Baidarka

One of the most pervasive fallacies in Biblical interpretation is being demonstrated here. Each of the Bible dependent modern religions have fully developed theologies and the Bible is presupposed to support these theologies. If your religion is monotheistic then the whole Bible must be monotheistic. If Jesus and the Holy Ghost existed with God from the beginning then they must have been present in the Garden of Eden. If you believe in extraterrestrials then they must be in the Bible.
This is a fallacy because the Bible is an anthology of books written by different people in different times with differing theologies and different philosophies. The attempt to harmonize all of this results in the ludicrous contortions of apologetics.
There are absolutely no references to Jesus in the OT.
Every Bible writer is writing from the point of view of his or her own time.
The concept of God and of religion was different for each of the Bible writers.
Mark Twain and Hemingway are different people with different Ideas. They may share some ideas but it would be a mistake to think that they have to be consistent with each other.
I must go with Toto on this one “it refers to the pantheon of gods recognized by the early Israelis, with YHWH as the chief god.”

Volker.Doormann

To what arguing exact and to whom your general philosophical thougths are related?

Volker

Baidarka

Volker.Doormann

I think that Mick911 has brought up what he thinks to be a passage at variance with the mono-god theology that the Bible is “supposed” to be about in order to explain away the mystery with space men, but I think that this based on the assumption that the entire Bible is subordinate to later theological developments that in reality could not have influenced earlier Biblical writings. Hemingway could not influence Mark Twain.
Beast Master brought up the possibility of the “Royal We” which would harmonize this passage with the lonely mono-god but I think awkwardly.
Mageth explains the Trinitarian point of view which I think illustrates my point beautifully.

I think that your literal transliteration and translation clearly shows that we are dealing with a polytheistic concept here.

“elohiym (gods (plural)).

genesis 3:22 » YHWH (‘I (Y) am the god, who is the life (HWH)’), ( one of the) elohiym (gods { plural }) “ If adam (man{kind}) is become one of (us gods {elohiym}) … “ «”

This leads us to the question of the Jealous God. If he is God alone why is he Jealous? Was the writer a polytheist whose God insisted on loyalty in a paradigm where the other Gods existed but made him Jealous.

Volker.Doormann

OK. I understand your thoughts now.
Yes. Because elohiym is a plural of god, but also because there is a god YHWH, which is one of them.
I do not see, why there are such questions come up. The job of YHWH does not interfere with the other gods. YHWH is the god of the physical (life) and correspond recognizable to god Shiva from the Hindu trinity, the symbol of fertility - 'that was gives live' - Hebrew: Chavvah = { khav-vaw } = 'EVA' ='EVE' = 'Live giver'. Shiva = 'scHi-WaH'. The nature of YHWH ('I am the life') as the creator of life seems to me very different to the nature of the other gods (Elohiym), with some more spiritual aspects. Say: Justice doesn't interfere with atoms or processes using physical energy.

Volker

beastmaster

I would not go so far as to say that the interpretation that I advanced is a "fallacy."

One can interpret the passage "one of us" (1) from the perspective of the original author or (2) from the perspective of the redacter and compiler.

It may be safe to say that from the perspective of the original author, "one of us" refers to a council of gods.

But I think the more important perspective is that of the compiler and redacter. It is likely that someone compiled various original materials into one Genesis narrative and made that composite and derivative narrative his *own*.

It appears that the Genesis compiler was thinking of a montheistic god. I say that because there is no clear reference in Genesis to any council of gods, or of any other being in god's presence when he speaks of "one of us." The compiler may have left in the references to elohim and "one of us" because he thought that there was no substantive difference between a plural god and a singular god. Or perhaps it was simply oversight on his part.

Anyway, I have no agenda here. I just want to point out that it may be too hasty to assume that the original author's meaning is the only important benchmark for interpretation.

Baidarka

Volker

You seem to be trying to find a coherent theology in the Bible. The point that I have been trying to make is that the Bible contains multiple theologies written in different times by different writers. I think that strict monotheism was a late development and is the paradigm of the most modern Biblical writing but the earliest biblical passages reveal the polytheism of the earlier writers. In other words it is possible to trace the development of the monotheistic concept in Israelite religion if we can figure out the correct chronological order of the Bible writings (There is a recent book which I haven’t read yet called The History of God which explores this idea).
I don’t mean to depreciate your exploration. I’m only trying to say that there are multiple definitions of God in the Bible and that there is not one single Biblical paradigm. So if we read that God is a jealous God we must ask “what does this writer mean and who does he think that God is? Who are the other Gods that he is jealous of? Who censored the identity of the other Gods out of the Bible?

Baidarka

Beast master
My humble apology I did not mean to include you in my original statement about fallacies. I was thinking of original intent but of course the redactor must be given his due and we must think about the redactor’s intention too in order to understand the Bible.
Once Marcel Duchump turned the urinal upside down and signed his pseudonym to it, it ceased to be a urinal and became his sculpture. Just so the redactor’s elaborate collage is a literary masterpiece of its own with its own intentions.

BioBeing

The Royal We, as used by the Queen of England, indicates herself AND God, since she is the Head of the Church of England, and probably some other mumbo jumbo too.

beastmaster

Oh, thanks, no offense taken. I'm never shy about owning up to my fallacies wherever made. I failed to explain in my original two posts that I was implicitly adopting the perspective of the redactor/compiler -- frankly because I did not realize myself that I was doing so.

Of course, understanding the intent of the original author(s) is important in critiquing the work of the redactor. But I think a liberal Xn (which I am not) could validly interpret the Bible through the lens of the redactor, who must have thought (rightly or wrongly) that the Bible formed a cohesive singular narrative concerning a monotheistic god.

BTW, an upside-down urinal is quite the apt metaphor for the Bible, LOL.

beastmaster

Ok ok, I was being a little tongue-in-cheek with the "Royal We" business. You caught me.

But I still think that the redactor intended for god to be speaking "to himself" when he said "one of us."

Maybe the redactor thought an infinite being like god could be seen as either plural or singular depending on one's perspective.

Likely, the redactor's view was wrong, at least in his interpretation of the original source material. But I still think the redactor's perspective is what really matters when trying to make sense of the Bible from a theological perspective.