] is really to be expected given that recent syntheses of the *archaeological, cultural, and literary data* pertaining to the emergence of the nation of Israel in the Levant *show that most of the people who would eventually compose this group were originally Canaanite. As the Hebrew Bible notes, the Hebrew language itself is a Canaanite language, literally the “lip of Canaan” (שְׂפַת כְּנַעַן; Is. **19:18**), and so it cannot often be distinguished by modern scholars from other Canaanite inscriptions on purely linguistic grounds.)* *"Ugarit - New World Encyclopedia"* (Ugaritic religion centered on the chief god, Ilu or El, whose titles included "Father of mankind" and "Creator of the creation." The Court of El was referred to as the (plural) 'lhm or ***Elohim,*** a word ***later used by the biblical writers to describe the Hebrew deity*** and translated into English as "God," in the singular. El, which was ***also the name of the God of Abraham,*** was described as an aged deity with white hair, seated on a throne.) *"Mark Smith: Yahweh as El’s Son & Yahweh’s Ascendency - Lehi's Library"* (Mark Smith is a Catholic) *"God, Gods, and Sons (and Daughters) of God in the Hebrew Bible. Part III | theyellowdart"* *"02 | December | 2009 | Daniel O. McClellan - Psalm 82"* (Daniel McClellan is a Mormon) *"Elohim | Daniel O. McClellan"* (Refer to the article "Angels and Demons (and Michael Heiser)") *"God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost."* (Pay attention to whose wife Asherah (Athirat) is in the Ugaritic/Canaanite texts and how she became the wife of YHWH/Yahweh) *"Yahweh's Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden - Mythology Matters."* *"Asherah, God's Wife in Ancient Israel. Part IV - theyellowdart"* *"The Gates of Ishtar - El, was the original god of the bible."* *"The Gates of Ishtar - Anath in the Elephantine Papyri"* (In addition to Asherah (Athirat) being the consort of Yahweh, it appears some Israelites also viewed the Canaanite goddess Anat(h) as Yahweh's consort) *"Canaanite Religion - New World Encyclopedia"* (Refer to the section "Relationship to Biblical Religion") *"The Syncretization of Yahweh and El : reddit/AcademicBiblical"* (For a good summary of all of the above articles) Watch Professor Christine Hayes who lectures on the Hebrew Bible at Yale University. Watch lecture 2 from 40:40 to 41:50 minutes, lecture 7 from 30:00 minutes onwards, lecture 8 from 12:00 to 17:30 minutes and lecture 12 from 27:40 minutes onwards. Watch *"Pagan Origins of Judaism"* by Sigalius Myricantur and read the description in the video to see the scholarship the video is based on. Watch *"How Monotheism Evolved"* by Sigalius Myricantur and watch up to at least 21:40. Watch *"Atheism - A History of God (The Polytheistic Origins of Christianity and Judaism)"* (By a former theist) Watch *"The Origins of Yahweh"* by Derreck Bennett at Atheologica.
@@epicofgilgamesh9964 Nonsense. There is no scripture that presents any other being whether real or imagined as being equal to God other than the Holy Spirit and the Son. Even when God says let us make man in our image he is clearly the one in charge and giving the orders. He is not asking permission. He is making a declaration. Please present the scripture where any other being is presented as being equal to or higher than God. Other than the Son and Holy Spirit. Satan is described as the god of this world. But not equal with God.
@bungalobill7941 You have to look *outside* the Bible to get the real story, Bill. I've provided plenty of references and scholarship. How about you read them? Yahweh didn't start out as "God of the universe". He evolved to become that over time.
@@epicofgilgamesh9964 Nonsense. Job the oldest book in the Bible relates other spirit beings. But it also relates God as the creator and highest being. That argument is old and debunked. It comes from an assumption that because other peoples had many equal gods then the ancient Hebrews must have also. Erroneous assumption. Also it is clear in scripture that God revealed himself to his people over time. Erroneous presupposition to assume they just developed it themselves over time. "You have to look outside the Bible" Yet they try to prove their case by going to the Bible. But only through misused/misapplied scripture in isolation. Exactly how you don't make a case from the Bible. Irony.
Last year I watched a great Courses lecture series called Understanding The Old Testament by Robert M Miller and I remember him saying "Our Image" probably just meant the royal we, I guess Miller meant as in "how are we today." I thought It seemed fairly lame to just gloss over it like that. The course as a whole was good, I thought, but that lame explanation really annoyed me.
Personally, I always assumed (without giving it much thought) the same thing: the royal "We". If the royal We does not apply, then we must assume that all the gods in question (and we) share one image, no?
Were there instances where the "royal we" were used in other texts in that period? Whether the "royal we" is a common feature of the linguistics at that time is important in evaluating the soundness of this explanation.
@@mushbone Doesn't really work when the same translation uses "We" in the early books of Genesis but switches to " _I_ am the Lord your God" in Exodus though.
What makes you so sure you're not? You're a multicellular organism, you're a very different person in the kitchen than the gym. Your chemistry varies with your diet and your environment, how do you decide what "you" even is?
@@alexmcd378 French: The plural form “vous” is used as a formal singular address. Russian: “Вы” (Vy) is used as a formal address for both singular and plural. This is just the first two I can think of. Anyone who knows five things about Japanese, knows Japanese is like this. In the Koran, Allah uses "we". The Pope uses "we". Name a king or queen that lived in Europe, "we".
That feel when you're a concretized abstract plural.
Bro I know the feeling, and lemme tell ya it ain’t a good one
No. That feel when we’re a concretized plural. We watch the video again until we get it right.
@@dennisquaidsleg3820
It’s called crucifying demons because these demons are beliefs that we thought were true but aren’t. Crucify them before you die or you will face them while you are dying.
I need some college level English courses.
Check Mauro Biglino for experienced non American mind control translations
The trail of clues pointing to humans shaping the Divine rather than the other way around is more like a four lane highway.😊
Human beings are a microcosm of the environment they live in, like all plants and animals are. Dissect an animal and you know more or less precisely the environment they evolved in and came from. The same is true of human social interactions and human beliefs and thoughts, they reflect the environment they evolved in. It's possible, if not certain, that how humans think about God (or gods) is reflective of the cosmos we evolved in, IE our concepts about God probably reveal an abstract truth about the cosmos, just at a lower resolution than a tool like science might prefer.
@@micah3209 I look forward to your presentation on your research.
@@micah3209 sir and/or ma'am this is RUclips not Facebook.
@benjamintrevino325 scholarship and studies are important for deconstruction, philosophy and spirituality are important for reconstruction. I feel this channel is leans excessively to the deconstructionist side.
@@halvarmc671 are there certain discussions you feel aren't appropriate for RUclips?
It's a real funny thing for a monotheistic religion to say.
You'd think Judaism developed from a polytheistic tradition it couldn't completely eradicate from the text.
Always rememeber that the bible/torah is more a colletion of books than a cohesive singular thesis...that is for the theology to make it, letting some vestiges of these old concepts of Abrahamic religion slip
It's funny that God said anything at all. It's even funnier that he made sure a guy wrote his words, because, for some reason, it's very important that we have the record of what God was saying to himself while he was doing stuff.
@@baker8674 Theology is just fanfic trying to fix a garbage IP.
And they say Religion has no sense of humour...
FINALLLY!!!!! Someone that gives information on their T-shirts.
It's really interesting finding out what the Bible says when you're not trying to make it agree with what you already believe.
True! For example: If somebody doesnt believe in the Trinity, He wont accept this passage as hint to the Trinity!
Pure truth is so refreshing! The New Testament has repeated references to multiple Gods as well, with Stephen seeing Christ on the right hand of God.
there are multiple gods mentioned in the bible, but there is the One True God described as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of salvation, also what does Stephen seeing Christ at the right hand of the Father before dying have to do with anything?
@@treysenn8012how do you know? Because you grew up with that doctrine?
the idea with Jesus on God's right side is that describes 2 individuals. Which would not fit well with the Trinity.
@@Dloin it's recorded in the bible, there are quite a few different false gods like baal, asherah, dagon, etc, who are worshipped in the old testament, who people sacrificed to and had prophets for. There's also a mentioning of diana in the new testament (acts 19) who was a goddess in ephesus and worshipped in a lot of Asia minor at the time.
Also, forgive me for the generalization i'm about to make, but why is any time a Christian mentions something in the bible people always say, "that's the doctrine 'they' taught you" or "you've been brainwashed" etc. Yes i grew up in a family that went to church, but a lot of my beliefs and doctrine didn't come from them (my family that is). If you read the bible false gods are mentioned throughout as i stated before, Moses also quotes God saying "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob". It's also in Isaiah where God says "I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me"
long story short, the bible is how i know.
@@kyleepratt except that's exactly what trinitarians believe. God is one God, in 3 persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. They have the same essence and share the same divinity, which Jesus mentions multiple times in the gospels and in the revelation. A couple examples would be that no one can snatch the 'sheep' (His people) from His hand, while saying immediately after that the Father gave them to Him and no one will snatch them out of the Father's hand. Another example would be in revelation when God says "I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End" and Jesus says later "I am the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End", or earlier in revelation where Jesus puts His hand on John, and says "Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades" Or in Luke's gospel where Jesus forgives a paralytic of His sins saying "your sins are forgiven you" and the religious leaders (scribes, pharisees, etc) say "Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Jesus perceived their thoughts and said "'But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins' He said to the paralytic man, 'I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home'", and the man got up and walked home glorifying God, there's a whole bunch of other examples but i hoped this cleared things up, and id be happy to answer any other questions you have
So it’s polytheistic, not monotheistic. There area multiple gods who know each other and have interactions with each other and with humans. Hmm. Kind of like the Greek gods or Polynesian gods. I like it.
The Bible has never been monotheistic. In Exodus, the Egyptian gods turn the priests' sticks into snakes, and Moses's god performs the same miracle. The Book of Job describes an entire Divine Council. Yes, other gods exist throughout the Bible.
The Hebrew Bible is probably better described as henotheistic. The Judahites acknowledged that other gods existed for other people, but Adonai was specifically their god. Hence the references to other gods fighting with Adonai, and other gods being able to perform miracles on occasions.
@@christasimon9716 Yeah, the gods of cultures/peoples outside of the Israelites have always been known, but in Sunday school the teaching was that they were false gods that weren’t anything more than figments of the imagination of ignorant gentiles. This seems to highlight that even within Israelite culture there are multiple ‘actual’ gods. I wish we knew more about those others. That would be the ‘council’ that you mentioned. But the concept of ‘god’ within Israelite culture is fickle.
@@christasimon9716psalm 82 has Yahweh condemning the rest of the council.
It makes no sense if he's speaking to an empty room.
This is a bit of woo. If you take the "seven days of creation" to which to this day are the days of the week and the Gods that we ascribe to them (Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn) we quite quickly reconcile other ancient religions to this one. All rooted in Astrology. The 12 tribes, brothers, disciples, gates etc are the zodiac. Abraham literally means "Father Ram" which is the first zodiac sign. Christ symbol is the fish (Pisces). John the bapitist (Aquarius - the water bearer) "the one that prepares the way". Look at parts of revelation and compare to an astrological map. They suddenly look much more like campfire stories of star gazers.
Love these videos, and a gr8 channel. Making a point to hit on how this was projecting the social/political institutions the HUMANS writing the stories were used to ONTO the cosmos, in particular, is really appreciated.
I have always been fascinated by this snippet in Genesis. I noticed the plural immediately and was mystified.
Thanks, Dan, for addressing this bit of mystery.
Tho I’m not a Jew, Muslim, Christian, or so forth, however I would say that the case of Genesis 1:26-31 is a small matter that can easily be shoved aside.
One easy explanation could be that it’s just a Jewish way of talking, I mean, we’ve seen this multiple times in the bible, even in The book of Daniel (2:36),
The author wrote that the fictional character Daniel said “𝐖𝐞 will tell the king the interpretation”…and we all know that it was only this character whom went in to talk to the king💁
@@MrBadway_636 That very well could be the case. I'd have to review Dan's comments.
@@MrBadway_636 It seems to me that the "we" in verse 36 is referring to Arioch (Verse 25) since they went together to speak to the king.
@@KWade-bt4dc
Good try, but nope...why?
#1. Remember the character, King Nebuchadnezzar, said that he would reward the one/ones who could tell him the dream and its meaning...so if this “we“ included Arioch, then he would've also been rewarded.
#2. They didn’t actually went in together together🤞like you're thinking...again, remember, they ain't friends or anything like that...this character Arioch was sent to 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥 these so called ’wise men✌️’ ; so he brought this daniel in as an Officer, not because of his (Daniel's) request, but because this was of much importance to this Nebuchadnezzar.
@@MrBadway_636Nope. You're just trying to make it fit your beliefs. The language is clear.
Finally! I've been wondering about this recently!
You should mention Francesca Stavrakopoulou's wonderful book, God: An Anatomy, which lays out the history of God in terms of his body, and his wife, Asherah. It's incredibly telling.
I remember asking that very question when I was ... four? Five? Very young, anyways - that and many other questions is why I found myself being bored in the sermon instead of being with the other kids in Sunday School, and - looking back on it - quite probably why I was 'allowed' to skip church if I wanted when I turned 8 or so.
Inadvertently working on the principle that if you really want to piss off an apologist, keep asking them good faith questions about their beliefs.
I'm pretty sure I'd be banned from Sunday school if I ever went back for those very reasons.
Thanks Dan.❤
❤❤❤❤❤ thanks Dan!!!
BTW, God making man "in his image" refers to physical appearance, i.e., a humanoid shape. Modern apologetics like to claim this refers to humanity's mental/spiritual qualities, such as the ability to create, but the story itself shows that that *could not* be the case, as the entire point of the fruit and it's effects was to MAKE humans like the gods in that manner...so obviously, they were NOT like God in that way before, and in fact, nor did God *want* them to be like him. The only thing left, therefore, is physical appearance.
Interesting. Did the author(s) of Genesis meant that God made Adam in His (physical) image, or that He made HUMANS in His (physical) image?
Nice Mormon renegotiating the text.
Hmmmm ...
So somewhere out in the heavenly realm, God has blood vessels, vertebrae, reproductive plumbing, etc? How big is He? How big is His
... [ahem]?
@@roytee3127 Feels to me that more often than not, God is presented as a voice instead of having a physical form.
By the way, I thought "heavenly realm" is a later innovation? Genesis clearly described the original dwelling of Adam and Eve as a geographic area.
If you listen to more of these videos he does talk about how the OT god is not invisible and has a form.
Alright, which one of you concretized my abstract plural
Don't threaten me with a good time. 😂
Sorry about that. :(
Sounds like something went wrong on The British Bake Off.
"Oh, deary, you overworked your abstract plural, and it concretized. That's rubbish now, innit?"
@@kyleepratt😂😂😂
@@kyleepratt Oh dear, back to the drawing board?
Because the Jews used to be one of the polytheistic canaanite religions and Jehovah was just one god among many they worshipped, e.g. Asherah. Later, during the Babylonian Exile, the jewish religion was put into writing for the very first time, and that coincided with a retcon, a religious reformation-movement, triggered by the trauma of almost being wiped out: The jewish religion became monotheistic, focusing on just one of their gods.
Thank you, Dan. I was seriously wondering about the 'Us' in Genesis a couple of days ago, while gardening.
Hi, I think it’s important to look into the topic a bit more in depth, Dan here only represents one of many plausible interpretive options for why there is a plural here.
He also completely misrepresents the use of the word ‘scholars’ as if everyone who doesn’t have a formal qualification in these matters is incapable of interpreting. Who gets to decide which interpretation is correct? Surely the author?
@@henryizzard4581 I appreciate your response! I'll definitely dig deeper. 🙂
So later biblical authors and theologians downgraded the other gods to angels. That's just rude. 🤣
Btw Dan, iirc, you said in a previous video that you were planning on writing a book surveying the evolution of God, their prominence and powers, over the course of the Bible's writing. I hope I'm correct in that recollection, and that you're still on track with writing it. 🍻
Folks at my grandma's church invited me to stop coming when I suggested God had evolved over the course of the Bible and wanted to reconcile this "forever and ever, amen" stuff.
@@NWPaul72I guess that's the 21st-century equivalent of being stoned to death, or bring burned at the stake.
Being uninvited to attend church? Now that's what I call a blessing in disguise. 😊
The gods of the Irish were "demoted" to the Fair Folk, if not human beings. Seems to be a pattern.
Hey Dan ! Keep up the good work.
Can you manke a video on the AMORITES? Who were they exactly?
The divine council.
I wrote a fiction novel [not in any store since my name isn't known and having a book published is quite arduous] that has to do with the concepts of the ancient "gods" and how people saw them. In the novel, they were entities of another dimension who wanted to see if they could create, within on species of primate, a "connection" that would eventually see them reaching a level of awareness, for the purpose of eventually interacting with them. Some of the "deities" humans associated with these entities were the likes of deities of Mesopotamia, but also Yahweh and even Jesus, to an extent. But I really should work in the notion of the "Elohim" character as one of the architects of this "experiment". It's been enjoyable creating a story around these ancient systems.
Amazon used to have a self publishing option, accessible to anyone afaik. You can look into it if you are ok with publishing as e-book. However my advice is to make sure you have a well written book first. Good luck.
@@pansepot1490 I appreciate your advice. An e-book would be acceptable, especially since as it is now, it has only been a work of interest, and enjoyment, for myself. If a few gain some level of enjoyment as a result, that will be an extra benefit. Thanks!
Another banger
to reply to the title of the video:
God asked the other gods for help because he couldn't do it alone.
And that's why he says "us" and "our"
THIS is the true explanation, ODIN told me so.
The original context of Judaism is not monotheism but henotheism. Where there is a powerful God that is the source of other lesser gods.
Since all I had to go on was the KJV, I always assumed this was an occurrence of the British “royal” we.
A pantheon of gods …. Probably thousands one for every tribe… suddenly all vanished…..that’s some F’d up stuff
Dan McClellan is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), commonly known as the Mormon Church. He has been actively involved in the church, even working as a scripture translation supervisor for the church for many years. Although he engages in complex and critical discussions about religious texts, he remains an active member of the LDS Church, contributing to both scholarly and faith-based conversations about religion and the Bible.
It seems you are correct based on his Wikipedia page
Oh so his no good thank god 😂I won’t tune n anymore
so?
Excellent 👍
My honest satirical Answer would be, Maybe God Identifies as They/Them 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
How cool is that.
According to most religious types gender is set and determined by your genetics. Also according to most religious types God is NOT physical/mortal and thus has no genetics and thus no gender. Finally according to most religious types, referring to someone by their chosen gender is woke and something to be avoided.
Thus the only way to be proper is to refer to God as It/They/Them. Referring to God as "He/Him" is woke.
For the same reason he says, “I am the Lord, YOUR god. You shall have no other gods BEFORE ME.”
The authors were polytheists.
You speak pretty good Hebrew for a Mc. 😉
Very good Dan. Love your work. imo Perennial Christianity, a word I made up lol, is the answer to all the academic trouble with theology. If the first cause that we can even consider , is the being that became or was one with Yeshua, an infinite within and authorizing another infinite ie becoming one outside the bounds of time and space ie ...always have been one. And then that divinity, expresses itself within the knowledge and growth level of each culture in various ways.....we have Yeshua, holding the heart above all knowledge and after all...isn't it the heart that matters? Great Video Dan. Keep it up.
I’m still amazed that Protestant churches can high jacked Jewish text to mean something it doesn’t from this verse like a Trinity doctrine. Then herald it around like they have the only truth. Not knowing the trinity doctrine was a later innovation.
This is a video all Christians should watch that scribe to trinitarianism.
This isn't unique. Christians see Jesus all over the Hebrew Bible where it doesn't exist. High jacked indeed.
If the bible were inspired, which I don't believe, the concept of trinity wouldn't have needed to exist with men for God to inspire the wording in Genesis as such. And yes, there was the El pantheon. But fundamentalism doesn't have a crisis over findings of scholarship.
Jews acctually don't belive the whole Hebrew bible is inspired and what is inspired in the scriptures are just the prophecies
It's odd that a book inspired by an all-powerful and all-knowing deity even needs to be interpreted by human beings, because its meaning is not obvious, in the first place. I'm glad you pointed out that what the serpent said to Adam and Eve was true and what God told them was false (which God admits to later in the text). Most people miss that or bend themselves into pretzels to explain it, even though the text is pretty darn clear.
My favorite part of Genesis is noticing that the sun is not created until the fourth "day". How did those first three days happen without a sun? Simple: The people who wrote that knew that the sun CAME OUT during the day, but they didn't know that it actually CAUSES the day. It looks small and close so it makes sense for them to think it was just a chariot that crossed the sky each day. This is why it was mentioned almost as an afterthought and why Joshua could stop it from moving across the sky (instead of saying that the Earth would stop spinning).
I'll give a pass to the consort, but one of the second tier deities should be able to pop down to earth and straighten us out on what the main deity wants us to do.
To grossly misquote Bluebottle from the Goons, _‘Waits 2000 years for a divine visitation, not a sausage.’
@@creamwobbly Ah my favorite Goon. Bluebottle. :)
Hey Dan,
I have a question. In other cultures around Israel, the image of a god usually was a statue in which the spirit of the god lived after the inauguration ceremony and then the god was worshiped through the image.
If human beings are the image of god, why do we have them being created "in" and not "as" the image of god? Is there a special meaning behind the "in"?
Thanks, Thomas
stay in there
Thanks!
I'm normally not a fan of Dan and think his takes are misleading, but this was a really well done video with examples throughout. Great work! I obviously disagree with Dan on the Trinity just because his interpretive grid and mine will always take us to separate conclusions. But he brings up good Divine Council points to a debate that I'm currently 50/50 on (whether the Divine Council is satirical and rhetorical or literal. I think both have solid arguments).
I would say that whether or not the Divine council is "real", the ancient Israelites and their neighbors certainly believed it was. He has a really fascinating lecture available on his website on the divine council where he digs into all the sources.
@KWade-bt4dc That's what I meant by "real" is whether they took it "literally" or not. I'm always interested to read divine council content. I'm not sure if I'll learn anything new, but if there's a chance of learning I'm all in. 🙂 You said website specifically. I can't find the lesson you're talking about on RUclips? I have to access it through his website?
I remember coming across a theory that God had seen a reflection while looking into the "deep".
The image is our image, WHAT WE EACH SEE IN OUR MIND is the image(imagine), now the first sin is Christ’s alone, He asked why we chose other Gods than Himself(insecurity) because in the beginning was many Gods after the original Word(some think Cain and Able are the other colours) today science has found that four Mushrooms have lost the ability to to digest decay so now they eat with the trees(first temple)where water brought back the tender plants.
"What does it mean when God said, “Let Us make man in Our image” in Genesis 1:26?"
~~~ An interesting response just passed into my radar;
1) Nothing (can be evidenced to) exists but One Consciousness/Mind. One, a 'Singularity'!
2) We are all unique Perspectives (Souls) that/who, collectively, comprise Consciousness. This explains the use of the plural 'Us', Elohim, etc...
3) What we perceive, every moment, is Mind!
Mind, in it's totality IS God, so everything perceived is a tiny bit of the complete Our image! We, individually, are only privy to our little momentary peeks, unless in Heaven; One with God/Consciousness/Mind.
So that reminds God that each and every Perspective, no matter how outrageous or stupid or good or evil or anything... is an essential feature of Who and What We Are!
"God cannot know himself but by me!" - Meister Eckhart
"The eye by which I see God is the same as the eye by which God sees me. My eye and God's eye are one and the same." - Meister Eckhart
The first mistake is thinking God said it! That book has served to divide, confuse and conquer. It requires an open mind, much knowledge, and wisdom to realize how people have been deceived into believing a lie. The strong delusion is no joke! Once you discover the truth behind the book then you’ll wonder why you did not discover it sooner. But if your eyes are to shut you’ll never see it! The truth is not easy for the ears and most people prefer to ignore it and remain in the box.
Isaiah 43:10, but okay "scholar." How's the counting going by the way? I would assume you have no idea the number or how great. The comments who are agreeing with you are perhaps a hint, but even I draw towards curiosity the number of souls you're doing your absolute best to keep on the broad road. You probably don't even notice. Not many do.
Very well said. This guy hides behind his title to belittle the Christian faith as much as he can
BOOM even the norse gods bro
Maybe the second tier deities are the Aeons.
According to the creation account in Proverbs, God must be talking to Lady Wisdom.
According to the creation account in Job, God might be talking to Leviathan daring her to stop him.
According to the creation account in John, probably God is talking to the Word instructing the latter what to do.
That assumes the writers of all those books were working from the same view of cosmology and god. Those examples were written at different times and by different authors, and it isn’t accurate to assume they were in perfect harmony on those points.
@@Aldrnari956 I know, I'm just trolling lol.
Trinity was operative. It took time to develop the language like Trinity etc. Ancient church traditions believed in a truine God long before the language for it wss crafted.
god was made in man’s image
I come from the John Byrne X-Men era!
He was talking to Odin
Mormons are right.
Right out of their minds.
@@bukowski20 How so? This lines up exactly with our doctrine. We are out of our minds because we believe in the fullness of the Gospel? Explain that one.
@maklelan Is the concretized abstract plural ever used for any noun other than deity? I ask because my own (crackpot) theory is that Elohim as a singular is due to revisionism on the part of monotheistic editors re-writing an existing polytheistic creation myth to harmonize it with an aggressive monotheism, probably during the Exile when you were more likely to get students for whom Hebrew was not their language of day-to-day usage. If concretized abstract plurals are only ever used to refer to deity, I'd see that as consistent with my own (crackpot) theory, but if it's also used of, say, chariots or cooking utensils or whatever, then that would be a strike against it. I saw a summary of Joel Burnett's dissertation, but it doesn't seem to directly address my question, so I thought I'd ask you. Thanks.
Why would God, however, say let "us" ? I get that the other deities are there and sharing a lot of attributes with the highest God (e.g. knowledge, etc) but wouldn't there be only ONE creator God of human beings? Are the other gods also creating with him?
You are correct. There is no "Let US" or "Our" in 1:26. Those words were added. The verse starts the same as the other Creation verses, "Then God said." When it was translated 2,000 years ago, the words Let us, and Our was put in. 1:27 says it all, God created man in his image.
However, the likeness part remains a mystery since no one is made in the likeness of God per Rev 4:3's description of God. Careful examination of the original shows we are made in the "likeness" of the animals he just created. Example: we have hearts, lungs, muscle, brains, ears, nose, hair, we walk, breathe air, eat the same foods and so on, just like the animals he just created.
Therefore, we are made in the image of God, but in the likeness of the animals he created before Adam.
I’ve heard it said that “knowledge of good and evil” really means knowledge of everything. Like how we say someone knows “everything from A to Z”. Is this correct?
So would you say this is simply a remnant of Pagan ideals that came before? Considering Christianity absorbed and took a lot of things from Paganism.
Would it be early Christianity/Judaism and writers still trying to mesh it all together before Christianity was around enough to cement its own identity as a religion?
I'm more interested in the meaning of "likeness". What does that mean? That we look like God? That we think like God? Likeness is pretty vague. There have been a number of human species, with differences in their looks. As for the rest of it, well, there were angels, demons, archangels, cherubim, a host of supernatural beings. They were somewhat lower in seniority, but supernatural nevertheless.
If you look at the creation stories of Mesopotamia you will find alot of similarly with the bible.
But the difference between the nominative case plural Elohim, is the same difference as 'we' the gods as a plural. It’s a plurality consciousness. In other words, the concretized abstract is still referring to a collective.
Habakkuk 3:3 God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran . . . .
Very strange verse indeed. So we have 2 gods? And mount Paran, mount Seir and mount Sinai...🤔
I like Dan. He's usually thorough about the Christian doctrine, but he's wrong about this one. Based on his argument, God and his Devine council created everything together.
OMG. If this is true, why would God make it so difficult to read and understand?? Doesn't make sense to me. There are so many interpretations that it ends up contradicting each other.
YHWH judged the gods and became the snake
Adam, the Christ, judges the earth and becomes a worm
Lilith settled them east of Eden.
Until the day Adam wields the fiery sword in vengeance and judgment;
setting up the abomination of desolation in himself;
as the temple without one stone left standing upon another
On the other hand, in any home with a Father saying "let us crank out some rugrats in our image", who do you think he's talking to? Nothing mystical to see here.
What was YHVH's WIFE's name? ;)
So, God made man in his own image male AND female, and later divided man in a separate male and a separate female. Can we conclude from this that God is also male AND female, and that when God split man up into two halves, man was no longer in the image of God?
Also, it says God put into [undivided] man his spirit. Was the spirit also undivided male AND female?
Sounds just like the Nephilim....that really pi$$ed God off.
Which eventually became cannibalism within Zion's walls.
It's all fun and games until somebody's pet T-Rex ends up with a third of the Lord hanging out of its maw, and a third in its clutch. Just mindlessly noshing away on God.....
So, is the plural of majesty just a made up apologetics excuse?
Why does the serpent say "Gods", referring to multiple, instead of "God" if there is only "one God"?
Because there exists a kingdom of God and a divine council.
What does it mean exactly that man is made in Gods image?
Can you speak about the origins of Mariology?
Is there anything, uh, concrete, that we have, in terms of what the 'Divine Council' would have been made up of, back when those parts were written? Like, surviving religious texts/references to other deities in the council, or how said council functions, etc.? it feels like a vestigial part of the Bible most Christians probably don't even realize is there, and other than mentioning the most high, I don't think I've heard you talk much about the divine council
The idea of a divine council is basically an assembly of divine beings in thier heavenly home. Olympus is a common example.
There are numerous references in the bible of Yahweh holding council with other divine beings. Psalm 82 being the easiest to find. Job 1:6 alludes to the same idea.
@@MrDalisclock I'm familiar with the concept, but as it pertains specifically to ancient Judeo-Christian beliefs, there seems to be virtually nothing about who those other "divine beings" are.
Since the Judeo-Christian god in modern times is largely considered the creator of everything, the idea that there are other gods, or a god higher than the Judeo-Christian god, seems very strange to me.
If you look on wikipedia's divine council article, for instance, it has a quote "the identities of the members of the assembly are far more obscure than those found in other descriptions of these groups." But "far more obscure" doesn't necessarily mean unspecified or lost to history. If the Judeo-Christian god is the creator of the universe and 'the one true god' or something, then it feels like the presence of other deities that aren't pretenders / false gods is left unexplained, unless perhaps they were children of YHWH and Asherah or something. Or perhaps angels were originally conceived as lesser gods or something?
I believe Dan at some point mentioned that YHWH wasn't originally conceived as creating the entire universe. He's certainly mentioned the "most High" a few times in passing, but as far as Judeo-Christianity having a *pantheon* of gods, it seems like other than a few allusions, there's no details about the other gods. I would imagine in antiquity, there were likely specific gods meant in those passages, that got suppressed the way Asherah did.
I'm just fascinated by the idea of there being other gods in Judaism/Christianity. Perhaps those were just the gods of various other cults that got stomped out when the temple of Jerusalem became the obligatory worship point, and those passages were an attempt to co-exist with other religious beliefs? That'd be neat, if so.
@@Quirken there's some interesting overlap with the Bible and Urgaritc mythology. Not a ton but evidence of a pantheon under El who is married to Asherah and father of the gods, including Ba'al, Anat and Mot.
Some versions of Deuteronomy 32: 8-9 also reference the division of the world amongst the gods, of which Yahweh gets Isreal. It's tucked in there and that particular wording is from the Dead Sea Scrolls so a lot of people handwave it.
The angel thing is fascinating and a lot of ink has been spilled over it. It's possible as isrealite religion become more Yahweh centered the other higher tier gods got slowly pushed out of the pantheon with only minor servant gods being recast as angels, since angel is job description and not a name. Only later do the angels get names and apparently specific responsibilities, like in Daniel.
It's weird and hard to trace honestly. And then there's the cherubim which are a whole thing to themselves, but never called Angels.
The world mission society church of god believes the “us” refers to female deity called god the mother along with god the father created mankind in gods images male and female.
In comparison to the absence of trinity scriptures in the Bible, what do you make of claims that the Book of Mormon is heavily saturated with Trinitarian doctrine even though the CJCLDS is famously, or infamously depending who you ask, non-Trinitarian?
Easy. They negotiated with the text
If there is a Polytheistic Pagan creed in the Bible, would you take it or reject it?
Believing that there are Gods that look like humans is a Polytheistic Pagan creed.
I reject all made god claims but if I had to pick a system, I would pick polytheism.
Way more fun with a love goddess, a storm god, a sea god etc.
Gid could be genderless
I remember seeing a video of this guy saying Jesus is not God because he said "there is none good but one, that is, God" without mentioning Jesus says "I am the Good Shepherd" in John 10.
Which rather proves another point of Dan's, that the bible is not univocal.
@@tezzerii 1 Corinthians 2:14
"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
Well, the work of the scholars is not to discern things spiritually. That's data over dogma.
Leave the spiritual discerning to theologians.
The only issue I see with this line of reasoning is that calling himself "the Shepherd", doesn't automatically equate to "I am God." Also, it shows the that the writers of the Gospels apparently had very different concepts of who they thought Jesus was, so, if Jesus is God, it is very deceptive to say "only God is good." It seems like he's pretending to NOT be who he really is.
@@Noviraptor - - And - - - ?
Does anyone here know of Michael Heiser?
Hey Dan, I think that's the sumerian god Enki speaking in the divine council to try and convince the other gods (Espicially Enlil) to create man in order to relief the Igigi gods.
What are your thoughts?
It depends on when it was written I guess.
According to the bible Abraham was born in Ur, Sumer so it is likely he worshipped Enki and Enlil etc.
But the Hebrews were more focused on the Canaanite pantheon, so El, Baal and Asherah.
40 was Enki's sacred number but 70 comes from the 70 sons of El and Asherah.
@@KasperKatje Oh yeah, there is the canaaanite pantheon. The 70 sons of El and the 70 nations from the Old Testament Bible heavily mirror the Canaanite pantheon over the sumerian.
@@KasperKatje It's also likely these stories were borrowed much later and that they are irrelevant to hypotetical beliefs of a fictional character.
@@rimmersbryggeri well, there are a lot of archaeological finds of the worship of Asherah but in the end they are all fictional indeed and didn't stop the switch to sole worship of fictional tribal god Yahweh.
@@KasperKatje I meant that abraham and genesis 1 don't belong to to same narrative or even the mythology of the same tribe so there is little reason to try to shoehorn abraham into it. Abraham lived both in UR and in a place from whre you acould walk to talk to the pharaoh as a man that had allready lived to 200% of the life expectency so I wouldnt take anything said about abraham very sereiosly. Especially assuming that the pharaoh lived in central egypt at the time.
so who are these Gods?
The Elohim, The Powerfull Ones aka the Annunaki aka Enki/Enlil or beter knowns as E.T’s, the whole OT is full of them.
Check out the pantheon of the Canaanites, you will find them there.
@@kmj4nsen do you have biblical references from OT
@@samael5782 could Canaan be the birthplace of the Gods
@@kmj4nsenAlien conspiracy nonsense.
So the Olympians?
So how does the sentence read in english? Is it "let US make man in OUR image"? As you put in the title?
Easy, God issued a 'bill of divorce' because of her complaining about having equal time and sends her back to her parents. An easy explanation, nothing mysterious here.
There are 2 YHWH's
Mr. McClellan, there is no textual evidence of the "holy spirit" in the old testament?
I'm no scholar, but I have studied this very subject in the bible. There's no mention of the holy spirit in the old testament. The spirit of God, however, is mentioned multiple times.
Although, if you replace the word "spirit" (which is Latin for "breathe") by "breathe" or "wind", it works (almost) all the time - the new testament included.
Genesis 1 is ELOHIM (Lucifer and the fallen angels).
They made this realm.
They made man in their image. (tares)
Man is an idol, a trap to hunt angels.
Genesis 2:7 the Lord God forms His representative in their system. (wheat)
One Gospel:
Gospel (GOOD ANGEL) of Reconciliation.
Jesus Christ came into THEIR kingdom
to reconcile fallen angels unto Himself.
We are the fallen angels (ELOHIM) kept in DNA chains of darkness.
If you do not confess being a fallen angel in Lucifer's kingdom, then you are an unbeliever.
Unbeliever = those that claim to be made in the image of ELOHIM(gods).
REPENT FALLEN ANGELS.
Why are the first few seconds of your videos always slightly blurry? Is it just me?
I think it's just you. YT creates copies of videos from 360p to 1080p, and the low-res versions propagate faster across the network, so if you're really early, you might be being served a lower res version which is upgraded. The resolution you get also depends on which YT server you connect to, and the amount of traffic on the entire path between the server and your machine. YT will sacrifice resolution to maintain continuity.
just you.
And since They made them male and female after Their own image, where did They get the idea for Eve? Were there female gods in the council? So I'm a heretic, I still say Yea.
Yes - this would be the logical conclusion. Latter-day Saints actually believe there is a "Heavenly Mother" after this concept
@massdebation Yeah I was trying to explain to my wife how she used to be in the temple before Josiah.
@massdebation Yes, maybe I should disclose that I'm LDS. so we're not really monotheistic.
It actually doesn’t say that if you read closely. It specifically says he made “the man” in his own image, then repeats again specifically in the image of Elohim he created “him”. Then it tacks on the “male and female he created them” without reference to any image.
YHWH/EL and his wife Asherah are the High Gods. One of Asherah's symbols is the dove 🕊️
After Josiah outlawed the worship of other gods, Asherah was demoted and eventually became the Holy Spirit of Christianity.
Jesus is one of God's and Asherah's 70 sons, he is the Solar Lord.
The true Trinity is Father, Mother, and Son. Adonai, Asherah, and Jesus
This is an interesting Idea. Some LDS people would be on board with this, except Nephi meet the holly spirit. But we still believe in a heavenly mother (or mothers depending on who you're talking to)
For us we would say because Elohim is plural it includes our heavenly father and heavenly mother.
אתה מדבר עברית?
First, yes, ;P.
Who is he talking to.??? Angels make no sense.
Who does the Queen mean when she says "we"?
If reading the first chapter alone without "adding to it", earth is the answer.
@@Seth9809we as the monarchy, the people of the kingdom, past and present.
The Torah was taken from Zorastism, during the Babylonian exile. The Elohim refers to the Annunaki, who engineered Homo Sapien Sapiens, i.e., us. The stuff you are saying is incorrect. The Annunaki however, also believe(ed?) in a supreme creator, but Yahwey is not it.
Why is it said that Satan took 1/3 of heaven with him at his rebellion? Best answer is that he had been given 1/3 of heaven by God upon his creation. There is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All equal with God. You cannot be equal with God without being God. They are all three God. All three always are and were not created. No created being is equal with God. All others were created by God and given what authority they have by God. Just as Man was.
No, still makes no sense I'm afraid. The more I hear the Trinity explained the less sense it makes. WTF is a Holy Spirit. Forget whether it was created or not, or equal with Jesus or God. What is it? Never heard a good explanation.
The ancient Israelites had no concept of the trinity, Bill.
Yahweh started out as one of many tribal gods and patron deities before becoming "God of the universe".
You should familiarise yourself with the scholarship.
-------------------------------------‐-------------------
According to the general consensus of scholarship *(even critical Christian scholars),* YHWH was originally incorporated into the Canaanite pantheon as a son of the Canaanite high god El before inheriting the top spot in the pantheon and El's wife Athirat (Asherah) before religious reforms "divorced" them. El's pantheon in Ugarit (modern day Ras Shamra in Syria) is called the *Elohim,* literally the plural of El. Interestingly, the Biblical god is also referred to numerous times as Elohim. If you want to see if El is fictional, just read his mythology in the Ugaritic/Canaanite texts.
"The mysterious Ugaritic text Shachar and Shalim tells how (perhaps near the beginning of all things) *El* came to shores of the sea and saw two women who bobbed up and down. *El* was sexually aroused and took the two with him, killed a bird by throwing a staff at it, and roasted it over a fire. He asked the women to tell him when the bird was fully cooked, and to then address him either as husband or as father, for he would thenceforward behave to them as they called him. They saluted him as husband. He then lay with them, and they gave birth to Shachar ("Dawn") and Shalim ("Dusk"). Again *El* lay with his wives and the wives gave birth to "the gracious gods", "cleavers of the sea", "children of the sea". The names of these wives are not explicitly provided, but some confusing rubrics at the beginning of the account mention the goddess *Athirat (Asherah),* who is otherwise *El's* chief wife, and the goddess Raḥmayyu ("the one of the womb"), otherwise unknown."
*"First, a god named El predates the arrival of the Israelites into Syria-Palestine.* Biblical usage shows El was not just a generic noun, but often a proper name for Israel’s God (e.g., Gen 33:20: “El, the God of Israel”)."
"I should add here that it is very clear from the grammar that the noun nachalah in v. 9 should be translated “inheritance.” *Yahweh receives Israel as his “inheritance” (nachalah), just as the other sons of El received their nations as their inheritance (nachal, v. 8).* With this verb, especially in the Hiphil, the object is always what is being given as an inheritance. Thus, Israel is given to Yahweh as his inheritance. ((Here I’m indebted to Dan McClellan.)) It would make no sense for Elyon to give himself an inheritance. Moreover, as I’ve argued elsewhere, it is not just the Gentile nations that are divided up according to the number of the *sons of El.* It is all of humankind, i.e., “the sons of Adam.” This clearly includes Israel. And the sons of Adam are not divided up according to the number of the *sons of El,* plus one (i.e., plus Elyon). They are divided up, according to the text, *solely* according to the number of the *sons of El.* *Thus, that Yahweh receives Israel as his inheritance makes Yahweh one of the sons of El mentioned in v. 8. Any other construal of the text would constitute its rewriting.*
A Sumerian hymn speaks to the goddess: “Nanshe, your divine powers are not matched by any other divine powers.” *Does this mean that Nanshe was the high goddess, that there were no gods above her? No, it does not.* Nanshe was the daughter of Enki, the high god. *In Sumerian mythology, as with Ugaritic, Israelite, Babylonian, and others, in the ancient past, the high god (Enki, in this case) divided up the world and assigned his children certain domains.* Nanshe was given a limited domain (the modern Persian Gulf) and was tasked with maintaining social justice there. *This is exactly what we see in Deuteronomy 32 with Yahweh. Yahweh is given a limited domain (Israel) and is given authority over his people, to punish them, as well as to protect and defend them against foreign enemies.* That Yahweh, like Nanshe, is said to have incomparable divine power *does not* mean that he is not subordinate to the high god who gave him his domain. *It is also of note that Nanshe, like Baal, Yahweh, and so many other deities, evolved over time. Her domain increased, and she was promoted in the pantheon (although she never became the high goddess)."*
*"The Most Heiser: Yahweh and Elyon in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 - Religion at the Margins"* based on the *majority scholarly consensus.*
(Written by Thom Stark who is a Christian)
*"Michael Heiser: A Unique Species? - Religion at the Margins"*
(A second response to Michael Heiser)
*"Excerpt from “Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan” by John Day - Lehi's Library."*
*"The Table of Nations: The Geography of the World in Genesis 10"* - TheTorah.com
(Excluding the short narrative on Nimrod (vv. 8-12), *which appears to be a later addition,* Genesis 10 contains *70* names of nations or cities, a number that was symbolic of totality. Similarly, the descendants of Jacob were *70* in number (Gen 46:37; Exod 1:5), *as were the sons of the supreme Canaanite god El, with whom YHWH became equated.)*
*"Polytheism and Ancient Israel’s Canaanite Heritage. Part V | theyellowdart"*
(Of course, much of this [i.e., that Israel worshiped El and Asherah alongside YHWH] is really to be expected given that recent syntheses of the *archaeological, cultural, and literary data* pertaining to the emergence of the nation of Israel in the Levant *show that most of the people who would eventually compose this group were originally Canaanite. As the Hebrew Bible notes, the Hebrew language itself is a Canaanite language, literally the “lip of Canaan” (שְׂפַת כְּנַעַן; Is. **19:18**), and so it cannot often be distinguished by modern scholars from other Canaanite inscriptions on purely linguistic grounds.)*
*"Ugarit - New World Encyclopedia"*
(Ugaritic religion centered on the chief god, Ilu or El, whose titles included "Father of mankind" and "Creator of the creation." The Court of El was referred to as the (plural) 'lhm or ***Elohim,*** a word ***later used by the biblical writers to describe the Hebrew deity*** and translated into English as "God," in the singular.
El, which was ***also the name of the God of Abraham,*** was described as an aged deity with white hair, seated on a throne.)
*"Mark Smith: Yahweh as El’s Son & Yahweh’s Ascendency - Lehi's Library"*
(Mark Smith is a Catholic)
*"God, Gods, and Sons (and Daughters) of God in the Hebrew Bible. Part III | theyellowdart"*
*"02 | December | 2009 | Daniel O. McClellan - Psalm 82"*
(Daniel McClellan is a Mormon)
*"Elohim | Daniel O. McClellan"*
(Refer to the article "Angels and Demons (and Michael Heiser)")
*"God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost."*
(Pay attention to whose wife Asherah (Athirat) is in the Ugaritic/Canaanite texts and how she became the wife of YHWH/Yahweh)
*"Yahweh's Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden - Mythology Matters."*
*"Asherah, God's Wife in Ancient Israel. Part IV - theyellowdart"*
*"The Gates of Ishtar - El, was the original god of the bible."*
*"The Gates of Ishtar - Anath in the Elephantine Papyri"*
(In addition to Asherah (Athirat) being the consort of Yahweh, it appears some Israelites also viewed the Canaanite goddess Anat(h) as Yahweh's consort)
*"Canaanite Religion - New World Encyclopedia"*
(Refer to the section "Relationship to Biblical Religion")
*"The Syncretization of Yahweh and El : reddit/AcademicBiblical"*
(For a good summary of all of the above articles)
Watch Professor Christine Hayes who lectures on the Hebrew Bible at Yale University. Watch lecture 2 from 40:40 to 41:50 minutes, lecture 7 from 30:00 minutes onwards, lecture 8 from 12:00 to 17:30 minutes and lecture 12 from 27:40 minutes onwards.
Watch *"Pagan Origins of Judaism"* by Sigalius Myricantur and read the description in the video to see the scholarship the video is based on.
Watch *"How Monotheism Evolved"* by Sigalius Myricantur and watch up to at least 21:40.
Watch *"Atheism - A History of God (The Polytheistic Origins of Christianity and Judaism)"*
(By a former theist)
Watch *"The Origins of Yahweh"* by Derreck Bennett at Atheologica.
@@epicofgilgamesh9964 Nonsense. There is no scripture that presents any other being whether real or imagined as being equal to God other than the Holy Spirit and the Son.
Even when God says let us make man in our image he is clearly the one in charge and giving the orders. He is not asking permission. He is making a declaration.
Please present the scripture where any other being is presented as being equal to or higher than God. Other than the Son and Holy Spirit.
Satan is described as the god of this world. But not equal with God.
@bungalobill7941
You have to look *outside* the Bible to get the real story, Bill. I've provided plenty of references and scholarship. How about you read them?
Yahweh didn't start out as "God of the universe". He evolved to become that over time.
@@epicofgilgamesh9964 Nonsense. Job the oldest book in the Bible relates other spirit beings. But it also relates God as the creator and highest being.
That argument is old and debunked. It comes from an assumption that because other peoples had many equal gods then the ancient Hebrews must have also. Erroneous assumption.
Also it is clear in scripture that God revealed himself to his people over time.
Erroneous presupposition to assume they just developed it themselves over time.
"You have to look outside the Bible"
Yet they try to prove their case by going to the Bible. But only through misused/misapplied scripture in isolation. Exactly how you don't make a case from the Bible. Irony.
.:.
Last year I watched a great Courses lecture series called Understanding The Old Testament by Robert M Miller and I remember him saying "Our Image" probably just meant the royal we, I guess Miller meant as in "how are we today." I thought It seemed fairly lame to just gloss over it like that. The course as a whole was good, I thought, but that lame explanation really annoyed me.
Personally, I always assumed (without giving it much thought) the same thing: the royal "We".
If the royal We does not apply, then we must assume that all the gods in question (and we) share one image, no?
Were there instances where the "royal we" were used in other texts in that period? Whether the "royal we" is a common feature of the linguistics at that time is important in evaluating the soundness of this explanation.
Looks like Miller's more of a Catholic theologian.
@@mushbone Doesn't really work when the same translation uses "We" in the early books of Genesis but switches to " _I_ am the Lord your God" in Exodus though.
Ohhh, GREAT /s Courses lecture.
So then why am I not multiple people?
What makes you so sure you're not? You're a multicellular organism, you're a very different person in the kitchen than the gym. Your chemistry varies with your diet and your environment, how do you decide what "you" even is?
@@NWPaul72by quantity of cells, they are more microbes than self.
Yet you are, for we all contain multitudes
@@thomaswillard6267 thank you uncle walt
"you" is plural.
This may have scholarly consensus but this short video is massively subversive of many people's faith. Dan is not one to dodge an issue or obfuscate.
And you thought "image" is a reference of " human concept " of " image"...ah...so you "xompite" for the "best" image ....on human definition.....ahhhh
The Queen said "We" and whenever any person of power speaks to people below them in hundreds of languages, they use a plural.
Hundreds of languages huh? Citation needed.
It doesn’t appear to be the Royal we in this instance.
@@alexmcd378
French: The plural form “vous” is used as a formal singular address.
Russian: “Вы” (Vy) is used as a formal address for both singular and plural.
This is just the first two I can think of.
Anyone who knows five things about Japanese, knows Japanese is like this.
In the Koran, Allah uses "we". The Pope uses "we". Name a king or queen that lived in Europe, "we".
@@Seth9809 just 195 more to go